The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Marc Lamont Hill Speaks On Israel-Hamas War, International Law, History + More

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

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Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed. We got the brother, Mark Lamont Hill.

Morning. Morning, y'all. Now, last hour, we had Jonathan Greenblatt here, the head of the ADL. And, you know, of course, he's, I would say pro-Israel. That's safe to say, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And, you know, Mark, I was thinking about allIsrael. That's safe to say, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

And, you know, Mark, I was thinking about all the people that I know who've been to Israel, been to Pakistan, who've been speaking about this issue for a long time. For a long time. And Mark has not only just been one of them, Mark has taken bullets, you know, for speaking out and being pro-Palestine. Yeah. So what did you think? Or is that too broad a question?

I'll say one thing. There are some points where... Before we go there, can you detail people of what's going on there from your view? Because you were there. We'll get to that. Then you can talk about that so people can understand. No, let him reply to Jonathan first. Because people might not know.

This is a new hour. They might not know what's going on. They connect. They connect. Because Jonathan is replying to the events that have taken place in Israel and in Gaza over the last week or two. Correct. And I think where he and I agree 100% is that this is an awful and unprecedented tragedy. There's no way to even wrap your mind fully around what it means for over a thousand people to be killed.

Correct. The attacks that happened in Israel were devastating. As someone who believes in justice and as someone who believes in human rights and as someone who believes that international law and rules of war have to be followed, I would say, and I'm speaking for me and lots of other people, but I'm only representing my opinion right now, that Hamas' attack was a violation of international law. As an organization rooted in Islamic principles, it's also a violation of religious law to attack civilians, to attack innocents, even in times of war.

If I took the law off the table, just basic decency, I would say this is awful. So we agree on that. Where we disagree very quickly is how we make sense of how we got here and what we do moving forward. History didn't start on October 7th. And oftentimes we see this in the United States when a target gets blown up or set on fire or a police car gets flipped over or whatever. Whether we agree or disagree with the action, at that moment, the media starts to say, look at these animals. Look at these savages. I can't believe they did that. And if you were to come up from another planet and watch this, you would think that history started on Ferguson the night that shit got set on fire you would think that the world just started at these moments when in fact there's a long history that gets you there Israel has been an apartheid state since 1948

75 years yes 75 years it has been an occupying power since 1967 right 56 years yeah and it has been it has held the gaza people in particular under siege since 2006 17 years going on 18 in january so these are the things that get you there and And the people of Gaza are catching hell. This isn't ordinary hell. This isn't normal, just inequality. We're talking about not having access to clean water or potable water, right? Not having access to schools, being constantly under siege where you're getting bombed, you're getting shot at, you're vulnerable to premature death every single day. This is what they're dealing with for the last 17 years. And so when Hamas emerges and engages in this act of violence, which is not excusable because I don't want everybody to say, well, he's trying to excuse.

I'm not excusing. I'm saying it's inexcusable. Right. But we have to understand where it starts. And when you put people in an open air prison, which is what Gaza is, it's an open air prison. You have to expect people to respond at some point so whose fault is the condition God then is it Hamas because hasn't Hamas been in control since 06 so is it Hamas or yeah I mean it's it's the right question right and what Jonathan would say what a lot of pro-Israel folk would say is well you know all the Jewish settlers left in 2005 and Hamas took over in 2006. And therefore, whatever happens, that's on y'all. Problem is. Palestinians have not had one minute, not one minute of self-determination in those 17 years.

In other words, yeah, they left. It would be like if you were in a prison and they said, OK, all the guards left. But you're still in prison. We're still on the border of the prison. You still can't get out of the prison. Right. You still don't have any more food. And we control it. Right. God, Israel controls Gaza by land, by air and by sea. It controls the population registry. It controls the electromagnetic sphere. It controls everything that goes in and everything that goes out. It is military. It is effectively controlling or effectively occupying Gaza just from the outside.

And so, no, they haven't had an opportunity for self-determination. They haven't had an opportunity to build. They are under occupation in a different way. But the same as the people in the West Bank. And so it is a very, very, very different situation. That's not to say that Hamas is perfect. There's lots of stuff about Hamas

I disagree with. I disagree with religious rule in general. And Hamas is rooted again, they come from, as Jonathan accurately said, their roots are in the Islamic Brotherhood of Egypt. And they do have a vision of freedom that is rooted in Islamic principles. I happen to disagree with religious governments. I agree with that. There's other critiques to have. There's critiques to have of every government, right? But it's important to acknowledge that Hamas is a government. And you can't have it both ways. Sometimes they'll say, well, Hamas is a terrorist organization. You can't talk to them. You can't deal with them. You can't do this. You can't do this. And that kind of language makes it impossible to have a diplomatic or political solution. They make it seem as if the only

thing you can do is blow them up because they're not a government. I wonder about that, too, when it comes to Hamas, because they say they're a government i wonder about that too when it comes to hamas because you know they say they're a government but their charter just says they want to destroy israel and kill jewish people so it's like can you negotiate with somebody if that's literally your charter that's that's a interesting question um a couple of things um hamas starts in 1987 um a Jonathan said that accurately. They started in 1987 as a nationalist group. Their goal was the liberation of the entire land of Palestine. At some point, they got to a space where they wanted to also be involved in politics. So 1987 is a very different moment than 2005, 2006, when they ran in these elections, when they ran apart in these elections against Fatah.

At that moment, their goal was still a free Palestine. That for them meant getting rid of what they call the Zionist entity. It did mean a certain kind of vision of freedom that did not include the state of Israel as a Jewish state. But Hamas, over time, was willing to have a unity government with the Palestinian Authority, with the Fatah in particular. They were willing to engage in diplomatic relations. And it's dishonest to suggest that they haven't been engaged in Israel, that we can't talk to them. If Israel wanted to blow up all of Hamas and all the Gaza, they could have already done that.

