Rev Left Radio - [BEST OF] From the River to the Sea: The Palestinian Liberation Struggle

Episode Date: October 7, 2023

[Originally released Jun 2020] Nu'man joins Breht to discuss the Palestinian Struggle, the Intifadas, the historical solidarity between black revolutionaries in the US and Palestinian revolutionaries, settler colonialism, Frantz Fanon, and SO much more. This was a really engaging interview, and we are positive that our listeners will love it! Follow Nu'man on Twitter Check out Students For Justice in Palestine (website made by Nu'man!) Films mentioned in the Episode:  The Wanted 18 1948: Creation and Catastrophe   Book Recommendations: The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi The Palestine Communist Party by Musa Budeiri Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis The Right to Maim by Jasbir Puar   Articles to Check Out: Discursive and Political Deployments by/of the 2002 Palestinian Women Suicide Jerusalem Quarterly and the Institute for Palestine Studies both have over 70 years of journals all pertaining to Palestine . How does the push to "modernize" Palestine by bringing it further into the global capitalist market impact the anti-occupation struggle?: A case study of Rawabi by Nu'man   Organizations: Al Quas, BDS, JVP, SJP (all have varied information about the struggle and are doing good work in Palestine and the united states/canada) Outro Music: 'Al Kufiyee 3arabeyyeh' Shadia Mansour ft. M1 (Dead Prez) Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

My name is Noamon. My dad was born in Nablus in Palestine and been moved to the U.S. before I was born, so I was born in the U.S., but I have quite a bit of family still living in Palestine, and I've been able to go back several times, and I studied at Zayt University for a semester last year. I'm currently an undergraduate student in the Twin Cities. So I've been studying political science and Arabic, I'm trying to be able to speak more, you know, like with Palestinians from Palestine that don't have English, especially a lot of my family because they're from a smaller village. And I currently one of the board members in like a leadership position in Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and have been working with the freedom all campus. campaign that address connections between incarcerated folk, especially black political prisoners and Palestinian political prisoners in Palestine. So, yeah, that's kind of a little bit about me. Beautiful, yeah. Well, it's an absolute honor to have you on from a million different perspectives.

This is something that's obviously close to your heart. You're an organizer as well as, I think it would be fair to say first generation or second generation Palestinian immigrant? First generation. I mean, my mom's like white, white, but, oh, my dad. idea. Awesome. And you're doing your undergrad work in the Twin Cities right now. So before we get into the topic at hand, how are you basically holding up during this uprising that really started in Minneapolis? How are things going on the ground there? I mean, yeah, it's, you know, it's

heartbreaking, but it's also like so fucking beautiful at the same time. I mean, I live maybe a 10-minute drive from where George Floyd was murdered. So I was fortunate enough and grateful enough to be welcomed into that space and be able to pay my respects there. And, you know, like, I would get up in the morning and try to go and clean up in the neighborhoods that, you know, like, had had protests. And by the time I got there, maybe like 10 or 11 in the morning, everything was already clean and everyone would just, like, had brooms. So it was really incredible.

And I love a block away from the highway where that semi-truck ran through the crowd and me and my girlfriend were actually like in the crowd when I ran through so I mean there's like a lot of horrible stuff happening from the right and the white supremacists and the Nazis but I mean that's all the same thing but but also I mean like this beautiful community stuff that's happening too so yeah well I'm glad you and your loved ones are okay and you know one thing that I always like to sort of think about and advocate for is you know a lot of times when like people initially saw some of the cleaning up of the protest after the fact that it was like snarky comments made on on twitter and stuff but i actually saw an interview with some of the people who were

cleaning up and they're saying like you know 90% of the people cleaning up are also at the protest at the end of the day he's like the cleaning up is part of the protest we're on both sides of this so you know we're we're tearing shit up and we're also cleaning shit up because that's what this whole movement is about and the community having control and shit so i kind of like that idea of you know somebody that's involved in the struggle also you know taking taking accountability and coming together to help clean up so you can do it again the next night, you know? Yeah, exactly. And I mean, like, I went to a neighborhood meeting with mostly white folks, honestly. And they were talking about like guarding, like armed guarding of like

black indigenous PSC owned businesses, which is also really cool like these neighborhoods that are supposedly, you know, like according to the media, not in support of the quote unquote riots are the one's protecting businesses from white supremacists. Absolutely. All right. Well, we have a lot to cover today. Yeah. So let's go ahead and dive into it.

And this topic is one that, you know, most radical thinkers, revolutionaries, are relatively familiar with. We've done an episode or two on it in the past. So instead of doing like a 101 approach to this topic, we wanted to dive a bit deeper into areas of the topic that aren't often discussed. Before we do, though, perhaps some sort of historical overview would help. help sort of ground the conversation. So, you know, please take this in any direction you want. But could you maybe talk about some of the, just major highlights of the history at play

here just to set the stage for the sort of the rest of the conversation? Yeah, for sure. So I think how I'm going to tackle this, because it's like, you know, thousands of years of history on that land. But in Rashid Khalidi's book, The 100 Years' War on Palestine, he basically outlines the history of the Israeli occupation as declarations of war. And so I think that's a really good outline for the conversation that we're about to have. So the first declaration of war he mentions is the Belford Declaration. So for some background on that, this was before the original official Israeli occupation of Palestine. During this time, the British were occupying Palestine as a mandate. So at this time, the Belford Declaration essentially promises the land of

Palestine to Jewish settlers, right? And, you know, at its core, I think it's important to point out that the Balfour Declaration was extremely anti-Semitic in a lot of different ways. So the first thing is that Balfour, who is a British official that writes this declaration, right, believes that Jewish people have, and this is, you know, like a super common historical anti-Semitic trope stemming, I believe, from Martin Luther. But this, like, Jewish people have. this financial and like political power and he wanted to like essentially be like quote unquote on their good side right and then the second mistake the second anti-semitic thing that happens is that he believes that all jewish people in the jewish diaspora want the same thing which is you know

completely unfounded and unfair because not only was zionism which is the ideology that draws Jewish people to the land of Palestine, was that not a popular sentiment amongst the Jewish diaspora during this time? But, I mean, also to like monologue the entire Jewish diaspora in one sentiment is completely unfair and completely anti-Semitic. And so we have this declaration giving the historic land of Palestine to Jewish settlers. And in this declaration, there was absolutely no mention of a native Palestinian population on that land, even though Britain was occupying it at the time. It was very aware of Palestinians because they were controlling them. And geographically, Palestine is in a really unique location with access to both of the Suez Canal

and also the African continent and West Asia, right? So it's in like this perfect position after the end of World War I for the British to really have a stronghold. And then later, they assumed that they would be able to maintain that stronghold with this like proxy state. So then in 1948, we have what Palestinians and Palestinian allies call the Nekba, which means catastrophe to Israelis. It's the Israeli National Day of Independence. And what led up to this is the withdrawal of British troops from Mandate Palestine. And they left their weapons for the Israeli militaries because there were two of them.

One was state sanctioned. One was like recognized as a terrorist organization, but they both were terrorist organizations. So it's neither here nor there. Absolutely. And so we have this twofold nekhba or catastrophe in which not only were Palestinians slaughtered in mass, right?

Like I am thinking about the genocide in Dariusene, which is a village where, I mean, hundreds of people were killed indiscriminately, men, women, children. There's this scene from this movie called 1948, Cretation and Catastrophe, where this man who is a survivor of Dariusene described looking into a bakery and, I guess, like, a trigger warning because it's really fucked up, but, like, basically, he saw these Israeli troops telling this man to throw his son in the oven and the man was like absolutely not so they're like okay they took the boy through him in the oven and threw his dad and after him right so so it's not just a mass

genocide but it's like taking pleasure um in killing these Palestinians because right for so long they hadn't even been recognized as people I mean going back to the belfort declaration and we see this like unrecognition of humans throughout israeli history um so not only do we have these mass genocides across Palestine. But we also have this major diaspora of Palestinians. I mean, people did not think that this was permanent, right? Like, war usually isn't permanent, like, in those ways, especially at that time, right? They thought that they were leaving for a little bit and they would come back.

So most Palestinians, especially the ones in refugee camps, still have the keys to their houses. And there are Israelis today that are living in houses that are like Palestinian houses, right? Like Palestinians will come home to Palestine finally after years and years and go to their old house and their key will still work, but someone else will be living there. So it not only creates this mass genocide, but it creates this refugee crisis. And, you know, one of the main tenets of like the liberation of Palestine is this right of return in which Palestinians must return to their homeland, which they're indigenous to begin with. So that's 1948. And then we have 19 years of this occupation in which Israel is officially a U.S., UN, like everyone recognized.

