From the River to the Sea: Ibaitik Itsasora (41)

Ibaitik Itsasora

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Ruby @MarupeneM

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley@RepPressley

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Tom London@TomLondon6

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Afshin Rattansi@afshinrattansi

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Sara Rey@SaraReyi

Khalissee@Kahlissee

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Senator Chris Van Hollen@ChrisVanHollen

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Muhammad in Gaza@7MohammedKhaled

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Sarah Wilkinson@swilkinsonbc

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Matt Kennard@kennardmatt

2023 urr. 28

“I think he did a very professional job…”

Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland reveals that he is a longtime friend of Netanyahu senior adviser and former IDF spokesman Mark Regev.

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Slovenia to the UN@SLOtoUN

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Linda Mamoun@mamoun_linda

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Medea Benjamin@medeabenjamin

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Zarah Sultana MP@zarahsultana

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The People’s Forum@PeoplesForumNYC

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Melanie Schweizer @Melaniebelizi

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Gaza Notifications@gazanotice

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Caitlin Johnstone@caitoz

Mohamad Safa@mhdksafa

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api. 3

A forensic doctor who examined the bodies of some of the 15 paramedics and Palestinian rescue workers shot dead by Israeli forces in Gaza finds evidence of execution-style killing, based on the “specific and intentional” location of shots at close range. https://theguardian.com/world/2025/apr

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Irlandarra@aldamu_jo

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Dr.Hamza Alsharif @Hamzasharif5750

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MUST WATCH!

American doctor in Gaza tells @amanpour of the “sheer terror” she experienced when Israel broke the ceasefire and began bombing Gaza again. But the doctor also calls out the media companies who are “manufacturing consent” for this genocide.

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Taj Ali@Taj_Ali1

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Sulaiman Ahmed@ShaykhSulaiman

?￰ﾝﾓﾲ?￰ﾝﾓﾶ? ? @JimmyJ4thewin

Howard Beckett@BeckettUnite

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Ep 30 – Dr. As’ad Abu Khalil (The Voice Behind the Angry Arab News Service)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsnK2SzewnI)

In Episode 30 of The Enlightenment Podcast, Shamim and Hanan sit down with Dr. As’ad Abu Khalil, a political scientist, author, and prominent commentator on Middle Eastern affairs.

Dr. As’ad Abu Khalil, is best known for his critical perspective on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and his outspoken critiques of Zionism. He gained a wide following through his long-running blog, the Angry Arab News Service—a blog that has been a key platform for critical analysis of regional politics—and has since transitioned much of his commentary to Twitter/X, where he continues to challenge mainstream narratives and advocate for justice.

He is a Professor of Political Science at California State University, Stanislaus, and has also served as a Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley.

Born and raised in Lebanon—to a mother from Beirut and a father from Tyre in South Lebanon— Dr. As’ad Abu Khalil, lived experience in the region profoundly informs his academic and political work.

In this episode, Shamim and Hanan delve into Dr. As’ad Abu Khalil’s views on Zionism, justice, and the broader struggle for liberation in the Middle East. With his trademark clarity and candor, he discusses the role of intellectual resistance, the failures of mainstream media, and the importance of maintaining an uncompromising stance on human rights and Palestinian advocacy.

Transkripzioa:

0:05

[Music]

0:12

welcome to the Enlightenment Podcast to our listeners and viewers all over the world we’re we’re thrilled that people

0:17

are tuning in from so many different places as we engage in what we hope is a meaningful dialogue about Palestine

0:23

particularly providing some insight and some context that we feel is often missing from mainstream legacy media

0:30

while also celebrating Palestine’s really rich traditions and culture and history today we are thrilled to be

0:38

joined by Dr assad Abu Khalil to discuss Palestine Zionism and the overall quest

0:45

that we’re all on for justice dr assad welcome to the Enlightenment Podcast

0:50

thank you so much for inviting me i’m very glad to be here it’s an absolute pleasure let me give you a little bit of bio originally from Lebanon um Dr assad