Right. But they've always worked with they've always worked with Hamas. They've always worked with them since 2006 to keep the perimeters steady because they don't want instability. They don't want five or six groups fighting. So they've always negotiated with Hamas. So it's sort of dishonest to say that we just can't talk to them. I understand the concern that Hamas's vision of a fight of a solution for the political issue is different than Israel's solution for the political issue, is different than the other party's solution for the political issues. That's fine. But they're a democratically elected government, and they have a right as a democratically elected government to negotiate and to have a worldview. And Israel has a right

to have theirs. But you can't undermine them as a government, even if we disagree with them. I might say that thing that happened on October 7th was an act of terrorism. Inexcusable. I would say that. I am saying that. But that does not mean that it's impossible

to have a diplomatic or political solution to this problem. We cannot pretend that the only way to solve this issue is to just blow everything up and to just kill everybody. Let me ask you a question. Now, you did say their attack was not by the rules right of war and neither israel's right so now with israel talking and i guess sending flies and pamphlets out and says you know we're giving you 24 48 hours to leave gaza uh we're gonna start bombing gaza and i heard this this morning on the news they said you know the hospitals are saying we can't get out we can't get these people out because by the time we try to get them out they will die

right yep so if let's say uh Hamas is not following the rules a lot of people say well why should Israel follow the rules well if we follow the problem is if we follow that logic down let's say I can see both of those points I don't but let's say we I did right then I could say well Hamas could say well we didn't have to play by the rules because Israel's had us under illegal occupation since 1967. We've been under siege since 19—we've been under siege since 2006, 2007. We've been literally since 1948 kicked out of our homes. All the violations of international law.

The right to return is international law. Palestinians can't go back to their homes. They were ethnically cleansed in 1948 1948 in the nekba right and somebody in the pal in the israeli kinesit which basically congress said we want to have another nekba right now so that's a violation of international laws the targeting of civilians the the the refusal to um to provide uh certain supplies as an occupying power is a violation of international law. Right now, collectively punishing all Palestinians for the act of Hamas is a gross violation of international law and rules of war. Forced transfer of people from one place to another,

expulsion, is a violation of the rules of war. And even Jonathan is saying they want to have a humanitarian corridor in Egypt. That's out of their country. That is another neck, but that's exactly what happened. Now you've got refugees before. The plan is to put them out. It's not to bring them back. So yeah, the idea to say that, well, yeah, Israel shouldn't play by rules because Hamas doesn't. Well, if you play that game, the original rule breaker is Israel by international law and by all historical standards.

So they don't want, they don't play that game, but I don't think we should play that game. I think at all moments we should do the most ethical, the most just, the most fair, the most humane thing that is possible. And that now is a ceasefire that right now is a return of all hostages i'm talking to hamas now right a return of all hostages from hamas it's it's it's stopping all violence right and it's coming up with a political solution that allows palestinians to stay in their home it is not yelling out as as as uh members of the is the Israeli government have said we're going to shrink the size of Gaza Because you can't you can't start a war with Israel and leave with the same amount of land that you started with Taking land by force is a violation of international law

Occupy occupying land since 1967 violation, right? I mean everything here is a violation 18 human rights organizations before all this started agreed including israeli human rights organizations like beth salem agreed that israel is an apartheid state and it's been an apartheid state so somehow the global community standing up and being outraged at what happened in israel that makes sense to me but what doesn't make sense to me is how we weren't outraged the day before when these things were happening to pal people. And for the last 75 years, they've been happening to Palestinian people. And it doesn't make sense to me why right now we're not equally disgusted that over 700, at this point, I think it's even 800 Palestinian children have been killed in the last week. We changed the whole world for Ukraine. And Russia

killed about 450 of those children over the course of a whole year. What is your thoughts with the U.S. bringing the largest aircraft carrier or ship out to show support of Israel? What are your thoughts on that? What you're saying with all the things, nobody said anything beforehand, but now it seems like they're getting support of the U.S. What's your thought? Part of the problem is a lot of us were right. Three point six or three point eight billion dollars a year goes from the United States to Israel. We of the U.S. What's your thoughts on that? Right, and part of the problem is a lot of us were, right? $3.6 or $3.8 billion a year goes from the United States to Israel. We fund the occupation.

And that's why Americans, if y'all wonder why you should care, because you pay for it. This could not happen without anybody else's help but the U.S. The U.S. has offered weapons. They've offered weapons to make sure that Israel always has the best weapons. They call it a qualitative edge. They've made sure that technologies come through. We support this thing. What the U.S. is doing right now with the aircraft carrier is a very small drop in the bucket compared to what the U.S. has done,

not since 1948, but certainly since the 1960s and 19, really the 1970s, with regard to support for Israel. And that's the thing we should be outraged about. We should be outraged at Biden's response. We should be outraged by many members of the U.S. Congress's response. We should be outraged by lots of people. Again, you should have been outraged when those innocent Israeli children were killed. Their lives are worth something. They're worth the same as Palestinian because their lives are worth something.

All of our lives are worth something, right? But the outrage can't just be for Israeli kids. It got to be for kids in Palestine. It got to be for kids in Armenia. They got to be for kids in Armenia. They got to be for kids in China. I mean, everywhere. But in this issue, it got to be for everybody on the table. Do you think it's because people are seeing it right now?

But they're seeing Palestinian kids die. You know what it is? It's the language that we use. They use a language of, even when Jonathan was talking respectfully, there was a way that we start to talk about this is barbaric right when you start using words like barbaric when you start to frame people as subhuman or inhuman that is a deep problem now jonathan uh goldblatt green black excuse me jonathan greenblatt rightly pointed out that there's a long history he alluded to this long history of jewish people being

constructed as subhuman and as animals right it's a disgusting anti-semitic trope that helped animate the forces of the holocaust we don't want to ever go back there but we also don't want to transfer that to palestinian people or to arabs and when you start calling them barbarians and when you start hearing these uh extraordinary and some of them unsubstantiated claims about babies being beheaded. What it does is it creates a kind of outrage at Arabs and at Palestinians and at brown people more broadly that then makes barbaric responses seem justified. But I want to be clear. It's not just that I disagree with disproportionate force. It is illegal to engage in disproportionate force.