Not everyone, because we still have some people on our side, but most major Western countries are recognizing Israel at this point, right? And in 1967, I mean, a lot of things are leading up to the Six-Day War in 1967, and the least of which is not. the ongoing occupation of Palestine, but, you know, these bigger sparks are Israel, first of all, diverting water from the Jordan Valley, which is currently being annexed by Israel, but we can touch more on that later. And this is part of the West Bank, right? Like, you can see Jordan from the Jordan Valley. And Fethe, which is one of the political parties in Palestine, who is actually currently the, you know, elected leader of the Palestinian Authority, they launch. an attack, because they used to be a militant group, on Israel, and Syrian military bases,

which were set up about a year before, had led to Palestinian militants and Syrian militants coming into Palestine and attacking Israel. So at this point, Israel is mad. Egypt is in Yemen fighting a war, which is a whole other fucked up topic right now, but they feel obliged to help Syria because Israel is mad at Syria. So, but all this is to say that it doesn't really matter why Israel ultimately launched this, like, attack during the Sixth Day War, because we have seen since then Israeli documents and U.S. documents planning attacks on neighboring Arab countries because at this point, and still today, it is believed by really stringent Zionists that the only way to, to try, truly achieve the goals of Zionism is to occupy all of historic Palestine, not just the land gain in 1948.

And so if Israel goes into Egypt and goes into Syria, that does not only get them parts of Gaza and the West Bank, because Egypt had been in control of Gaza after 1948 and Jordan had been in control of the West Bank. But it also gives them the Sinai and Golan Heights and better access to the Suez Canal again. So there's these really strategic ways in which they tried to expand their borders, and it worked, right? Like the 67 war was Palestinians and other Arab countries called the Neksa, which means setback, because it really was a huge setback for the Palestinian cause. I mean, this led to the full military occupation of the entire historic Palestine.

It leads to checkpoints throughout historic Palestine and apartheid roads in which Palestinians are not allowed to drive on Israeli roads, segregated license plates. And probably most importantly, this leads to the building of settlements, which are, as we may know, like, the reason that Israel is able to continue its growth and annexation of more Palestinian land. And so after the 67 war, we have two intifathers, which I know we're going to touch on later. so I won't really talk about them. But the first and the father was from 87 to 93, well, the second one was from 2000 to 2005. As into today, Israel continues building settlements, continues annexing more Palestinian land.

I mean, just this week, they've begun the annexation of the Jordan Valley, which is absolutely devastating. Children, because they don't have clean water. They keep dying. So, I mean, this hasn't stopped or so done at all. but those are probably the highlight. I don't know if they're highlights,

but those are probably the biggest and most important points that I should make. Yeah, absolutely, and I appreciate you covering that complex history, and, you know, it's very clarifying and helps just sort of set the stage for the rest of the conversation. So having established that, I'd also like to establish up front the relationship between the settler colonial nation state that we're living in

and the one we'll be discussing. So just overview of what is the relationship between the United States and Israel? and what shared interest do these governments have? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, their biggest and most overarching shared interests that we probably have all recognized is the upholding of white supremacy and capitalism, right?

Like, these two nations that has always been the United States' goal and that is becoming very, very clear that that is also Israel's goal. But, you know, like, stemming from that, right, they have a financial relationship. Ilhan Omar was kind enough to point part of that out when she pointed out the Israeli lobby's influence on the U.S.

But, I mean, what she didn't hit. And honestly, I think you mentioned this in one of your Red Menace episodes. But what she really didn't get to is the fact that it's not just APEC that upholds Israel in the U.S., but it's also U.S. giving billions of dollars to Israel. And Israel providing the U.S. with a lot of security in the Middle East where, I mean, there's a reason that Israel can have nukes and we shit ourselves if Iran even, like, says the word nuke, right? So, I mean, Israel, being where it is, provides access to, like I said, before the African continent, which we know is a treasure trove of resources that the U.S. is just, like, itching to steal.

But also West Asia, which also has all these oil resources, I mean, and, you know, with the Saudis on our side, I suppose that that's also quite helpful. I say our side, like, I love the U.S., but just kidding. But, right, with the Saudis and the U.S., you know, buddy, buddy, I think that those two states right now are really upholding this financial interest. And so, you know, the media would have us believe that the reason that we support Israel so much is because they are a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, which is absolute. Like, that's just a lie, right? We know that they're not. They're no more of a democracy than our own settler colonial stay.

They're simply an extended military force of the U.S. within West Asia and North Africa. And at the same time, which we might talk a little bit more about later, but Israel provides, I mean, this is a really timely thing to point out, is that Israel provides training, like the Israeli military trains U.S. police. Like on the left, it's called the deadly exchange, because it is deadly. Why is a military training police officers? And we know why it's because police officers are also like an extended domestic military branched in the U.S. to police, especially people of color. But also, Gaza is used as essentially a tear gas and rubber bullet testing zone. And even in Minneapolis, I was seeing tear gas canisters and rubber bullet casings that I know were made in Israel and tested on chazins. So what we have is this relationship that's very strong between the two countries.

And this is upheld by this super structural entity of just like this passionate love for Israel coming out of our media. Like I'm talking Netflix, like the TV show Homeland and several others. Like I've seen so many TV shows on Netflix that are like talking about like Israeli Secret Service agent like defeats the Palestinians. And it's just like the police propaganda. Zoom in the U.S., right? Like NCIS or whatever these shows are. And so we are willingly, like, pumping out Israeli propaganda, not only in, like, CNN, but also, I mean, like, on Netflix and Hulu and stuff, right?

So I think that's, our relationship is so, it's so clear, but it's also just like, what the hell, you know, like, why do most people support Israel? And it's because we really aren't given the opportunity not to. Yeah, and in the same way that, you know, capitalism and imperialism are just sort of bipartisan premises that can't even be questioned, you know, solidarity with or an allyship with Israel, no matter what, is one of those other bipartisan things. And you can see that in the struggle over the boycott, divest, and sanction movement and just the lengths that the bipartisan apparatus in the U.S. will go to to make even that movement illegal or, you know,

open to litigation or whatever it can do to defang, demobilize, and attack even that peaceful protest is what it is what it israeli occupation you know yeah 100% and then the last thing i also wanted to mention because this is just worth saying on top of all those other reasons there is also like a sort of evangelical christian zionism that really feeds into the right and um you know is like a huge backbone of all right wing government officials but particularly the trump administration and um you know they have a sort of end of times narrative in their christian dogmatism that that's says, you know, do you want to talk? I guess do you want to talk a little bit about that before move on? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is especially troubling to me, right? Because it is so, like,

violently anti-Semitic. Exactly. Right? Like, the fact that a best majority of Zionists in the US are only Zionists because they want all Jewish people to immigrate to Israel so that, what is it, like two-thirds of them can die and one-third of them can be converted to Christianity? when Armageddon happens, like, that is disgusting, that is terrifying. And, you know, it's horrible that they pretend, right, to be smearing Ilhan, like, for example, right, for being anti-Semitic, when in reality, they are literally, like, advocating for the death of Judaism, right? Like, that is at its core, like, deeply, deeply anti-Semitic.

And so, yeah, you're totally right. Like that is another thing that is upholding this, this relationship and all of those work together because they can make themselves feel better about it. You know, they're like, I'm not doing this for money. I'm doing this for my religion and things like that. And yeah, it's devastating. That's incredibly dark. So now that we have a just sort of overview of the situation, I want to talk about the role

that the communist parties have played and continue to play in this struggle overall. This is something that actually I don't know enough about and I'm aiming to educate myself more and hopefully you can help me in that direction. But can you tell us about the two communist parties in Palestine and the Communist Party in Israel as well as like just talk about maybe their succession, the successes, divisions and tensions between them? Yeah. So, I mean, the original Communist Party in Palestine and I actually recently bought a book about it that I can have you like link or something like that because it is like really fascinating. the history of communism in Palestine. So it starts in about 1919, right? So this is the time when Palestine is still a British mandate area.

And it was, you know, a slightly troubling party. At least I found it quite troubling in a lot of ways, right? So what happens is that Jewish folks are immigrating to Palestine. And at this point, like not all people coming to Palestine are even Zionists, right? They're escaping horrifying. Semitism and I mean like the lead up to the Holocaust right so so I think that's some confusion that happens when I'm when we're talking about like you know death to Israel or whatever it's it's not that I'm against immigration because like obviously I'm not but it's

that that the ideologies that come with forming a Jewish ethno state ethno religious state are problematic but anyway so so a lot of people that are coming right aren't Zion at all, right? A lot of these people are actually coming and using Palestine as a resting place between their travels from Europe to, I guess, Russia's in Europe, too as well, but to Russia, right? So they kind of make a pit stop and they're communists because they want to go to Russia at this point. And, you know, they form the Palestinian Communist Party. They call it the Palestinian Communist Party because they know they're in Palestine, right? Unfortunately, the party ends up being rather orientalist in its, you know, attitude towards the Palestinian people, right?