0:58

Abu Khalil is a political scientist an author and a commentator and a prominent

1:03

critic of US foreign policy in the Middle East through his blog The Angry Arab News

1:09

Surface as catchy titles go I think the Angry Arab is right up there I have to say i’ve got a question about that later

1:15

um Dr a Khalil is a professor at California State University Stannislaus

1:21

and a visiting professor at UC Berkeley so on we go very excited to have you

1:27

here thank you thank you thank you and

1:33

and Sharim and I are very excited to have you as she said and I wanted to start by the first um question about you

1:41

you have a very influential voice in Middle Eastern politics and you have Lebanese roots and you’re in the

1:47

diaspora so I’d love to know a bit more about your experience and how it shaped your identity and your approach to

1:53

issues um like Palestine uh as you said I am Lebanese originally

2:00

although whenever I used to go across the world and give lectures on Palestine

2:06

Palestinians always assume that I am one of them and I am honored by that assumption because of my strong advocacy

2:12

for Palestinian although originally I am Lebanese by birth my mother is from Beirut uh and my father is from Ty in

2:20

South Lebanon so I grew up in Lebanon and uh I think if you are openeyed you

2:26

cannot escape the agony of Palestinians all around you in a place like Lebanon i

2:32

do not recall a time when the Palestinians were not subjected to merciless savage attacks by Israel or

2:39

even harassment by Lebanese authorities and Lebanese army i mean it I was 13

2:45

years old in 1973 when the Lebanese fighter jets back then they had fighter

2:50

jets and they were used for the only time in history of Lebanon but not against Israeli attacks but against

2:56

Palestinian refugee camps so I was certainly educated by the people around me i uh learned about revolution and

3:04

about injustice from Palestinian refugee camps chhatila Bourji that I used to

3:09

frequent as a student and I became an activist on my own and I learned about

3:15

Palestine firsthand from Palestinians themselves who told me their life stories and who showed me around their

3:21

homes in refugee camps where as you know they put the keys to the house from which they were evicted back in 1948 and

3:28

where they have deeds to lands that they were stolen from them uh by the Zionist forces i also started early on learning

3:36

about Zionism and about the Arab-Israeli conflict and it has been my longtime

3:41

cause and passion and really vocation uh everything I do is centered about the issue of Palestine i mean I do not teach

3:48

exclusively on Palestine i teach many courses in political science and so on but uh as part of my role as a public

3:55

intellectual I felt coming to America is incumbent on me to speak on these issues

4:00

especially because either I saw many Arabs were reluctant to speak when I came in 1983 to study at Georgetown

4:07

University and I felt like I need to add my voice and secondly sometimes I was

4:13

not pleased with the delivery of the Palestinian message here in the United States which at the time was dominated

4:20

by PLO uh concessions and rhetoric which really pinned hopes

4:25

on the Labor Party of Israel and I wasn’t happy with all that even those dialogues that used to be happening

4:30

between Israelis and Palestinian I never could identify with i mean I have a maximalist position about Palestine even

4:36

though I certainly believe in the coexistence of Jews and Palestinians in

4:42

the holy land in the land of Palestine eventually where we have no upper side no discrimination and no injustices but

4:48

Palestinians should have their rights restored they have to have the right to be returned to their homes and to be

4:53

compensated as well uh and uh I know many people many Zists in the west bring up the issue of uh Arabs uh Jews Arab

5:02

Jews who were who left or were uh kicked out from Arab countries since 1948 and

5:10

to that I have no qualms in saying I totally believe in their return and their compensation as well but it is

5:15

unrelated to the issue of Arab Israeli question the notion of equating the two is a bogus attempt by the Zionist to

5:21

erase the injustice that was inflicted on the Palestinian refugee population the Palestinians had absolutely nothing