There is a law of proportionality in international law. That is to say that I can only use force to the extent that it's, that it engaged, that it, that it fulfills my military mission. In other words, if, if we're at war and you shoot at me and I shoot,

I can't shoot the whole block up. I can't, that's just common hood sense. Like you can't just shoot up the whole block. Cause you've got to be for one person, but you can't that's just common-hood sense like you can't just shoot up the whole block cuz you got me for one person but you can't write an international law protects that logic and asserts that logic and so what Israel has done is is engage in a disproportionate force you you kill us we're gonna kill all of y'all we're gonna wipe them off the map it they said

we're gonna knock them back three generations we're gonna turn Gaza to tents these are all quotes that we're hearing and the problem is if you think that they're animals anyway then it's a lot easier to do it's just like when you hear that prisoners are starving no one said people are prisoners they don't deserve you know they're not they're unsafe oh well you know because we've decided that they don't deserve the same thing as everybody else right we can't think like that palestinian lives are worth just as much as israeli lives and until we recognize that and own that in policy, then we're going to continue to see the kind of force that we're using. And that's why I don't like this narrative of those animals, those barbarians, those uncivilized people. No, there's civilized people who can be engaged through diplomacy, through politics, through legal solutions, just like everybody else.

What's the difference between Hamas and just citizens of Palestine? Well, Hamas is a political party. Okay. You know, and they also have a kind of armed wing that is a little more extreme. But the Palestinian people haven't had a chance to vote for Hamas. I don't know what they want. They won the election, I believe, with 44% of the vote in 2006. 49% of the Gaz the dozen population is under 18 so imagine

if 17 imagine Donald Trump won the election in 2024 god forbid and then he decided which is not completely implausible that he's not leaving office oh he's gonna do that right exactly exactly right I agree so there's 17 I Lisa him winning part then 17 years, he's still in office. You can't blame the people who never got a chance to vote for him. You can't blame anybody for him being off of 17 years later for a four year term. And so part of it is the everyday people, guys, I don't speak for them. I don't want to say whether they support Hamas or not. Right.

What I know is they want to be free and they know that the other party, FETA has basically caved. They know the Palestinian Authority doesn't represent their interests. They don't have a mandate either. And so it's very difficult to know what Palestinian people want.

Let them have free and fair elections and then we can find out what they want. But in terms of the Palestinian people in general, they don't just live in Gaza. They live in the West Bank. They live in cities like Ramallah and Bethlehem. They live in these cities and they are under military occupation. oppose a two-state solution philosophically but what they've effectively done since those oslo accords of 1993 is turn gaza into a cage and the west bank into 228 separate ghettos so the palestinian people don't have unity they don't they're they're ruled by different parties area a they're ruled by palestinians area b there is coordinated with israel area c is all is all uh israel Israeli control.

So even the part where they're supposed to be free, they're not. And Oslo is supposed to be an opportunity to work toward a two-state solution. But over the time, as they're negotiating, the area is getting smaller. Palestinian freedom is getting smaller. Settlements are growing. I think I used this example before. It's like if you and I are arguing over how to divide a pizza, and as we argue over which way to split it,

you keep eating slices, right? At some point, there's nothing left to divide. And we say, well, now there's two slices left. Well, let's split it, Mark. Well, I'd be like, fuck you, right? Like, it's two left. And that's basically what is happening right now in Palestine. And so Palestinian people are saying,

look, we've been waiting. We negotiated with Oslo. It was a farce, what Noura Arikat calls a sovereignty trap. We tried to march in protest. They had the great march of return in Gaza up to the undefined border of Israel. And from 500 meters away, Israeli snipers were shooting down people, picking them off like birds. They marched. They said, well, tell your story through media. snipers were shooting down people picking them off like birds they marched they said well tell

your story through media my colleague at al jazeera shireen abu akleh they killed her with the press jacket on with no justice they acknowledge first they said palestinian killed it then they said okay we did it then they said it's an accident is there any justice no so just like black folk here you march they say it's wrong your protest you say it's wrong your boycott the bds movement they they've tried to criminalize right which is a boycott divestment and sanction movement called by civil society palestinian people saying look we got to do something different so every possible strategy has been met with resistance has been met with criminalization has been met with violence and so when I see these awful events that, again, are inexcusable, they don't come from nowhere. They don't come from day one being October 7th. They come from day one, not even being 1948, really day one being the late 19th

century, late 20th century, late 19th century, excuse me, when we started to see Palestinian land being settler colonized. You know, what is your thoughts on, you know, Jonathan was also upset with some chapters of Black Lives matter supporting black lives matter chicago chicago it was a couple of chapters actually that was supporting palestine and hamas what what's your thought on that the reason we're asking all these questions because you know i'm not versed i don't know if charlemagne is versed but i'm not versed i think i i the one i saw in Chicago was the one with the paraglider. Yeah, the paraglider. And I thought that was in poor taste.

Again, I don't. Because there was paragliders that came in and shot up the families. Right. Over the fence. Right. And I don't want to celebrate or romanticize the killing of civilians. And so I didn't like that. But standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people as they resist is nothing wrong with that.