So they come in and, you know, they are Jewish, but they're also white, right? So they come in as white Europeans and they say, oh, like, we are going to bring communism to the Palestinian people, which, you know, like, I want to bring communism to the Palestinian people, but the Palestinian people are really fucking smart right like they know what they're doing and they had been living in a certain way that was you know of course um obstructed by colonialism but you know like i think that the way they went about it was probably not the best right so we have this Palestinian communist party but there really isn't a Palestinian to be seen and so Lenin is you know kind of hesitant to throw support behind them because he's like you guys to get support from like the common

turn and from the soviet union you actually have to have Palestinians in the Palestinian Communist Party and so they got some and you know because the issue became Palestinians were not necessarily opposed right to these ideas of Marxism and you know later Lebanonism and Maoism but um no I guess not Maoism yet but they they get there don't worry um And, you know, they're kind of turned off by this, you know, a group of immigrants that are basically telling them, like, we know what to do, just follow us.

Because what their experience has been is that the British people are treating them like shit, and a lot of Jewish immigrants are stealing their land. And so why on earth they trust these other immigrants, right? So there's already this tension between indigenous Palestinians and Jewish immigrants to Palestine and you know all white immigrants to Palestine and so you know like this this party had some successes in the sense that you know they were eventually admitted into the common turn and were given Soviet support but at the end of the day they didn't achieve a whole lot this is really dumbing down like the whole history because it's about a 20 year history it's a thick book

but basically what happens in 1948 right so like the Nekba is that well I guess a little before then right so we have this split in this communist party right in which there is this supposed Zionist communism and I can't say that without like gagging a little it's just like the stupidest thing I've ever heard because they're not Zionist communists they're just Zionists. And so we have that like shit show. And that's the majority of this party, right? And then the minority, and it is a minority because like, well, I'll explain why it's the minority. So basically what happens is there's this minority that is fervently anti-Zionist, but they're so anti-Zionist that they leave because they realize it's not their country. So it becomes a minority because

they're gone um and so the dominant group ends up being the zionist communist group and that later becomes very clear when uh in 1948 when israeli becomes a state they become the israeli communist party and they align themselves with israel so i mean like that's an extremely troubling history and at the same time it does introduce communism like into the common narrative in Palestine, right? Like, so I don't want to say that it, like, I'm not glad it existed, right? But I think that it needs to be critically analyzed, like the past of it does, because I think maybe its beginnings had some Orientalist tendencies and some Zionist tendencies, honestly.

And so then later on, we see the emergence. This is like before, this is after the Nekpa, right? We see this emergence of the popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine or the PFLP. And they were mainly pan-Arabist, Palestinian nationalist party with some Marxist tendencies. And what happens is, I mean, so like a bunch of things happen. So at this point, Chairman Arrafat was in power. And so this was post-67. What's happening is that Ertha wants to weaken the left, right?

Because he's not a leftist. He is, and we'll talk a little bit more about him later, but he is, you know, he wants to liberate Palestine, but he ends up not doing that for a lot of reasons. So he wants to create this split. And so he finds that there's already kind of this drift happening in the PFLP. And that's between people who want to create what they called like a more Marxist party. They wanted to be like a full communist organization, not a party but an organization. And they would later call themselves the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, so the DFLP.

And Arafat supports this split, right? And you know, like this man, we'll talk more about him. But like there is absolutely no way that he's like actually a Marxist that wants to support. a Marxist organization emerging. And so we have the DFLP and they have split, right? They've gotten money from Arafa and Fetech. And we

have the PFLP kind of saying like, no, you know, and you know, we're going to talk, I keep saying we're going to talk about this later, but I promise we are. So we have George Habash, who's the Secretary General of the PFLP saying, you know, like

we believe in like Marxism and communism, but at the same, time, it is going to be hard to rally the Palestinian people around saying, like, Viva Marx, right, instead of, like, free Palestine. And so he wants to take on an education campaign in which, you know, we continue to push these communist ideas, but also maintain this pan-Arabism and Palestinian nationalism. And the DFLP seemed to believe that that wasn't possible and wasn't something that could be done, which again, we're going to talk about later. So, yeah, I think, and, you know, even today, I mean, the PFLP has members sitting in

the Palestinian Authority. I mean, they have some power in Palestine. And when I was studying at Brazil at all over, you know, I was seeing spray-painted hammers and sickles. I was seeing the logo for the PFLP, right? So, like, the PFLP is alive. well and they always had a lot more support than the dFLP so i'm not biased or anything but um you know i think um you know both parties have done a fair amount and i think uh the pflp has i mean what i'm thinking about their most you know important thing are the ways in which they influence the intifadas and organize and and you know laid the ideas in the palisian consciousness for the organization of like grassroots uprising that I think is really important and you know even like non-communist

Palestinians you know like hemass members or like fetak members are as like nauseatingly anti-communist as right like the U.S. is because they digested different medias and they know the history of the Palestinian communist parties right like the PFLP and the DFLP and the DFLP and there are people so I think you know it hasn't had like a very very strong presence but I think it's in the consciousness of the Palestinian people and there are still leaders at large doing work so you know I think it's an important history to know about yeah absolutely yeah it's incredibly fascinating clearly complex but incredibly interesting so let's go ahead and move on a little bit so on this show and on our sister podcast Red Menace we've talked extensively about nationalism

in the context of liberation struggles. On the Leninist and Maoist side of this debate, the issue is pretty settled. For others, though, it still may be a source of tension or just sort of ignorance that people are working through. So with that in mind, can you just kind of talk about your views on Palestinian nationalism and what political theory you personally draw from when you're thinking through this particular issue? Yeah, so I think, I mean, first of all, and I kind of touched on this earlier, talking

about George Havash, but, yeah, so I think we're talking about a settler claim. colonial state in which the people of Palestine are not just seen as like less than, right, but quite literally put into this popular narrative that they do not even exist, right? Like a former prime minister of Israel, Goldemeyer, and this was like not that long ago, like said and I quote, there were no such thing as Palestinians. Like she is literally saying that they never existed. And, I mean, the country of Jordan was created, you know, in some part, I mean, there's a lot of complex history with the British making some deals and the French and all of those guys with a king. But, I mean, part of the reason that Jordan was created was to say Palestinians never existed.

They were all Jordanian, which is horribly untrue. and yet I'm still seeing signs of anti-Palestinian protests saying go back to Jordan, right? So there is this narrative that Palestinians not only are like less than humans, like animalistic, and all these other common tropes we see happening with indigenous people and people of color, but it's this narrative that we do not even exist. And so I think what we're talking about nationalism in the context of Palestine, that, you know, I think most, you know, most revolutionary Palestinians are not talking about this American idea, this U.S. ideal of, you know, like, nationhood and nationalism. Rather, we're talking about our existence, right?

Like, the fact that we even existed to begin with. And I think that Palestinian nationalism and nationalism in general is a way in which we can articulate that. And, you know, I think a lot of who I draw on for this is Franz Fanon and Wretched of the Earth. Like, when I read Retched of the Earth, I could have replaced Algeria with Palestine and it would have just described everything, right? Absolutely. Like, I was like dumbfounded at how like on the nose he was. But Fanon tells us, right, that the first step to internationalism becomes nationalism, right? And so for the Palestinian people to even insert themselves in international solidarity in the truest sense,

I mean, like, we have to be recognized as people. And not just people, but like as entities which exist. And I think it's important to use nationalism in the context of an occupying state, whether it's Algeria, the United States or Israel. or the French in Algeria, because of, you know, what Fanon tells us of, like, we need to liberate the masses from an occupying project. And, you know, at the end of the day, say it, like, that language, even used by bourgeois leaders of nationalism can be a rallying cry for the people. And I think that it has pretty consistently been the rallying cry for the Palestinian people,

you know, like from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. is like the thing that we go to, you know? And so, well, of course, even in the context of Palestine, we have this national bourgeoisie, you know, like I'm thinking about this city built by this rich Palestinian dude called Rwabi, and he literally built it on stolen Palestinian land, which he, like, got the Palestinian government to get from Palestinian farmers, and then he, like, built a little Calvin Klein in the city center.

But, so, like, he sucks, right? Yeah. But, and although he's using this city to be like, he calls it like a blueprint of the future free Palestine, so he's using this language, right, of nationalism. But at the same time, you have revolutionary groups like the PFLP using the language of Palestinian nationalism, but in a libertary way. And I think that's what Phelan teaches us. And I also think that Palestine, I can see so.

deeply the ways in which we use our new national culture has been birth from the liberation movement right like our dancing and our seeking and like even our jokes are all about like how Israel

sucks basically and how Palestine is great I mean like everything we do is you know rallied around the occupation because because every time we take a step we see that occupation, just like in, you know, other colonized states. So, yeah, I think that although we obviously can have very problematic nationalism,

I think Phelan does lay a really important groundwork for us to sort of develop this idea of nationalism alongside a revolutionary ideology. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And, you know, Phelan himself and Retched talks about the limits of nationalism. And, you know, at some point, you know, you have to move beyond it. It can't get stuck in that, right? But he makes very clear that a national liberation is a necessary step and overall self-determination for an oppressed and occupied, dominated people.