5:28

to do with the flight of Arab Jews and also there’s a lot of research now

5:33

happening in which we know the Zionists surreptitiously agitated and used terror methods like in Iraq in order to cause

5:40

the flight of Jews from Iraq i mean the recent memoirs of Abby Schlime of Oxford University talked about that in many

5:47

cases Jews left Arab countries because of the pressure of the United States i mean there was a Jewish community in

5:52

Syria and I remember in the 1980s when I lived in DC all Zionist organization were saying they should let the Jews of

5:58

Syria leave they should let them leave and then the Syrian government succumb to the pressure by the Americans and

6:03

they let them leave and when they left they said look they kicked them out so I mean these are the ploys of Zionist

6:09

propaganda that we are all familiar with yeah exactly exactly and and actually we did a podcast with Abby Schllay

6:15

Professor Schlame which was very enlightening as you say with his memoir and and not only in in uh Iraq but I

6:22

think also in Egypt in North Africa they tried everything they could to to push

6:27

Arab Jews out to to go to the Zionist colony of Israel so yeah correct and

6:34

they also irresponsibly and totally unfair to Arab Jews uh the Israeli intelligence agency like in the Labon

6:40

affair of 1955 in Egypt recruited among Egyptian Jews in order to start a terror campaign against British and American

6:46

targets to be blamed on the Egyptian government of Jamaal Abdul Naser so there are a variety of method that were

6:52

used by the Zionist in that regard yeah that’s right well I think you’re answering some of my question which is

6:59

about the title uh the angry Arab of your site it’s a striking title can you

7:04

just g give us a little more insight into why you chose it how it came about is it related to something in your

7:10

personal journey or academic journey right i mean it’s basically it’s a uh

7:16

you know parody of the stereotype of the ang but there’s a history behind it i came to the United States in 1983 and

7:22

there was a big story about American hostages that were held in Lebanon at the time and there was a search for

7:29

Lebanese preferably a Lebanese who is Shiite by birth on my father’s side my father is Shiite Lebanese and my mother

7:35

is Sunni Lebanon so they were looking for a role somebody who can speak in English to explain Lebanon you know from

7:42

the so-called Shiite perspective because there’s only one perspective there’s only one Arab perspective you know we

7:47

are we are a monolithic group you know like all stereotypes go we are not individuals with personalities and

7:53

individualities so uh that all fell on me so I was called on by mainstream media to speak about the Lebanese

7:59

situation and in that capacity while I was still a graduate student in Washington I appeared on the McNeel Lur

8:05

NewsHour which was a well-known news show uh on PBS stations across the

8:12

United States and the producer whenever she would call on me to appear on the show she would say “Well Assad we need

8:17

the angry Arab perspective today so here we’re calling on you.” So she would do it like as a joke but but to me I mean

8:24

Freud wrote a book about jokes right so there’s a lot of seriousness behind them uh so when I started a blog in 2003

8:32

after September 11 which was had tremendous impact on all of us Arabs and Muslims in the United States uh I chose

8:39

that title for my blog uh you know some people took it too seriously for me it was you know a pun on on the term yeah

8:48

yeah no and I think rightly so there is that horrible stereotype and it’s it’s it’s one way to take it back in a way

8:54

um I’m I’m a novelist and a filmmaker um and and uh so is Hanana a filmmaker and

9:00

we both are very strong on the power of words the power of stories uh visual stories to challenge perceptions can you

9:08

discuss the role that your writings play in challenging this pervasive narrative

9:13

that we’ve had up till now about Palestine well I mean I don’t want to exaggerate

9:18

my role and I don’t want to take myself too seriously or whatever I write i feel I’m an individual who is publicizing

9:25

whatever I have learned over the years i’ve read uh a lot over the years voraciously about the Arab-Israeli

9:32

question about Zionism Arab politics and I like to share that with my students as well as readers around the world if they