And as a nascent sovereign, as a young emerging sovereign state. Hamas has the right to resist military occupation. And let's be very clear. Palestinians have the legal right, not just the natural right, but the legal right to resist. They can use violence to resist they're under military occupation it is not illegal to resist but but you have limits on how you can resist again if you punch me in the face I have a right even by this law to punch you back and to defend myself I don't have a right to pull out a knife or a bazooka and blow you away with the gun you had

though you're in Florida you could do facts that's very true that's very true right um but even even in there it's limits like i think in florida you can't be black and do it right i don't know if that's on the books but yeah i guess that's what i would treat palestinians right oh international law says you can i wrote a book called except for palestine and part of the point is all these rules work except for Palestine every other sovereign state has a right to defend itself and when you're under illegal military or when you're in a military occupation when you're a legal occupation when you're it's a daily form of violence that legally you can defend yourself but what you can't do is kill civilians and so when I see people if I see

somebody whether it's BLM or anybody else romanticizing the killing of civilians I say no I say that's wrong I say that doesn't help our cause. But I don't want to pretend that the only strategy that black folk have or the only strategy that Palestinians have or the only strategy that any people have is nonviolence. This idea that Palestinians are supposed to just sit there as they get beaten and shot and killed is ridiculous. Why do you think you don't hear that much of that story? Of which part? Because, I mean, you hear more about Hamas.

You hear more about Israel, but you never hear that part of the story. Because, again, they do the same thing here with us, right? Like, there's stories. When violence happens, no disrespect to the New Black Panther Party, but there's about 12 people in the New Black Panther Party. But if you were to watch Fox News, you would think that all the people, all the people in Ferguson marching, all the people in Minnesota marching, that it was these 12 people that said the craziest, wildest stuff

were the representatives of all black people. They always take a one slice of a people and make that the whole story. They pull out the threads that are easiest to pull at. So that becomes part of the reason. The other part of the reason is we've never represented the Middle East or Africa in ways that show their humanity. We've always shown them as uncivilized, as violent, as unprepared for democracy. And that's how you end up here in the first place. But we need to tell

those stories. That's our job. That's our job to tell the story of the occupation, tell the story of suffering, to tell the story of misery, because if we don't do that, then we're complicit. That's why when those 18 human rights organizations stood up and said, Israel is an apartheid state, that there are different rights given to some folk versus other folk based on who they are. That is the definition of apartheid. It doesn't have to look just like South Africa. It has to be based on a system of racialized hierarchy or other forms of hierarchy. And it is. So when those nations came out and said that, people started paying attention. It's in many ways frustrating for me because I feel like we were just starting to turn a corner

where people were noticing the injustices in Palestine. People were starting to speak out against what was happening. People were starting to say, wait a minute. Israel also has to do something. Political candidates were running like Bernie Sanders and saying, look, we can't give unconditional aid to anybody, but not even Israel. Israel has to not have human rights violations for us to keep giving them our money. This is where the conversation was turning in this moment. Creates, unfortunately for me, an opportunity to say, look, we don't have to hold Israel accountable for anything. We can only focus on Palestinians. And I think everybody, everybody needs to be held accountable. I guess I keep getting slightly confused because we talk

about Hamas and Palestinian citizens. And I wonder if that's fair. And the reason I say that, it feels like Hamas is willing to sacrifice the Palestinian people because they have to know you're not going to win a war with Israel. They had to know when they committed that act of terror, what the response was going to be. And they had to know that so many innocent Palestinians were going to be killed because of it. You know, it's an interesting question. I asked that very question to Osama Hamdan, who's one of the who's a senior spokesman for Hamas. I had him on my Al Jazeera show last week, as well as an Israeli official. And I asked him that very question. I said, if you know your response is going to be this, why would you do that? Yeah. There's an interesting set of responses today. He didn't say this. He

avoided the question. But my response would be one i'm not sure they knew that they'd be this successful i don't i think they they thought the israeli intelligence israeli military would be better prepared for this uh for this uh for this attack than they than they were and i think israel is great and i think jonathan's basically said that like everybody was a little surprised by this they may have underestimated uh Hamas's capability and Hamas may have overestimated Israel's capability at least in that moment so I think part of was they weren't planned they weren't prepared for this to be they didn't think they'd get this many hostages they didn't think they'd be able to uh breed it you know to kind of get past the barrier and and kill that many people so I think some of this might

have been this is me speculating now I think some of this might have been, this is me speculating now, I think some of this might have been, oh shit, we in? Oh shit, like we here? Let's figure this out. The second thing is, I think what they would say to you is, we're dying now slowly. And yes, this may cause an act of extraordinary disproportionate retaliation by Israel,

but at least we have an opportunity to change the conditions on the ground. At least the world is watching. at least we have an opportunity to change the conditions on the ground. At least the world is watching. At least we have an opportunity to do something else. Do I think that's the right decision? No, I don't. I think that's a terrible political calculation. And I don't think that you can sacrifice civilians in the interest of this. I just don't think you can do that. But I also understand that if we do nothing at all, if we do nothing at all under occupation, if we do nothing at all under slavery, if we do nothing at all, if we do nothing at all under occupation, if we do nothing at all under slavery, if we do nothing at all under any gross system of injustice, our oppressors don't

just free us. And Palestinians were dying anyway. They're being ethnically cleansed anyway. They're being taken off their land anyway. And so there's no reason to believe that if Hamas had just sat on their hands, that things would have gotten better. So we can have a critique of Hamas and say, hey, that was wrong. But we also have to recognize that it's not like things were getting fixed and Hamas went and messed them up. They were dying anyway. Palestinians are dying every single day. Those hospitals already don't have enough power. People, those hospitals are death camps anyway. And right now and just think about this again israel is turning off all the electricity all the fuel the hospital the international representative from the red cross

the international red cross said that this hospital will be a graveyard if israel doesn't give them energy and when i spoke to israeli officials about this directly they said well talk to hamas about that man can you explain hamas's relationship to the Palestinian government? Or is Hamas the Palestinian government? Hamas is the Palestinian government effectively in Gaza. So basically... So they're the leadership in Gaza. In Gaza. So there's a Palestinian authority, a Palestinian national authority.