And, you know, when anybody asks me, like, top three books to recommend or, like, if I want to get into understanding the situation better, wretched of the earth is always at the absolute, like, very top of that list. 100%. Particularly in settler colonial nation states like the U.S. or Israel or anywhere else. But if I'm in the U.S., particularly with white leftists who may be sincere but haven't engaged properly or sufficiently with black liberation and indigenous liberation and decolonial theory of France Fanon's work is just an absolute hallmark of that sort of thinking. And once you read it, it's like one of those things where before you read the book and after you read the book, you're markedly different. And you know, like your outlook is different.

and it's better because of it. So if anybody's listening still hasn't listened to Wretched of the Earth, I would ask you to do that. And, you know, Red Menace, we have a three-episode series covering the entire book, teaching it and explaining it and reflecting on it. So we try to make that as a resource people can go to if they want to engage with that, you know, monumental text.

Also in Wretched of the Earth, he talks about, you know, pan-Africanism in the context of Northern Africa and Algeria. But, you know, on a slightly related note, I was just wondering if you could touch on what, role pan-Arabism plays in the struggle for Palestinian liberation broadly. Yeah, and just like another plug for Wretched of the Earth. Like, that book is low-key funny. Like, I find myself actually laughing out loud at it because he's so sarcastic.

And he throws so much shade at white people. It is so funny. So I would definitely recommend reading it as well. But, yeah, so pan-Arabism is something that I wrestle with. with a lot. And something that is maybe less clean cut than Palestinian nationalism, if that's possible because that wasn't clean cut either. But so I guess what I would like to start with is that is to address the history of Arab occupation of Northern Africa. Currently, I'm thinking about Morocco and Moroccan Arabs occupying the Western Sahara and the Sahrawi people.

And, you know, like Sudanese Arabs of committing genocide in Darfur against black African tribes. And so I think what we really need to think about when talking about pan-Arabism is the history of anti-blackness amongst Arabs. the occupation of African, black African land that we have been complicit in. So when I'm talking about pan-Arabism, I do not mean the continued occupation of the Sahrawi people in Western Sahara, right, or the occupation of indigenous African lands. But rather, I see pan-Arabism as the undoing of colonialism. Right. So, I mean, like, take, let's, like, looking at the Gulf, right? There's a reason that Bahrain and Qatar are such small countries yet hold so much of the world's oil. And that is because the global powers that be purposefully, like we've seen in South and Central America, like we've seen in, in the, the African continent is to control the people and their resources in order to take advantage

of them. And I mean, we see this when we're looking at the split off of Lebanon from Syria for like no reason to help the Lebanese and Syrian people, but to help the French, right? So when I'm talking about pan-Arabism, I'm talking about ridding ourselves of colonial borders. And so, of course, that's why I think of Palestinian nationalism as, you know, a necessary prerequisite to this, because we can't get rid of colonial borders and still have the existence of Israel. But I think that it's important to not only undo Western colonialism, but also to demand reparations and demand the undoing of colonial areas that Arabs have perpetuated, right?

So when I think about pan-eraism, I think about, you know, the beauty that would come out of, I mean, imagining the power we would have, right, with all that oil and not just, you know, not to insert ourselves into this capitalist sphere. But to have a group of people with control over their own resources, because that is not currently what's happening in the Gulf states, or honestly, anywhere in the world, other than the United States. But, yeah, I think that's why I'm hesitant to just say pan-Arabism and not give context for that, because I think that the context of our undeniable history of colonialism, and when I say are I mean Arabism. in the African continent is horrendous and needs to be addressed. Not only the anti-blackness in our communities, but also the remnants of continued colonialism by Arabs to African people. So, yeah, I think that that's my thoughts on that. Yeah, I think that's an incredibly principled, insightful, thoughtful answer to that question,

and I really appreciate that. When you talk about Bahrain and Qatar being tiny little nation states, is the implication, this is for my own clarification, the implication is that imperialist powers made them tiny countries specifically so they can be much easier to dominate and control for the resources within them? Yeah, exactly, right? Like, there is no feasible way that everyone in Bahrain can use up all the oil that they have, right? Or in Qatar, or quite frankly, in Saudi Arabia,

because it's not a very populated country compared to the size of its, like, land, right? Because a lot of its desert. these colonial borders were made in order to ensure that there would be leftover oil for the U.S. to easily take advantage of. See. And the added benefit, of course, is small nation states have small armies, small economies. They can be easily confronted by bigger nation states or a coalition of big nation states as well. So if the push does come to shove, there's not a lot of military threat from tiny countries, right?

Exactly. So let's go ahead and move on. And I know that you mentioned the intifadas earlier and throughout this episode. And it's a, you know, essential part of this overall puzzle. It's essential history to understanding the present. And it's also sort of an inspiring uprising of oppressed people against their impressor. So for those that don't know, like just sort of what are the intifadas and what can we learn from them? Like particularly you mentioned in our pre-recording conversations, particularly around their methods of mutual aid. yeah um so the first intifaza to me and just for background the word intifada just means uprising right so israel would like us to believe that it means like terrorist attack or something yeah i mean it doesn't um i mean if they want it to mean that okay but that's not what it means um so it's an arabic group for uprising and to me the first intifada was perhaps more inspiring from the second. And we'll kind of get into the reasons behind that. But it's sparked, I mean, not only from at this point 40 years of occupation, because this happens in 1987, but specifically

from an Israeli army vehicle hitting a truck in the Jabaliyah refugee camp in Gaza, which ends up killing four Palestinians. And these funeral processions end up turning into mass. protests in Gaza. So that's kind of, you know, the starting point for this nationwide uprising. And right, at this point, the West Bank and Gaza are still under military occupation from Israel post-1967 war. And so what happens is that this movement is like organically springs up, right? Kind of similar, honestly, to what we're seeing with the George Floyd protests.

right like they spring up in minneapolis and then suddenly across the country right there are ongoing demonstrations and uprisings and it's similar to that in the way that there is no real leadership of all of the states combined right like there's no president of the you know like justice for george floyd protests or whatever you would call it truly spontaneous uprisings Of course, yeah. So, and we could go into a whole thing about phenomenon spontaneity. Right. But so what kind of happens is some, a group called a United National Leadership with absolutely no connection to the leadership of Palestine, which is the Palestinian Liberation Organization of the PLO, kind of springs up. And they're not really leading anything. It's just kind of the banner for what the Intifada is. And so what we have. have is this massive grassroots uprising that lasts for years and it was absolutely impossible to suppress because of the fact that it was grassroots like they did try to assassinate

some leaders of the Palestinians but it didn't really do anything other than make everyone even more angry because these were like heroes that they were assassinating I believe they assassinated Abuji had um I might be getting his name wrong but I really think that that's name. And it didn't, it didn't suppress any of the protests. So we have, you know, just a month after these protests again in December of 87. In January of 88, we have defense minister Rabin, so the defense minister of Israel, lay out what he calls the Iron Fiss policy. And it's like about as awful as it sounds, right? So it basically gave all Israeli soldiers the green light to, you know, break arms skulls uh legs everything right and to kill and the it the fathers were in general and i know

that we could go into a conversation about peaceful protests and like how that kind of detracts from the fact that we could be non-peaceful if we wanted to because we would have that right but it was generally peaceful protesting right it was demonstrations it was boycotts it was strikes it was withholding of taxes and some rock throwing i won't deny it right because we didn't have weapons because what happened was during the british mandate period all of our weapons had been taken away it was not no one was allowed to have a weapon and then of course the israeli's kept that because they really didn't want palisians to have weapons so you know i think i'll kind of highlight a few of the more inspiring parts of the father so the first thing is

the role of women. So women were often centered because men honestly were in jail. Like they weren't there. And so what women did was they formed as part of this neighborhood committee situation that was happening. And then the fathers, which I'll give more examples of those in our bit, but they formed committees where they centered those who were usually left out. So mainly women at this point and they were in a really fascinating way able to take feminized aspects of themselves feminized right by outsiders by men by by non-Arabs by non-Muslims like a dress say and they were you know able to hike it up and carry like rocks in it more rocks than can fit in a man's pants right so they would do something like that

or if a child was getting harassed by Israeli soldiers there would be 40 women running over saying stop stop that's my son and in all likelihood it was none of their son right but they would take this idea of motherhood

and embody it for all Palestinian children beautiful yeah and you know I heard a story about one woman who this kid was running away from Israeli soldiers and she hit him under her dress and walked away with him, right? Amazing, yeah.