9:37

are interested uh I now write uh bilingually in English and in Arabic

9:43

although I am much freer in Arabic i write a daily column six days a week for

9:48

a Lebanese leftist newspaper Albbar and I also write for an American newsletter

9:55

uh not newsletter consortium news website uh fortnightly articles and uh I

10:01

have written academic articles over the years and so on uh English uh the English language I’m a prisoner of it i

10:08

do not feel I have the same facility and freedom to fly and to be flowery and so

10:13

on in Arabic I am much freer i loved Arabic literature from a very early age i was very precautious in my reading of

10:20

Arabic literature and as a result as I get older and my appreciation of the language and my use of it has expanded

10:26

tremendously so whenever I’m writing in English I feel there is a strain and struggle and effort and I don’t feel it

10:32

can uh reflect my imagination the same way like Arabic does but u you know I I

10:38

try my best to to deliver the message is a very beautiful no sorry sorry

10:45

Hannah i was I was just going to say about the because we’re talking about how does it challenge perceptions but I

10:51

think it’s not just that there’s a perception of the Arabic language um as the language of terror and the language

10:57

of uh all of the you know when you’re talking about some of the most beautiful poetry never mind the scientific

11:02

achievements and all of this uh that should be another podcast but um but you

11:07

know I think it’s really important to reclaim the Arabic language as well for its beauty and its facility and its you

11:13

know the the range of it absolutely true absolutely true and whenever I speak about Arabic language

11:18

in the west I remember a story that was told to me by Edward He told me that one time a famous New

11:24

York publisher asked him o over the summer like about authors from developing countries to recommend to be

11:30

translated so he gave me a long list from Africa and Asia and so on including in the Arab world and so the summer came

11:37

and and went and then Edward talked to the publisher and said so which titles

11:42

you have agreed to translate and he told him and he noticed that none of the Arabos were chosen so he said “How come

11:50

there were none from Arabic literature?” So the publisher told him I love that line he said “You see we didn’t choose

11:57

Arabic arabic is a controversial language.” So uh yeah I mean there are

12:03

people who get nervous in the West by you know hearing the Arabic language you know there are people who were taken off

12:08

plane for reading the Quran in the United States is after September 11 and now we are witnessing a campaign in the

12:14

name of fighting anti-semitism which targets students who are advocates for Palestinian rights and many of these activists are Jewish themselves so it is

12:22

an attack on Jewish activists as well of course yeah yeah yeah and we’ll talk about that in a in a bit but I agree

12:28

with Shamim and Arabic is a very beautiful very poetic language very um and very expressive language as you say

12:36

and um in in Arabic means for for the western audience and and listeners it

12:42

means the the news basically the the newspaper you write for um Assad your

12:48

blog post and your uh critique and analysis of policies and narrative do

12:55

you have a specific I know you you do you focus a lot on Palestine but are there specific themes that you focus on

13:01

within your your sort of um studies and analysis and writings

13:08

well my public advocacy have taken many shapes uh over the years uh I have been

13:13

very busy as a public speaker i’ve done uh speaking tours of British universities from south to north i’ve

13:20

done Canadian universities i’ve spoken at colleges across the United States uh

13:26

in more than 40 states I believe i’ve spoken in Pakistan in Morocco uh in

13:32

Lebanon places that would uh host me to speak after the Syrian war I have not I

13:38

have been like deplatformed because the message I had which was totally opposed to the Syrian rebels as well as to the

13:44

Syrian government was not palatable to mainstream academia or even leftist

13:49

academia at the time everybody was supposed to advocate for the senior rebel which I never wanted to do so I

13:55

have been deplatformed i rarely now get public speaking engagement on the blog i started in 2003 i was very frustrated

14:01

after September 11 and I felt a lot of people a lot of people were nervous at the time and they were not doing uh TV

14:08

interviews and so on so I did uh TV interviews i stopped doing American mainstream media many years ago uh I

14:14

just didn’t feel it was in any way useful or worthwhile and then I started the blog and I completely or gradually