In 1993, the Palestinian national authority became the ruling government or the ruling authority and representative of the Palestinian people. This was part of the Oslo Accords, which was an attempt to create a two state solution. And so they said, OK, the PLO is working, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, who they used to call terrorists. Right. They say, you know what, we'll recognize them as the as the as the as the representatives of the Palestinian people. And then we're going to have elections and parties can run fatah is one of the parties right and they're the party that rules in the west bank that's that's everything that's the west bank of the jordan river that's all the land that was occupied in the after the 1967 war that's that's them and then gaza had elections and fat fat ran then there too they did not win they lost by a fairly slim margin the elections were contested and at some

point but hamas won and so then what you saw is what you wanted to see was a unity government that didn't happen part of why the unity government didn't happen was the u.s and israel undermined it but at the end of the day, you now have Hamas running this part of Palestine, and you have another party running, Fatah running the other part of Palestine. And that is why you have some challenges. But what's interesting is when we're fighting over Jerusalem as a global community, Muslims, Christians, when we're fighting over Jerusalem, we're talking about Jerusalem, we're talking about the status of Jerusalem, that doesn't have anything to do with Hamas. That has to do with Mahmoud Abbas.

It has to do with this party in the West Bank. When we're talking about an apartheid wall being built throughout the West Bank, when we're talking about the treatment of people in Ramallah, when we're talking about a pogrom committed in the West Bank

in a Palestinian village by Israeli military general standards. All that ain't got nothing to do with Hamas. Hamas is like, they become almost like a boogeyman that we can talk about when we should be talking about all these other issues. There are legitimate Palestinian representatives who they also have refused to meet with.

There are legitimate negotiations that could happen that they've also refused to have. So Hamas, in some ways, is saying, look, the rest of our leadership is sold out. We're going to hold the line here. Again, it doesn't mean I agree with their tactics, but again, it didn't start from nowhere. Part of why Hamas has some of the admiration of the people is because they're the only people who haven't capitulated. And they can't vote for anybody else. So this is the challenge of it. So the Palestinian leadership is even divided based on where they are. And the reason why that happened is because, again, Israel and the Oslo Accords divided the Palestinian territories up in a way that Palestinians don't have one cohesive, contiguous piece of land with access to water, all the things you would need for a country.

They put them, broke them up in these little ghettos so they could never have a full, a full body representing them, both geographically or politically. So when Israel is waging war, is it just contained to Gaza, that one area? It is right now, although as of the last report, I saw seven people were killed in the West Bank too by Israeli forces. But yeah, right now it's only happening in Gaza. And we've also seen things happen. When you hear clashes in Aqsa Mosque, that's happening in the West Bank. That's happening in occupied East Jerusalem.

When you hear about, you know, Bruce Goldstein, a settler from Brooklyn who came and engaged in a massacre at the Ibrahim Mosque in Khalil in Hebron in the 90s. That was in the West Bank. And the military clashes that came after that were there. So there's it really just depends on where you're talking about at a given moment. But right now we're talking about just the Gaza Strip, which is a very specific strip of land with within the region. Most people are up north, right? Gaza City. And right now they're being told go to the southern part of the country. That's another important thing, because part of what people say is Israel has the most restraint they have the most restraint driven military in in the world they give people warnings before they bomb them they tell people so they do have what's called a roof knocking strategy where they say well

you know we'll knock on the roof and in three minutes later with will drop a non explosive on your roof and then you have like three minutes to leave before we blow blow it up that's not a lot of time second uh they've they've gotten rid of that strategy they say well if to the point you made earlier if hamas ain't knocking we ain't knocking we just blowing shit up now also um well let's see you know my question to that too because if you knock on door and it's hamas hamas knows now you're gonna bomb me so they know that to get the hell out so i i don, that doesn't make much sense at all either.

The argument was, because they say a lot of people that Hamas is what, even what Jonathan Greenblatt said was, they're setting up in churches,

they're setting up in hospitals, they're setting up in schools, they're setting up in daycares. I have yet to see intelligence reports

that say that. The problem is they say Hamas is everywhere. They say Hamas is everywhere and they have tunnels everywhere. So then when you blow up a school, that school is filled with children. And they say, well, yeah, but Hamas was in there. The narrative is constructed as if Palestinian people stand in front of their babies with guns and force you to kill both of them.

Right? That's the narrative, right? History and intelligence reports don't necessarily suggest that that oftentimes what is seen as a military target often is just a civilian target. I mean, one of the classic examples historically is the bombing of the King David Hotel. They say, oh, it was a British military target that is that Israeli terrorists blew up. Right. Turns out it wasn't in in historians it wasn't a military target there were civilians in there right these are the things that happen schools are getting bombed hospitals are getting bombed homes are getting level i spoke to a woman who's in whose entire family 11 people in that in the house were killed when the apartment was leveled last week

and none of them were military none of them were members of hamas but this idea of saying what we had to blow it up because hamas is basically saying Hamas stands in civilian areas and forces us to kill everybody. But there's no evidence of that. But again, international law doesn't say you can just do that. You can't just arbitrarily do that. And you can't move one point one million people to the south in 24 hours. And at the same time that you shoot down the corridor to get them there and you and you're shooting at transport vehicles they transport people from the north to the south if all that is happening you can't in good faith say that we gave everybody a warning as if all the civilians were going to leave to the south and Hamas is going to be standing up in the north like hey here we are come get us right like that's not realistic it's not honest and we have to be

honest about that and and honestly Antonio Guter, the head of the UN, other nations are beginning to say that they're saying, look, this is disproportionate force. This is too much. You can't blow up all the hospitals. You have to give people food. You have to give people electricity. And the fact that we're sitting here right now having a fight over whether or not Palestinians can get food, clothing, shelter, electricity, fuel is absurd. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed and we're pretending like it's just okay and it's not yeah I wonder about that too like why do people have to be pro Israel or pro Palestine like I'm pro I don't want to see kids get killed I'm pro I don't want to see innocent civilians in some way I'm anti war like why does why do people have to pick a side? I don't understand.