Yeah, so, like, I mean, I am of the opinion that Palestinian women are the backbone of Palestine, but because they carry so much on their backs when men are in prison. And again, we're going to talk more about Palestinian women later. Their role in militancy. But I think that was a really inspiring aspect of the people. first of the father, and, you know, also the second. And so I think, so this neighborhood committee idea, right? I think the best way to explain that is through a film that I recommend that everyone

watches called The 18 Wanted. It's basically about 18 cows that a Palestinian village, Bezahur, so it's close to Bethlehem, a Palestinian village bought from an Israeli settlement. men, right? And so they have these 18 cows. And they use it as part of the intifada to raise, you know, to get milk and meat for their village, right? So they were part of like the cow committee. And they were literally just in charge of taking care of the cows and distributing milk every night. And Israel busted in and were like, you need to stop with the cows. Like we're arresting the cows. And, you know, they had one.

posters with the cows on it. Oh my God. Because apparently the cows are terrorists. So they were so horribly threatened by this idea that Palestinians said, we're not drinking fucking Israeli milk. We're drinking Palestinian milk from these Palestinian cows. And so that's, I mean, just one example of a neighborhood committee. And, you know, so there would be food committees, medicate committees,

committees in the second Intifah that there was a committee that my dad was telling me about that it was in Gaza because they fish a lot there they would take balloons attached to fishing nets and use them to take down like million dollar drone technology right and they were called the drone committee and they wouldn't worry about anything except for the drones and then you would have the tear gas committee and they would take care of just the tear gas right so we have this way in which neighborhoods would just divide themselves into committees, and they would all take care of it. There was even like a cleaning committee. Like we were talking about that's happening in Minneapolis and across the country, right,

of like cleaning up your area and your space because you respect it too much to leave it destroyed, right? Especially with indigenous people like Palestinians. I mean, like that land is absolutely sacred. So, I mean, cleaning and like sweeping up after these protests is really important. And so, I mean, all of that to say is they split things up into a way in which everything was taking care of by the community. And, you know, it reminds me of the Black Panthers in a lot of ways and now, honestly, in which they made the state unnecessary. They were, I mean, there was almost a zero crime drained into fathers, which can be expected, right?

remember like I saw on Twitter I think like when the NYPD was striking crime went down yeah exactly right thanks guys yeah it's like nice but um yeah so I think when we think about this committee structure like these neighborhood committee structures it's inherently grassroots I mean if if Israel arrested one person from each committee the committee would keep going, right? It was almost impossible for them to stop. And so the reason the first thing the father was stopped was because of the Oslo Accords.

And there's a lot of political stuff that leads up to this, right? So the Madrid talks, which happened to Madrid, was these talks between Palestinians and Israelis. And at the time, our favorite asshole, Henry Kissinger, said essentially that the U.S. would do whatever Israel wanted, that they would be Israel's lawyer. So we already have that power dynamic happening. So it's like everyone versus the Palestinians.

And so these talks are happening, you know, trying to negotiate an end to the Intifahas because it's really damaging Israel's economy, honestly, because Palestinians consume most Israeli goods. So they're like disrupting the economy of Israel. And secretly, in Oslo, Arafat, who I mentioned earlier, is the current leader of the PL, not current now, current then, leader of the PLO and Rabin, who, remember, from Mr. Iron Fist, is now the president, the prime minister of Israel. So that's great. Are having secret talks. And that's what we call the Oslo Accords now. And in these accords, the PLO officially, so the Palestinian Liberation Organization,

officially recognizes Israel as a state and Israel's right to exist right which is ironic given their names of housing and liberation organization and then you have Israel recognizing the PLO as the official representatives of the Palestinian people so what's problematic here right is that the PLO really didn't do anything in the intifada was like this was a Palestinian grassroots like movement and Altafalt was kind of mad about it and he wanted to be the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and what he didn't realize the Palestinian people

didn't need a legitimate representative they were completely capable of fighting their own fight without him and yet he finally signs out to these Oslo Accords and you know

agrees to no more violence and so that's the original Oslo and then Oslo too it just becomes this more detailed version of Oslo I where these you know that you guys might have heard of them

but like the ABC areas of Palestine of the West Bank come into existence, and I mean, just for a little background on those, the A areas are going to be the big cities. So like Ramallah, Nablus, Talcaram, big cities like that. Then you have, so in area A, the Palestinian Authority, and Palestinian police have complete authority over the Palestinians. I mean, as complete as it can be in a settler colonial state. And so then you have area B, where Palestinian municipality, So the PA has full authority over the goings-on. So they have to take care of schools and garbage and all these things.

Yet the Israeli military dominates in Area B. And so like where I went to university, Berset, that was Area B. So, I mean, at night I could hear like explosions happening, gunshots. I could, like, one night I heard a fellow student being kidnapped from her apartment. Like, it, like they are, they have their full presence there. And then you have area C. And that is, I want to say the percentage is 78%. And if it's not, I'm so sorry, and it's really close to that.

That is about 78% of the West Bank. And that is where Israeli government and Israeli military have complete control. So I don't know why they don't just call greater Israel at this point because it's essentially, like effectively what it is. That's going to be the vast majority of the West Bank. And that's going to be the smaller villages or, you know, the farmland and stuff like that. that really isn't as lived on, but still is, of course, lived on because Palestinians are living there. And especially, this is really damaging to Bedouin tribes who are nomadic, who move around. And so that's, like, awful for them because, you know, one day there could be an Israeli settlement set up there, right?

And there's one last thing I wanted to mention back to the committees is that so not only did they do this, like, food and stuff, but they also kept schools going. So one of my professors when I was studying at Brzei was in the first Intifado, one of the school teachers, you know, like literally teaching for free to these children in these shut down schools and continuing education, which I think is something that we've seen as very important to the Palestinian people. And I mean, today Palestine has like, I think it's like more PhD graduates than any other Arab country when like we're literally living under. military occupation. So I think that, like, education has been consistently something very important because it's a way to get out of the country and to get other jobs if you're allowed out. So, yeah, I think that's the gist of the first interfa. The second intifada is sparked. It's called the Al-Aqsa intifada sometimes when the opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, visits Al-Axa

a mosque, and there are riots, because this is an extremely holy place for Muslims, and everyone hated children on anyways. So they, you know, throwing stones and stuff, and it turned into, like, a slaughter of Palestinians and a mass arrest. And so on the second day of the second mental father, Muhammad al-Durrah is killed by Israelis, and he's like a child, right? So his, and this is caught on tape in Gaza of this father trying to shield his son and he's unsuccessful and his son dies and they were just walking home from the store so so this is truly the international spark because it was such a devastating video i don't really recommend watching it and so the second of the father you know had had protesting had

had similar things happening to the first thing to call the differences now is that the PLO is this recognized leader of the Palestinians so it's a little um less grassroots than the first of the father. And I think that's why it was not as successful. And it kind of like died down, especially when the U.S. and Israel and Palestine had talks called Roadmap. So I think that's generally the outline of the two. And I think the most important thing from those isn't necessarily the political history of them,

rather the taxes that they would use. Yeah. Yeah, that's incredibly fascinating. You know, we could have an entire episode on just the antifadas, obviously. But it brought me to kind of tears when you're talking about Palestinian women and what they would do and how they organize with so many of their men in jail. And, you know, I'd just like to draw these parallels. Like with the uprising happening in the U.S. right now, you do see this sort of cacophony of black and indigenous women leaders sort of emerging organically out of these uprisings.

And, you know, just like in Palestine's, it's often, you know, black and indigenous women who bear a huge brunt of the overall oppression for a million different reasons. And Mao says, you know, women hold up half the sky. I'd even raise him a little bit and say women hold up more than half the sky. Maybe like three-fourths. Yeah, I'm three-fourths of the sky. I'll go with that. But it also leads well into this next question because all these parallels between Palestinian uprisings and, like, even like you just said, the second intifada was started in part by a video of basically, you know, I assume the IDF

murdering a little boy, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so just like these uprisings here is like there's a long history of police slaughtering black people in America. This video was particularly egregious and for a bunch of reasons sparked this latest uprising. So all these parallels are here.