14:21

went away from the blog by 2018 where I switched more to Twitter which is now a

14:26

more deliverable and accessible message uh to people around the world where I concentrate to write in Arabic and in

14:33

English as far as certain aspect of Zionism I speak often about the history

14:38

of the conflict because I feel I’m familiar with it i speak about Palestinian struggle over the years and

14:45

various movements their failures the successes the shortcomings uh I have

14:50

gotten to know people who were involved in Palestinian struggle directly like Josh Habash among others i’ve talked to

14:56

them at length interviewed him i interviewed Hassanah and so on so I feel I have uh accumulated a fairly wide

15:05

picture about the long history of Arab struggle against Israeli violence

15:12

yeah it’s fantastic so speaking of uh we were just talking about colleges and and

15:17

the clampdown that is happening it has been happening from the beginning but now it’s it’s certainly ramped up a

15:22

level this clamp down on Palestinian pro Palestinian voices in the US and and

15:28

really intentionally targeting university students encampments everybody they can uh without much

15:35

recourse to uh to what what what we think of as generally legalities you

15:40

live and teach in the US can you bit about any challenges that you’ve personally faced when sharing your views

15:46

about Palestine and and how do you navigate those yeah um yes of course there are many

15:52

challenges it depends where you are in America i mean if you are in a city where there’s a very strong Zionist

15:58

lobby influence in Washington DC or New York City uh it’s a different picture i live uh or I taught at university i’m

16:05

teaching at university which is in the central valley in California which is not very significant it is not at stake

16:11

there are not these pro-Israeli donors who are trying to dominate the message so I think the Israeli lobby focused

16:17

more on these Ivy League schools and so on in the big cities uh that are closely linked to the political establishment in

16:24

Philadelphia or New York City and so on and Los Angeles uh yes of course I’ve faced many challenges when I was fresh

16:31

out of college you know I would go for on job interviews and I would be really

16:36

upset by the kind of questions that were asked to me i mean TUS University was in the news recently because of the Turkish

16:42

students who was kidnapped in broad daylight from there and uh I the second

16:47

job I held teaching after Georgetown was Tus University and I remember uh one

16:54

student one fellow professors well-known international professor asked me at the time one time he said oh I heard that

17:02

you are a Muslim uh person and I said well I am Muslim born yeah and he said

17:08

but you’re not religious i heard I said no I’m not he said like he had expressed a isai of relief so these are early

17:15

example i remember another time Edward say wanted me to teach to be on the east

17:20

coast because he didn’t feel I was should be on the west coast so he interceded with a fellow a dean he knew

17:26

at small college in New York state and I went for the interview and then the dean was interviewing me and she said uh well

17:34

I know how you Arab men are how will you handle women in position of authority uh

17:40

like myself uh you know uh you would have a problem with that something like yeah and I said you know I didn’t get

17:47

the job obviously because the way I answered so I said to her I said how dare you make these assumptions about me

17:53

you don’t know anything about me I happen to be a professor of feminist studies on my college campus and in many

17:59

universities in America I used to be the faculty advisor of the feminist club on

18:05

my campus I held that job on my campus for many years i’ve done it uh you know I taught women’s studies at UC Berkeley

18:12

among other places i held a year’s fellowship at trend making women’s college to be teaching about women’s

18:18

studies in the Middle East and so on so I was very offended another time uh a dean at another university uh asked me

18:26

uh so you Arabs have problem with Jews and I was also equally offended and I said how how dare you make that

18:32

assumption we do not have a problem with Jewish people we have problem with Israel and Zionism and what happened to

18:37

the Palestinians so uh my university I have to say has been extremely

18:42

supportive i’ve never had any incident on my campus after September 11 I received a lot of death threats

18:48

especially because I used to appear on the media i received tons of them i used to collect them like I remember after

18:53

one appearance I would get 70 death threats uh somebody uh put an American

18:59

flag on my door with industrial glue that cannot be removed uh they would scroll things on my door