I'll tell you why. At this moment, we can all say we don't want violence. I agree. You don't even have to know about the issue and be like, look, I just don't want to see anybody die. That's where I'm at at this moment. I don't want to see another Israeli child dead. I don't want to see another Palestinian child dead.

I don't want to see anybody die. Not just children, adults. I don't want to see another Palestinian child dead. I don't want to see anybody die, not just children, adults. I don't want nobody to die. But the problem is, if you say that you are pro-Israel as it is currently constituted, then you are saying that you are in support of a government that is systematically colonizing people, that is systematically displacing people, that is systematically stealing people's land, that is systematically ethnically cleansing people, as we see in Gaza right now. If those people leave Gaza and can't come back, they've been ethnically cleansed, right? If you say you pro-Palestine, then they'll say you pro-Hamas. Here's the difference. If I say I'm pro-Hamas, I'm saying I'm pro-as. Right. I can be pro Palestinian and support Palestinian self-determination and still disagree with Hamas. The problem is Israel as it is constructed, Israel as it is defined, Israel by its own definition is not a state of all of its citizens.

By virtue of being a Jewish state and by virtue of giving people different rights based on whether or not they are Jewish, by virtue of the fact that Palestinians have different rights and privileges, even those who are citizens of Israel, Arab citizens of Israel have different rights rules. They'll say that's a lie um either facially or in practice in terms of how people get treated based on whether or not they are uh arab or not even for arab citizens of israel right now people in the west bank don't have rights and freedoms so the way israel is constructed it is by definition operating against the interest of Palestinian people. That's the difference. It would be like saying I'm not anti-Indian. I'm just pro United States. That'd be a hell of a thing to tell a Native American. Right. Because the United States, by definition, by its construction, is created in a way that stomps on the rights of Native Americans here.

So I can't say to some I can't look at Native American in the eye and say, well, I'm not I don't pick a side. I'm neutral on this. Right. I like Native Americans and I and I can't say to some, I can't look at Native American in the eye and say, well, I'm not, I don't pick a side. I'm neutral on this, right? I like Native Americans and I, and I, and I love what America created. Like, nah, bro, you got to pick one on that. Right. And so it doesn't mean though, that I have to hate Israelis or that I have to hate Jewish people. I don't hate either. I want everyone to live in peace, safety, dignity, self-determination, and justice. And that's important to be said. I guess that's why I don't like conflating the two, Hamas and Palestinians, because Hamas' charter literally does say they want to destroy Israel and kill Jewish people.

That was their charter, and I think that we can have an opposition to Hamas' charter. I think we can have an opposition to Hamas all the way and still support the Palestinian people. Again, Hamas is a government and an organization. They're not the Palestinian people. Right. I think that's what the confusion is. And I think we can have a disagreement with the Israeli government. Right. And I could say, hey, there are Israelis, there's Zionists, there are Jewish people here who say, look, I don't agree with the israeli government but i i i i disagree with the government but i i support the government's right to exist i hear you what i'm saying is is that the jewish state as is constructed right now is israel as is constructed right now and as it was designed since 1948 was constructed in a way that that that depended upon the ethnic cleansing of palestinian people the settler colonizing of Palestinian people,

and the continued dispossession of Palestinian people. And so that's the difference. This isn't about whether I agree with the government or not. Everybody has governments. Israel shouldn't be held to a higher standard or a lower standard. Israel should be held to the same standard as all governments. You can critique them. You can agree with them. You can support them. You can resist them. You can do all that stuff. I'm not against that. But I'm saying right now, Palestinian people have been dispossessed. They have been made stateless. They have been made refugees in their own home and they've been made refugees around the world. And it's only getting worse. And so what we have to do right now is not just ask, how can we stop this violence, which we should. I hope the violence stops tomorrow. were two weeks ago that also is an act of gross uh of irresponsibility and really violence of on our part because palestinians are getting treated like animals every single day somebody might say well why are you so passionate about this what you know because you you've been passionate about

this for a long time yeah so if somebody asked well why is mark lamar hill so passionate what would you tell him a couple reasons um as American citizen, my tax dollars go to it. I don't make as much money as y'all, but I pay a significant amount of taxes. So I feel like I even more I'm even more culpable. My money goes to funding this occupation. I'm responsible for it as an American citizen. As a black person, I believe in justice everywhere. The week before I was grilling the Israeli minister and Hamas, I was grilling a minister in Azerbaijan because I'm worried about what's happening to people there. Right. So it's not just Israel. Israel shouldn't be shouldn't be isolated. We should be focused on justice everywhere. But the reason in particular why this issue comes is one, as somebody who studies the Middle East, it's a fascinating issue to me.

But also we don't give everybody four billion dollars a year you know what i mean i might be pissed off at what's going on in uzbekistan but we don't put that much money in uzbeki wallets right so i don't even think that's how you say it so like so so that so that's that's part of it as well also there's a long history of solidarity of palestinian people with black folks some people they don't care about us that's not true now there's some stuff we got to work out but Malcolm X cared about this issue Malcolm X is my hero so when Malcolm X cared about this issue when he wrote it issue a piece on this in the Egyptian Gazette called Zionist logic I cared in the fall of 64 I cared because Malcolm cared Malcolm and we everybody here go

back and listen to message to the grassroots when Malcolm is talking about what a revolution looks like. And he was talking about us being connected globally, right? That's why I care about this issue. The Black Panthers cared about this issue. SNCC cared about this issue in the summer of 67. There's a lot of people, Black freedom fighters who we admire. People say, be like Malcolm, be like Assad.