And so I kind of want to talk about that solidarity between black liberation and Palestinian liberation. Historically, many liberation struggles have related to, showed solidarity with, and advocated for Palestinian liberation. There's the well-known connection between the IRA struggle against British imperialism and the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation, for example, but there is also a vast and beautiful history of black liberation solidarity with Palestinian liberation specifically. So I was hoping that you could talk a bit about that. Yeah, for sure. I think to start that off, I'm always reminded of this. Davis quote, where she says, black solidarity with Palestine allows us to understand the nature

of contemporary racism more deeply. And, you know, Angela Davis is my go-to because she's so eloquently and beautifully understands this connection between the Palestinian struggle and the black liberation struggles. So, I mean, really, instead of listening to me, you could go and listen to Angela Davis talk because she's just, I mean, she says it all. But yeah, so I think that I'm going to start kind of chronologically with that history because I think it builds up really beautifully. And I'll probably start with James Baldwin and his trip to Palestine. And a lot of this, like a lot of what I'm going to talk about involves black liberationists

going to Palestine. You know, for a lot of reasons, it's easier for them to travel, quite frankly, because Palestinians need to get permits from the Israeli government. and they're often denied those permits to leave the country. Oh, well, outside, I can hear Black Lives Matter protest going on. That's cool. Perfect. Yeah, beautiful.

So, yeah. So James Baldwin travels to Israel, actually, because he originally comes with some sympathies for Israel because he's thinking about the African diaspora and the United States and how Jewish folk were, were able to claim this piece of land and create this like diasporic country right and at first he's really you know taken with this idea

he's like black people should do this um in the US and then he goes to Palestine so like you know like when I say Israel it's also Palestine but um right so then he goes to like the West Bank and he talks with Palestinians and he says you know I find myself having more in common with these people than with any of the Israeli people I met and he thinks about that and he completely rejects this idea of Zionism

and completely flips around and you see this kind of progression in his writing as he learns more and more and he becomes fiercely pro-Palestine because of this trip and then you have I think the next really important milestone is SNCC, so the student nonviolence

coordinated committee based in the south of the U.S., stating that they have, quote, unreserved support for the self-determination of the Palestinian people. And SNCC has an incredible amount of influence throughout the United States, especially in the South. And so you have this rising of this black solidarity

with Palestine because of SNIC's statement. And so then, I mean, moving forward, you have Malcolm X who in, I'm just going to talk a little about his essay called Zionist logic because I think it really eloquently ties together the black struggle and the Palestinian struggle, the black U.S. struggle.

And honestly, the black continental struggle, so I don't know why I made that distinction. But he says that Zionist logic is divided into three different ideas. The first is camouflage. The second is dollarism, and the third is Messiah. And so just to walk through that a little more, they camouflage themselves in Israel as a benevolent country, right, a beacon of democracy, which we hear all the time. And in terms of dollarism, they had this perfect placement, as we talked about before, their placement by the African continent and West Asia, perfect for Western investment. And then Messiah is in reference to this idea of the promised land of Palestine.

And so he draws this parallel to black folks experiencing a very similar pattern in which this camouflage resonates very strongly with the ways in which colonialism and enslavement were camouflaged to appear benevolent, similarly to the way that settler colonialism appears benevolent to Zionists. And then dollarism we see with like chattel slavery, but also with the exploitation undercapital capitalists, you know, like wage theft and, you know, in the prison system and all of these things. And then Messiah, as this, as we were also talking about, these evangelical Christian Zionists, but also white supremacist groups who use religion to appellate, who are white supremacist religious apologists, essentially. So we have these three things that he draws parallels to that really beautifully,

and that's like Malcolm X's really important contribution to this solidarity. And then we have Huey Newton visiting Palestinian fighters in Lebanese refugee camps, and there's pictures of him with like Palestinians holding. guns and him just like smiling um which are really cool and you know there's like stuff like that so during this time the black panthers smick malcolm x james baldwood all of them are really showing the ways in which black solidarity with palisdians is vital for for both causes if not for transactional purposes but in order to understand our own flights better and so then I want to talk a little bit about more current day depictions of the Palestinian

and the black person in the U.S. And so in Sahel, I'm going to butcher this, and I'm so sorry to this author, in Zahil Dula Taziz, Black Star, the Muslim International, and the Black Freedom Bond in America, he talks about this connection between the quote-unquote Muslim terrorist and the quote-unquote black criminal. And he talks about the ways in which these two figures rose at very similar times in the ways we know of them today in his post-civil rights era, racial oppression, with the black criminal, quote-unquote, black criminal rising along with the popular media's belief in hip-hop as inherently criminal, while the Muslim terrorist, quote-unquote,

is rising, you know, with the advent of 9-11, and even prior to that, this connection between Muslims and terrorism and black folks and criminality. He talks about these groups as necessarily linked not only because of how they're out really placed as violent, but also because they are very similarly targets of the state. This is not to confuse all Palestinians as being Muslim. Rather, it is to to say that because Western media and the Western gays sees all Arabs and Palestinians as Muslim to begin with, even if you are a Christian Arab or an atheist Arab or a Jewish Arab, you are still going to be seen as a Muslim terrorist by the Western gays.

And I think, honestly, for this, you know, Edward Zaid has his, you know, bad moments, especially in terms of communism. But, you know, I think Orientalism is still a really important text to read and understand when we're talking about even current day depictions of Arabs and then bringing that language and that way of thinking that Saeed writes about onto the experience of the black person in the United States. And so I think that that is kind of a history and then like an explanation of current day parallels between the two. causes. And I would also like to add, right, like you mentioned the BDS movement earlier, boycott divest sanction. And the inspiration that that drew from apartheid South Africa because of the success of the boycott South African apartheid movement. And then, you know, I talked a little bit earlier about this deadly exchange of cops, like U.S. cops training under

is really like military and then coming home and killing black people and killing indigenous people in the United States and killing disabled people and like all of these different oppressed people right and then we have like I talked about earlier these ABC areas of where Palestinians can and cannot live and you know this history of redlining and all of that is to say that that settler colonial states operate in very similar ways and this similarity between the treatment of black and indigenous people in the U.S. And Palestinians in Israel really highlights that, I think. Yeah. Beautifully said. Could not agree more.

I actually had no clue about the James Baldwin Palestine visit. So that's so fascinating. I'm going to dive deeper into that. And then I also absolutely agree with you about Edward Said. You know, his anti-communism or anti-Marxism aside, Orientalism is an absolute foundational text. that people should absolutely check out and, you know, shout out as a side note because it just made me think of it of another podcast I really like called East is a podcast. I just find a lot of their focus really important. And so if you haven't checked out, East is a podcast, check that out. But yeah, let's go ahead and continue to move on. We're covering so many different things. And this conversation is so profoundly fascinating to me. And I absolutely love it. So we have a couple more questions. This is going to run along, and that's totally fine. In our pre-recording conversations, you mentioned being deeply interested in the role that women suicide bombings or just women in general play in the Palestinian struggle, as you mentioned a little bit earlier.

I was hoping you could tell us a little bit more about your thoughts on this and perhaps even tell us the story of Lila Khalid. Yeah, so before I talk about Lila Khalid, I think it's funny and maybe that's just like my Palestinian, like, cynicism of me. but I think it's hilarious. So I'll end this really sad conversation with that. But yeah, I think that the role of, you know, women's suicide bombing in Palestine is profound, not only because suicide bombing is, I mean, like this ultimate giving your body to the cause a method, but also because it's something undertaken by women. and the role that the sacrifice and the martyrdom of a woman's body ends up playing in revolution.

So I think I'm going to talk manly about five different instances during the second Intifal of women martyr suicide bombers. And so the first four happened in the first four months of 2002. And so this is two years into the second Intifada. And so their names are Rwafa Idris, Darian Abu Ashish, Ayat, Akras, and Andalib Tatachan. And in 2004, we have Riem Riyashi. And so all of these women, although devastating that, you know, we no longer have them amongst us, played incredibly. moving roles, I think, in the second the fall of. And for

a lot of this, I'm going to be pulling from an article called, and I'll give you the PDF for it, because it's on J-Store and fuck J-Store. Absolutely. Called descriptive and political deployments by

of the 2002 women, Palestinian women suicide bombers and martyrs by Francis Hesseau. And it's a long article, but he really goes into a lot of stuff, so I'm going to kind of walk through that and kind of give my own thoughts. But he makes this claim to begin with that, quote, the Palestinian woman's efficacy ironically depends on their political, racial, sexual invisibility, end quote.

So this reminded me not to keep bringing up our man, Franz Fanon, but the Battle of Algeria's in which women use their femininity to plant bombs throughout the French quarter in Algeria. And so I think in similar ways, these Palestinian women were able to disguise themselves as non-threatening. So a lot of the women, quote-unquote, non-threatening, right? So a lot of the women that perform these acts took off their hijabs and, you know, addressed. in like, you know, like, quote, Western style, right, to get across these as really checkpoints because they knew that this idea of like a Western liberated woman, right, would be less threatening than, you know, like a hijabi Palestinian woman.