19:06

things like that but university have been very good to me they offered me police protection 24 hours i turned it

19:11

down but it has been offered to me over the years uh my students have been extremely supportive i’ve never had any

19:17

incident after October 7th however there was a city council meeting in which one

19:24

pro-Israeli person stood up and asked that I be expelled i mean that’s how they deal with freedom of speech you

19:31

know Zionists have absolutely no quams about their disrespect for freedom of speech and I remember the fellow because

19:37

you know u they try to trap uh professors who are Arabs now you know

19:42

they sent somebody to try to make you say things that are outrageous and so on i saw one video they tried to do that to

19:47

Rashid Khali at Columbia University he was my teacher at AUB uh when I was young and uh one time I had this person

19:54

came to my office and said uh I believe that Israel is a racist state will you

19:59

teach me that uh I mean obviously he was trying to have me say something outrageous like you want alex and I said look uh I don’t know what your agenda is

20:07

you know I’m an academic i teach uh Arab Israeli conflict my students become aware of both sides of the conflict and

20:12

so on i don’t do propaganda in my class and so on but um yeah

20:20

yeah no it’s quite terrific actually my aunt Sammy Halabi the um the very well-known Palestinian artist her alma m

20:26

of course yeah they canled her her exhibition at Indiana because she’s

20:31

outspoken about I’ve heard absolutely yeah so it’s all Yeah it’s all this

20:37

clamping down but on the on the positive side of your achievements and your impact because you’ve had a lot of

20:43

impact uh in your activism do you are there certain things that you feel um

20:48

that that have been concrete or where you’ve you’re most proud of relating to your support of the Palestinian rights

20:55

and where you’ve you’ve managed to make a shift and an impact i mean it’ll be too immodest for me to

21:02

speak about that so I would not feel comfortable talking about it i hope I have made a difference in the mind of

21:07

some young people or not so young i do get communication from around the world

21:12

uh by people who uh say nice things to me about my writings and so on but I also get uh messages by people who said

21:20

very nasty things about me so I get it uh so I have to be fair that I don’t only get praise and compliment uh but I

21:27

must say that uh if you are credible as a teacher or as a speaker and if you

21:32

speak out on issues uh from a perspective of truth and not pure

21:37

propaganda I think you will have a certain credibility and I feel I’ve established that with my students and I

21:43

tell my students I’m not here to brainwash anybody and I don’t think it’s my job I don’t believe that we should be

21:48

advocates in the classroom per se when I go and invited to speak at college university they are asking for my

21:54

opinions But uh I’m different in the classroom setting and so on uh but

22:00

uh I mean um I just feel I am one of many who have devoted uh you know their

22:07

life to the Palestinian issue i mean I feel my role is so much small when I think about professor W Khaled who is 99

22:14

years old who lives in Cambridge Massachusetts and I visited him last November this man has devoted

22:20

essentially to Palestine so who am I to speak about my impact when Khali founded

22:27

the first think tank in the Arab world devoted to Palestine the Institute of Palestine studies and it still does

22:34

tremendous work so there are many other people who’ve done so much more work than I do you’re being modest and you

22:40

but thank you for everything all all the impact that you do honestly and and since you’re also an expert on on the

22:47

history maybe we can explore that a little bit because Zionism is a supremacist settler colonial and a

22:53

ruthless ideology that started in the late 19th century and not many people know how well coordinated how relentless

23:01

how deliberate their propaganda was and still is to this day i’d love to know

23:08

your thoughts about this kind of how this fringe movement that started gained so much control that now it’s become

23:14

become the um dominant narrative if you like well I mean it is a it was a fringe

23:20

movement for sure and it was certainly not in any way when it started tied to

23:26

the Palestine homeland uh I mean uh if you think about the history of it I mean

23:31

first of all we have to always remember that many westerners were receptive to

23:36

the ideas and the project of Zionism because they themselves were anti-semitic many of the most advocates