People want to march and be like Huey. People want to be like Angela. They all cared about Palestine. So I'm following that tradition, but I'm not doing it blindly. They understood that our freedom, our liberation as a people had to require, it demanded us to be connected to people in other places who are oppressed. I can't get free if Palestine ain't free. I can't get free if South Africa ain't free. And unfortunately, that fight toward freedom will always alienate you, to always make you look marginal, to always make you look like the bad guy. Nelson Mandela spent 30 years in prison. He was in prison from 1964 until 1990. He became the president of South Africa and he still was on the United States terror watch list until 2018 until 2008 we had a black president here and he was still on the terror list he had been the president of a state he'd been

hailed around the world he'd been at the Olympics everybody loved him everybody pretended that they didn't criminalize and he was still on our country's terror list so we gotta be real careful about who we call a terrorist we gotta be real mindful of how we use that language of terror, because one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. And that's not going to be taken out of context that I'm saying that I support what Hamas did. Again, I oppose what Hamas did. I oppose the killing of civilians.

But what we're not going to do is pretend that oppressed people getting liberated by resisting violence in self-defense is an act of terrorism as such. We can't do that either. Can you explain the relationship between America and Israel? Because you said, you know, America gives them $4 billion a year. Why are they such strong allies? It's a great question, you know, and it's a question that lots of people ask. You know, it's a relatively. So. So initially, the strongest supporter of Israel was was was where the British. Right. But then. By this 1970s, 1980s, and I talk about this in my book, except for Palestine a lot.

And there's other people who write about this much better than me. Rashid Khalidi has a book called the 100 years war uh nora adekat has a book called um uh injustice for justice for some excuse me justice for some and there's many others uh elan papay and others i'd say read the palestinians before you read me um and the israelis before you read me but um there's a way that the united states i'll get to the heart of it. The U.S. doesn't have feelings, it has interests. We watch violent atrocities happen in certain places and we don't say anything. We watch a small atrocity, and all atrocities are awful, happen in other places.

I'm not talking about Israel right now. And we're outraged. Our outrage meter doesn't link to, it doesn't directly correspond to what people did. It corresponds to what we need, right? There's certain places where we go, oh, we got to go to liberate the women, right? But right now, we're best friends with Saudi Arabia, which has a gross human rights record, particularly against women. And you talk about beheadings, look at Saudi Arabia, right? They killed a journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, five years ago on the anniversary of that. So we don't have we're selective. Israel operates as the United States' strategic outpost.

So there's a friendly relationship between U.S. and Israel. But it also serves the U.S.'s military interests because the U.S. wants a stake in the Middle East. Just like everybody wants a stake in the Middle East. And now you have the opportunity to have a nation that's not brown. Let me be clear. Israel still has a majority of Mizrahi Jews there. I'm not suggesting that Israel is not a brown country and that Israel doesn't have brown Jews. The majority are Mizrahi at this point. But my point is, is that Israel at its founding isn't an Arab country. And so and so being able to have to be in arab territory and have a arab a non-arab country there's your strategic outpost makes a lot of military sense it makes a lot of economic sense for the united states and of course the united for israel the united states uh serves a great purpose it gives them military backing it gives them money now you, there's a long history of the United States and the UK not wanting Jewish people here.

So part of it was also animated by anti-Semitism. It was almost as if they said, look, we'll allow Israel to exist because we don't want Jewish people here. So if you look at U.S. immigration law through the 20th century, they didn't want Jews here. They didn't want Irish people here. They didn't want Russians here. We were already here. They didn't have a choice century, they didn't want Jews here. They didn't want Irish people here. They didn't want Russians here. Lots of, we were already here, but they didn't want any of us here. And so part of why

it was easy for the UK to give, for the British to give Israel to the Zionist movement was because they didn't want Jews in Britain because of anti-Semitism. And Americans didn't want them either. So part of the, at the beginning was like,

we don't want them here anyway. And now they've surged strategic interests. Again, that's anti-Semitic. It's deeply problematic. But that's part of the origin story of why we got into these political relationships that we got into. And is the two-state solution, the solution? I don't believe so. But i think it's up to palestinians and israelis to decide that i want them to come up with a a final uh analysis and a final plan that works for them and i think the best plan that we could have is a one-state solution one country everybody gets one vote it's secular it's not a religious state it's not a jewish state so it's not an islamic state um it's just a secular democracy where everybody gets a

vote to me that's fair that's easy again two-state doesn't work because settlements two-state doesn't work because palestinians won't get their rights protected um so me, it's a secular democratic one-state solution. But you know what? It ain't up to me. As an American taxpayer, all I want to do is not fund it anymore. And I want the final plan to come from Israelis and Palestinians who can work together to figure out a plan. But that plan has to be one that has one thing as non-negotiable. The one non-negotiable that it has to be is that it has to produce dignity, safety, justice, security and self-determination for everybody.

I don't want anybody to leave. I don't think anybody needs to leave. I think everybody needs to stay and get those rights, the justice and that self-determination. That's my that's my analysis. All right. Well, I hope we get there. Well, ladies and gentlemen. I really do. No more bloodshed. No more war. We appreciate you coming in and breaking it down.

Yeah, I appreciate everything about this show. I appreciate what y'all doing, man. Only thing I'll say real quick is Charlemagne is trolling with that hat. I'm not. Just repping my squad, that's all. Yeah, and this is what I mean. Like, you got to pick a side, man. Like, you're not from Dallas. like you you literally signed with the enemy but no when i grew up in

stockton line we didn't have a team so like my dad and my granddad they were all cowboys fans they're america's team do you see do you hear the propaganda well at least you know earlier in the year he was buying super bowl tickets and he was getting his hotels and flights but that's who'd you want to see there Cowboys going to the Super Bowl idea well they probably said next to us up in this up in the stairs question that's the question of course that's number eight why you want me to ask nobody but I don't care we need them I am interested in what my said. We have Vlad up here and Vlad was too. I hate that guy. Go ahead.