And so I think when we're talking about nationalism as we were before, I think this idea of womanhood being the nation, right? And men living to protect said nation, or this woman, to defend her identity, to defend her honor, who will live and they will die for this woman, I think women who engage in these militant acts completely flip that on its head, right? it completely destabilizes this logic of women to be protected by men, which is like an age-old ideal, especially in the West. And so rather than being the nation, what they have done is they have obtained membership status

within the nation, right? So instead of being the entities to protect, they are now the protectors. And they have been the protectors, but I'm talking about, like, in collective imagination, right, women being the protectors of the nation. And I mean, I think to, you know, to show that one of the martyrs, and leave de catech said, quote, in her suicide video, right, I have chose it to say with my body what Arab leaders have failed to say, my body is a barrel of gunpowder that burns the enemy. so obviously this is translated from Arabic but I mean these Arab leaders she's pointing out are all men and they're engaging in these activities that we see that when I say we like common discourse sees as as feminine right you know sitting and talking and working things out right with other leaders and she said fuck that I'm going to go blow myself up and martyr myself for my country because these men aren't doing anything And so this flips this narrative of women being protected and not being full members of the nation. Rather, it completely flips it on its head, which I think, you know, is incredibly inspirational while that was stating right at the same time because this is what they had to do to obtain that. And I think just reading a little more of what these women said because they say it better than anyone else can, right?

because they lived this. One of the martyrs, Derien Abou Shech, said, women's roles will not only be combined to be being over a son, brother, or a husband, and then she goes on, right, to use biological reproduction language, revolutionarily. She says, let Sharon, who is the man that visited El Oaksa that started the second-in-father,

let Sharon the coward know that every Palestinian woman will give birth to an army of martyrs who threaten the Zionist-settler colonial project. So instead of saying, you know, the woman's only purpose is to reproduce, which is also what Israel is scared shitless of because Palestinians continue to outnumber the Israelis, she is also saying, like, my body is revolutionary not only because I can give birth to revolutionary figures, but because I am also a revolutionary figure. willing to martyr myself. And I think, you know, on the same topic of young children and like birthing children

of the revolution, the 2004 martyr Riem Riyashi was the only martyr with children. She had children. And so the picture of her that was released after her attack was her carrying her daughter. And in one hand, she had an assault rifle and other she had her daughter. and her daughter was holding a rocket grenade. And so this was a huge milestone for popular discourse around these martyrs because previously Hamas, who had been mainly the ones sending suicide bombers, who were mostly men, into Israel.

Hamas newspaper defended her saying that this was, quote, a final kiss to her two children. She was giving them power as a fighter and a martyr, which is higher than the quality of maternity. Right. So this recognition that these women can be mothers, and our mothers and our fantastic mothers are not only teaching, you know, like kid stuff, but also are teaching this revolutionary theory is so much so that she is willing to give her life for this. And so I think these suicide bombings, to me, are incredibly inspirational because it, shows how much these women suffered because suicide at any point, right, is devastating. But to commit suicide, not because of mental illness or because of, like, personal distress,

but in order to use your body, so not even necessarily because they wanted to die, but because they wanted to further their cause. not to say that I'm like looking down on anyone who is suicidal because I know that there's a lot that goes into that. But in this different way of suicide of martyrdom, I think is really fascinating to me and devastating, but also a beautiful history as well as beautiful as a suicide bombing campaign can be, right? yeah um absolutely so now it's time for the funny story um so um leila herald she's still alive today and she was um she is a armed militant member of the popular front for the liberation of palestine so the pflp which we talked about earlier and in 1969 uh so two years after the six day war her and her and some other comrades hijacked an airplane, which they thought was carrying and is really

official. When they realized it was not, they landed the airplane and they let everyone off and they blew it up, right? So no one was hurt in this process, other than the big hunk of technology. But there were pictures taken of her and she became like postered everywhere, you know, like in the U.S. She was a terrorist and all these things. She was captured in Syria and arrested, but the Syrians really didn't cancel, they let her go.

And so then she realized that because her picture was everywhere, she couldn't really hijack another plane. So her solution for this was to get plastic surgery. Wow. So she could hijack another plane a year later. Amazing. So in 1970. indeed and now she's living in jordan with her family so that's her um she's like incredible an incredible revolutionary and like just like why did she think that she should just get plastic

surgery and do that i don't know but it was cool so um yeah i love her i would recommend looking up so much about her i know there's movies about her um and she's just really inspirational because I mean she's like a woman in the 60s and 70s that was like fuck it I'm hijacking a plane yeah um so yeah that was cool yeah incredibly inspirational if you look up if you type in laelikaelaide's name you'll you'll you'll remove most people on the left if you've been on the left for a while you've seen the picture even if you can't attach the name to the picture or the story to the picture so look that up and then just just your your insight and your sort of of opining on martyrdom and all of the nuances and complexities was completely powerful and deeply moving and you mentioned at the very beginning the Battle of Algiers which is a film I would recommend anybody go and watch it's very much like if wretched of the earth was was put into a film you know or something like that and any sort of decolonial struggle any sort of national liberation struggle can be you can find a lot of points of similarity in that film it's absolutely beautiful

and profoundly moving film as well. So, yeah, thank you so much for that. I was just, like, entranced with your answer. So I appreciate that. Yeah. A couple more questions. We're going to keep going. I'm not skipping anything because everything is interesting.

So on a previous episode with the wonderful Abby Martin, we discussed an arson attack in Duma. And in our conversations before this episode, you mentioned that you had family from that village and have been keeping up with the story. So can you maybe remind listeners just briefly about the attack itself? And then talk about your connections to the area and the people affected. Yeah.

So, God, I'm forgetting what Europe was now. But it was several years ago now, at least like five, I think. These Israeli settlers living, and just to give a picture. So most of the time, Palestinian villages are in valleys. for various reasons, like agricultural reasons, and things like that. And what Israelis have done, Israeli settlers have done, is built their settlements on top of mountains. So you're constantly being watched.

So these horrible people come down from the mountains, right, from their settlement, and firebom a home in the village my family is from And so in this home, there is a mother, a father, an infant, and a young boy. His name is Ahmed Dwabshah. So the parents and the infant die in this fire, and Ahmed is put into intensive care. He is horribly injured. And, you know, the settlers write, like, hateful messages on the building. And, you know, they spray paint a star of David, which, like, I can't even imagine for, like, my Jewish comrades how, like, fucking insulting that is to have a holy symbol disrespectful in that way.

Like, I can't even imagine, right? But, yeah, so Ahmed is the only survivor. He's currently living with his grandfather, right? So, like, he's living with family, thank God. He was back in school. Like, he has scarring, of course. And he has to continue to go back to the hospital. But he is alive and as healthy as can be expected.

And, you know, like I saw a video of him playing with friends and stuff. And it's, like, devastating that you can visibly see on him the markers of the horror that was inflicted on him and his family. But, like, of course, I'm so happy that he's able to be back in school and with friends and with family. And, you know, Abby had mentioned something that I hadn't even heard of that in that settlement, the settlers were like holding up three fingers like we got three and we just have to get one more oh my god yeah so like i'm you know like i'm fairly concerned for his safety just because like

they're like evil fascist pieces of shit but yeah you mean he's still living in the village from my aunt's house because that's where like we stay whenever we visit um you can like see the home which is like terrifying and this like reminder of of is really horror um but yeah i mean that's that story i think like doma is pretty consistently affected by occupation because of of divertment of water one of my relatives was building a house and what he had to do is like sleep in the non-built house like the newly like the the the mid-construction house because if he'd left is really official as we'd like come and bulldozer right so he has to like keep sleeping in this like half-filled house and there's like a bunch of stuff like that i mean like our olive trees get

burned um and like olive trees not only are like really important to Palestinians as like a symbol but they also make hundreds of years to grow. So they're burning down like hundreds of years of Palestinian history. And like my grandpa has an olive grove and he's had a bunch of them destroyed by settlers, but also like the army because at some point there's really no difference, right? Like in the U.S., like neo-Nazis and the police, like, is there a difference? No. So it's like, yeah, exactly.

They work together. So, yeah. And the people that committed this attack were never even charged with anything, which is, again, reminiscent of our current position. But, yeah, I mean, it was a horrible thing that happened and, you know, continues to happen to Palestinians regularly, right? Like, this is not a unique event. Of course, it was especially hard on me and my family because it's, like, in the village we're from. But, I mean, this is like a daily experience of the Palestinian people. Absolutely. Yeah, well, we're glad that he's okay and hopefully he continues to be protected and can grow up and have a life despite the no doubt trauma that he'll experience throughout that life going through what he had to go through. But, you know, I'm glad that you could give us an update on that story. And obviously my heart goes out to the family. So, you know, one more question. We're getting close to somewhere close to two hours, which is fine. And this is, you know, one of the best.

episodes in a while that I've had and I really appreciate you going on. Yeah, but it's impossible as everybody knows to cover every aspect of this complex history and the conflict and even 100 episodes, but hopefully we've covered some things that don't get as much attention and help listeners understand this whole conflict on a slightly deeper level. So having said that, is there anything else that you want to mention before closing? And importantly, what lessons can radicals and revolutionaries in this country learn from our comrades and our brothers and sisters in Palestine, in your opinion? So I think the only thing that I would want to mention is just to remind everyone that

the annexation of Palestine continues, right? The, as I mentioned earlier, the Jordan Valley is being moved in on by Israel. And, you know, this is a reality that Palestinians have lived within Jordan Valley for years and years now, right? Like, they've essentially been living under military rule, but for their land to be officially recognized as Israel, right? is, like, I can't even begin to describe how devastating that is, right? Especially because most nomadic Bedouin tribes are from the Jordan Valley.