23:44

for Israel in the west have been anti-semmites Richard Nixon was a great supporter of Israel he’s anti-semitic he spoke about Jews in a very porative

23:51

repugnant ways in private even in front of Henry Kissinger we’re speaking about FDR or Harry Truman Harry Truman who

23:58

recognized the state of Israel was an anti-semite and a racist in private uh we speak about Lord Balffor who issued

24:04

the famous Lord Balffor declaration of 1917 November 2nd which we still commemorate year after year uh for over

24:10

a century and Lord Balffor himself wanted uh you know he questioned the loyalty of Jewish people typical

24:17

anti-semitic trope uh initially the movement started as an understandable

24:23

response to anti-semitism and anti-semitic crime in Europe you know after the pgrams in Russia and the east

24:29

of settlement the pale of settlement and so There came a movement that wanted basically to find a solution to the

24:35

suffering of uh you know Jewish people especially with the driver affair of the 1890s when Jews realized uh to their to

24:44

their great sorrow that even French revolution France was not being hospitable and kind to Jewish people and

24:51

trumped up charges against rifles was an example that brought up so many anti-semitic cries in the streets of

24:57

Paris so in response of that uh Theodore Herzel started the movement and he wrote his book their yudinat in 1896 i say the

25:06

uh you know the title in German not because I studied German but because in

25:11

German udenat means the state of the Jews state of the Jews doesn’t mean the

25:16

Jewish state whenever you look up that book in the library today you will find it the Jewish state because to emphasize

25:23

the Jewish of the state which was not on his mind he was a secular person he wanted to have a haven for Jewish people

25:29

to flee the persecution and the anti-semitic crimes that were happening in Europe at the time because he witnessed as a journalist in Paris the

25:37

demonstration after the driver’s affair and uh within a year after the

25:42

publication of his book he convened the Zionist Congress in Basil Switzerland 1897 which basically made the aim very

25:49

clear to colonize Palestine but he didn’t initially think about Palestine in fact the section of the book which

25:55

talks about the destination it says Argentina or Palestine there were many locations that were discussed you know

26:03

Uganda Argentina uh you know many places even the United States was discussed at

26:09

some point Kentucky and so on but then uh you know religious Jews in Eastern

26:14

Europe said they will not attend the Zionist uh conference unless there is an agreement on the location being only in

26:21

Palestine for the historical Jewish affiliation and nostalgia for the place and that’s what happened and the

26:28

movement took off then it was very well organized and its supporters among the

26:33

Jewish community were extremely generous and very committed very much unlike the Arabs i mean you know uh I mean look at

26:40

this situation here in America today uh individ pro-Israeli donors are very

26:45

generous and committed to their cause people who sit on the boards of universities have you ever heard of one

26:51

wealthy Arab donor on the boards of American universities who spoken for the

26:58

right of students to advocate for whatever cause being pro-Israeli or pro Palestinian all what we’re asking is

27:04

freedom of speech we are not asking for exclusive freedom of speech for one side i would never call for that i want my

27:10

students to be exposed to a variety of perspective so Zionism took off and then it was forced by forced by the British

27:18

colonial mandate which took over Palestine after the first world war and by the 1930s Zionist organization in

27:26

Palestine were using the terror methods that we all hear about associate with

27:31

the Middle East today you can think about all the terrorist method they were engineered pioneered by the Zionist in

27:36

time barrel bombs letter bombs bombs on buses uh bombs on in embassies uh bombs

27:44

in ambulances we trapped cars uh throwing grenades in crowded markets all

27:50

those were uh by the admission of Zionist historians like Walter Leair in the history of Zionism by Zionism so the

27:57

Palestinians were on the receiving end and yet propaganda by Israel reversed the roles whereby the Palestinians are

28:04

now associated with terrorism and Israel is identified in the West as this most

28:10

army in the world the only democracy in the Middle East and so on anyway well that was going to be my next question is

28:17

exactly this that when when the Zionists did land on Palestine through whatever reason with the British um there was all