Jesus Christ, I didn't want that reaction. All right, well. Did he have his badge on? All right, look. I know what he said. I watch his show every day. It was about Callan and Drake.

I know what he said. I know what he said. It's the one time I actually hated to agree with him. Really? Oh, you agree? That they should say something? Yeah.

Hell yeah, they should say something. Really? If you are, it's, yes, more Callan than Drake. Really, yes, more Khaled than Drake. Really? Yeah, more Khaled than Drake.

Why? Because they never talk about social issues, ever. I know, and I have an issue with that. I have an issue with anybody. I don't think every famous person has to say something about everything. But if your people are being exterminated, if your people are being executed, if your people are being executed if your people are being killed whatever the circumstances i think you got to say something he's like the most damn near the most famous palestinian in the world if i were the most famous black person if any of us were the most famous black person in the world the most famous black person in the world and black people were being killed in our country and nobody said

anything i would be deeply disturbed i don't know what and the reason i'm not letting drake off the hook you know i mean there's plenty of reasons to have issues with java is your drink the last month but none of them about none of them political is all about the you know stuff his framing of gender and his out on his album and his treatment of everybody from halle berry you know we're going down this that's another conversation um but for me i don't know how drake identifies in terms of his politics i don't know how he identifies as a jewish person i don't know how he identifies i know he identifies racially as a black person and so i don't know how connected he is ethnically culturally or

politically to that issue if he is and he should speak up too i just don't know drake said he had a bar mitzvah when he was of age and you know he talks about a lot of it but but the problem is that argument presumes that because i'm jewish i have to be pro-israel and there are numerous jewish people around the world who aren't who are jewish and not pro israel i don't think drake has a responsibility to be pro israel i think i'd love for him to say something about it whatever wherever he stands on this issue but but khaled yeah man and yeah none of those things either though khaled's not connected culturally i've seen him wear the kaffee i've seen him do stuff yeah i've seen him wear the kafi. I've seen him do stuff. Yeah, I've seen him be outside Palestinian. He don't lead with it because it's not great for business to walk around saying you're Palestinian.

Someone argued that's a problem. I'm not here to judge that. All I'm going to say is I would have liked to hear him say something. And the fact that the leading hip hop cop journalist, Vlad, and I on the same page on this issue should suggest to you how morally egregious it is that he and I are on the same page on this thing. When they do, though, what? Then what? Like, if they do, then what? Like, what is that?

I mean, I think that's always the question, right? I mean, like, what happens when the NBA speaks out against such and such? Right. I do think that there's power in that. Part of it is awareness. There are people who will never watch this video. There are people, and everybody watches The Breakfast Club, but just people who won't watch The Breakfast Club

but will listen to DJ Khaled's Instagram story. That's why it matters. It's the same reason why when the NBA players wore Hands Up, Don't Shoot or Black Lives Matter, it mattered because they reached a sector of the world that wouldn't otherwise know that story. When LeBron and D-Wade and Chris Paul said stuff, that shit mattered because people cared.

Right. You know what I mean? When Beyonce was talking about, you know, you know, and again, I didn't need to give a press conference. But what Beyonce did was extraordinary, given her platform. And so if the difference is there's a lot of black people that can speak. There are a lot of people who are Jewish who can speak. There's lots of people who are Indian who can speak. But how many people in the United States right now who are Palestinian have the platform in the calendar? Maybe Gigi Hadid, who spoke out, right? There's one or two people. But in general, there's not really a space for that.

So it's not just California. Any of them who are Palestinian, any of them who have platforms should speak up. And I'm not putting that just on Palestinians. I'm saying that for black folk too. But I'm saying the stakes are even higher any any of them who palestinian any of them who who have platforms should speak up and i and i'm not putting that just on palestinians i'm saying that for black folk too but i'm saying the stakes are even higher because they ain't but five palestinians in hollywood you know there's a million black folk so i just feel like you got to do it i guess if they want to my thing would be pass the microphone to somebody who knows what they're talking about i'd be i'd be okay with

that i'd be okay with that if khaled said look i don't know enough about this issue but i want to bring these people together and make it happen. But he's moving as if it didn't happen. And it's weird to me. Or at least on social media. We don't know what he's doing behind the scenes. That's fair enough. I'm pretty connected to the Palestinian movement.

I ain't heard one person yet say that he's doing something. I ain't heard one. That's not to say he's not. I ain't heard one yet. But again, I'm not Palestinian. It's not my job to tell him what to do with his people or for his people. I'm just saying I share Vlad's disappointment that I haven't heard anything from Khaled. And social media is reality for a lot of people.

Khaled gives us a narrative of his life, what's going on, what's going on in his world. And if you're selling a product while 2,000 of your people have been killed 1,500 people been killed that feels that feels gross to me it feels a little gross to me like even if you didn't want to speak up if if um if if an all-black neighborhood got got bombed today and you said i don't i charlamagne or i envy don't feel like talking about it i bet you wouldn't go in your story and be like yo check check out my check out the trailer for my new documentary today on such and such or check out my new book. You just, you would have the decency to do nothing.

And I'm saying part of what happens is when you move as if nothing is happening while the world is blowing up, I think it communicates even more so that this isn't worth caring about. We already have a media that does that. We already have intellectual infrastructure that does that. We have a legal apparatus that does that. We don't need people who look like us doing that. That's all I'm saying.

But that's, again, Kyle, I might disagree, and I would just respectfully disagree. All right. Well, Mark Lamont Hill. Yes. It's The Breakfast Club. Make sure you go get them books too, man. Except for Palestine.

That's right. Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.