It's horrible for, I mean, the development of the area and, like, the livelihood of these people. So just, like, paying attention to what's happening there, not from, you know, reactionary sources because they're all going to be pro-Israel. but like from from Palestinians and from no people who actually are seeing what's happening I think is really important and you know like the continued depression of Palestinians not just in the Jordan Valley but like in Gaza with the you know these these great marches of return and I think thinking about these politicians you know I know how a lot of us feel about electoral politics but like like just thinking about Joe Biden who like I try not to think about I mean when he suggested that these police officers shoot shoot protesters in a leg and not the chest that is a tactic directly out of the Israeli playbook in Gaza and I mean for more information on that there's a really fantastic book by Jasbir Pouar called the right to maim and in that she described

describes these tactics, in part, these tactics that Israel uses to shoot Palestinians and the like, and to render an entire population disabled, basically. And so I think that thinking about her work alongside the current movement that's happening is really important. But yeah, I mean, like, but my takeaway is, like, what I get from thinking about the Palestinian struggle is not only like, like, tactical ideas for a struggle here in the U.S. and for the future of Palestine. But also, I think, and I see this happening in these movements in the U.S., but like the

ability to continue to laugh, right, and to continue to make art and song and dance and all of these things to create this national culture that Phelan talks about, I think is something that I see completely in Palestine, right? I mean, like, for example, for a time the Palestinian flag was banned, like, it could not be waived in Palestine. And so Palestinians learned how to dance with watermelons on their head, because the watermelon has all the colors of the Palestinian flag. So, like, like, what?

But also, like, now watermelons are a huge part of, like, a Palestinian national culture. Everyone's selling them. Everyone's eating them. Everyone in refugee camps knows how to dance with them on their head. So it's hilarious, but it's also like really motivating for like this idea of a national culture globally that, you know, knows how to laugh and knows how to love and care for each other. So I think that's what I take from Paulus down. Yeah, wonderful.

And, you know, I'll say it again. This has been an absolute honor to talk with you, to learn from you. You're hilarious. You're insightful. You're deeply knowledgeable. I'll definitely have you back on. I want to work with you and talk with you more. I would love to have you back on the show,

and I'll definitely make that happen. Before I let you go, can you let listeners know what resources or recommendations you might offer to anyone who wants to learn more about the Palestinian liberation struggle? Yeah, I mean, so you always hit me up. My DMs are open

if you don't want to, like, fight about something. So no, Zionist's so loud. but so like my thing is really complex because of um doxing because i don't want to do that again um but because when i first got docs they said that i'm a marxist but also a supporter of hillary clinton so like i don't know if i should be offended or proud so um that's cool but um so like my twitter and my instagram handles are n h f k s M-A-N-S and so I might just submit to you so that you could write it down in like show notes or something because it's complex but yeah so I think I mentioned earlier the article discursive and political

deployments by and of the 2002 Palestinian women's suicide bombers and martyrs these gender studies people really don't know how to write titles but by Francis has so and I can send you that PDF. And then, you know, during my time with, since for Justice of Palestine, I have made a website which has a page with a bunch of different resources that it's, it's SJPUMN.Squarespace.com. If you want to look that up, it has resources. I haven't updated it in a while, so I'm going to do that. And so that will have like probably the most up-to-date stuff. What I used for the, like, to really streamline the original conversation about the history of Palestine was the 100-year war on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi, which I definitely recommend. It's super easy to read. It outlines

100 years of history in like 300 pages. So it's really not that bad. And then if you want to learn more about the original Communist Party in Palestine, I recommend Musa Budiris, the Palestinian Communist Party from 1919 to 1948. And that's on Haymarket books. And I love Haymarket. So You should get it from there if you get it. And then The Right to Mame by Jasbir Poir is good. And Freedom is a Confident Struggle by Angela Davis will never not be like, just read it. Like, it's so good. And it makes so many connections between the Black and Palestinian struggle.

And then the movie The Wanted 18 was really cool. If you want to like learn more about these committees, 1948 creation and catastrophe is a really great way to understand. And it's like a really traumatic movie. So if you really don't like hearing about violence, it's basically interviews with people who survived the Nekba and Israeli soldiers in Nekba with some background information to go along with it. So you have like these Israelis, like, terrorists discussing, killing of Palestinians and laughing. And you have these Palestinian people saying, like, I've never been back to Palestine, right? So it's a really good movie because it's really educational, but also. like it's hard to watch so just that warning and then like organizations i want to plug

out clause because they're a queer organization out of jerusalem who does a lot of support for Palestinian queer people without pinkwashing the occupation so they're a revolutionary organization who also support queer people in palestine and then right there's the bDS movement there's jewish voices for peace there's students for justice in palestine um so there's all these different organizations so really any of that i'm sorry that was a long list um is worth checking out i think wonderful and i'll link to as much of that in the show notes as possible and anything that i don't get in the show notes i'll link to your twitter so anybody can reach out and and pursue those further thank you again so much for coming on thank you for all that you do continue fighting up there in

the twin cities and stay safe and you have a home and comrades here at rev left anytime you need us Thank you. change a blona, coffeeia arabia, be d'allah arabia. Hottetna, our culturetna, our d'noy, our d'nia,

all we're going to skutalin, we'll hear of it, l'a, l'i'en, they're not, chasin'i'n for you. They're chasin'a'n't t'an'an'an'i.

On Kodd'is, you know how to bea b'an'an'n't b'i'i'i'i'n't Keren, who we're givin'in'an from Abouhom, he's hotetna. From here, we're wotanity. Because we're wotanity. The kofi, kofi, kofi, arabi.

From here, kofa, kofi, kofi, arabi. H'i kofi, kofi, kofi, arabi. Y'uil, kufi, kufi, kofi, kofi, Arabi, alu, ha, blai, kofi, ya, arabia, but there's a rabbi. No, there's chabhi, Arabi, Forge me

My mom in the D'nia's more Moucestery. The story Our Our Chahid On our Where's it's

Taube, Falasini, From Hifah, Jinnin'an, Gauphi, Let me show you Coofee, Let me

N'u'u' I'm here D'Arable, Sani, I'm Hes Gaeli, Ha'iiiiiiiiiiii From a day when I've created Cid and the people, I'm as well, I've been trappat.

Bain, between the Gulf and I'm sure, between lordsen, ban, bane, bain, bhaer, I've seen the hea from the chattain. I'mauteupea, where mishlechted me, I'd d'alli, Follastinia. From here, we're wotanity. The kofi, kofi, kofi, arabi. From here, kofa, kofi, kofi, kofi, arabi.

Howie, kofi, kofi, kofi, Y'u'll, kufi, kofi, kofi, kofi, They'll tell me, the Kofi, Kofi, Kofi, Arabi. Alu, ha, Belaide, Sham. Kofia, Arabia, Bidda, Arabi. Arabia. We're here. We're here.

We're in a wotanity. The kofi, kofi, kofi, Arabi. We're going to beck, kofi, kofi, kofi, arabia. Some of y'all, kufi, kufi, Arabi. Y'all, kufi, kufi, kufi, kufi, Arabi. Alu, ha, bila, shan. Kufia, it's a Arabi, Some of y'all think it's a trend, a fashion statement,

disgustedly, I spit on a pavement, it's basic. Y'all know I bang for my flag My dadana ain't a rag The cofia ain't no scarf It's a part of the movement The symbolism is resistance No coincidence that you can see The RBG in it

Cable ne't the bandetta Ain't it beautiful I say it in Spanish In solidarity The feelings is mutual Meanwha high That's M1 in Arabic I'm pro-Falestini

Does that make me a terrorist You can catch me in Gaza In Haifa or Amala But I'm still just mutual Mullah Olu Bala So when I rep with Shaja We rhyme with our middle fingers up to the Zionist

because we don't give a fuck it's justice so tie that thing around your head and ride wave it in the air and let me know what side you want whoo? Yeah the Kofir's Arab yeah

it's in one in solidarity film me jaja dude from the ghetto to Gaza I keep it RBG up yeah for my flag.