28:23

of this violence there was all of this absolute terror you know and when things like this If if things like this happen

28:30

in in Israel against Israelis it it is very much denounced as terror but the

28:36

fact that it’s happened over years and years and years to Palestinians is not even known as you say all of these

28:41

things that you’ve discussed blowing up the bombs and food markets on buses none of this stuff the downright massacres of

28:47

Palestinians that started in I think the 20s is not something that’s done so you’re actually right it’s not done at

28:54

all i mean look at me i’m Lebanese i’m not even Palestinians but when I grew up in Lebanon I witnessed her on regular

29:00

basis in the early 1970s and late60s the Israelis would bomb refugee camps these

29:05

are refugee camps they would bomb them with fighter jets americanmade American supplied fighter jets people do not know

29:12

for example look at this historical fact there was a refugee camp in Lebanon in South Lebanon called the Nabatri refugee

29:19

camp do you know that the refugee camp of Nabati that you have not heard of doesn’t exist anymore why because in

29:26

1974 the Israeli government labor government socialistic government

29:32

ordered the incineration of an entire refugee camp nabata refugee camp was

29:39

incinerated by series of air raid to the point of non-existence

29:45

well I didn’t know about that and that that tells you I’m sort of invested in it a little more than most people um

29:51

correct why is this happening what what what is the the power of the the Zionist

29:56

propaganda and the denial of these atrocities why does it keep working well I think this is a dilemma of Zionism and

30:03

eventually it has to come to uh to a point of implosion i mean on the one

30:09

hand Israel has massive force supplied to it by the United States and Germany and many other and France supplied it

30:15

with new material for nuclear weapons so in order to subjugate the native

30:20

population and the neighbors around them they have to resort to regular series of

30:26

mass violence all the time all the time and they can do that and they can subjugate for a period of time but on

30:34

the other hand this is like the analogy of the slave uh master and slave in Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit uh is

30:41

that by subjugating the population in series of mass violence on them the

30:47

population is embittered and they are recruited for future resistance movement

30:52

by Palestinians and by Arabs and this is why you know resistance groups can come and go and new ones will be created in

31:00

1982 there was nobah in Lebanon it was born in the womb so to speak of the

31:05

Israeli invasion of Lebanon hamas was created during the uprising of the Palestinian 1987 and fat movement

31:13

doesn’t exist anymore except you know as a pritorian guard for the occupation in Ramla and so on but it used to be one of

31:19

those resistance movement in 1965 uh so uh even ifah is finished off uh or Hamas

31:27

which is not the case from what I see but even if that takes place new movements will come about because it is

31:33

about resistance to Israeli violence and occupation people are not going to find

31:38

them pleasurable people have failed after a century and more of propaganda

31:43

by Israel and its allies to be convinced that this occupation is in their

31:49

interest and that is quite pleasurable absolutely and I think people since

31:55

October 23 they discovered history or they thought that’s when history started but as as more and more people are

32:03

excavating if you like they’re finding out the history and that since the start of the uh Zionist movement and settling

32:10

in Palestine that these atrocities and massacres and so on have been ongoing

32:15

which culminated in the genocide now so for example my my parents are Christian Palestinians my dad’s from Bethlehem my

32:23

mom is from Jerusalem and a Nakba survivor and her parents’ villa in West

32:28

Jerusalem was stolen they installed German Jews their building building in Hifa was also stolen and this happened

32:35

to to over 750,000 Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed and it and this

32:40

started before the British pulled out in May 48 the start in 47 um onwards this

32:47

sort of systematic ethnic cleansing which I’d love to um you know your thoughts on but the propaganda still

32:54

seems to bead that um the Palestinians chose you know in brackets chose to to

33:00

leave or were told by the their Arab neighbors just leave for a few weeks and then come back but this is all

33:06

fabrications and part of the hazar and the propaganda so I’d love to know your your thoughts on this and their

33:12

continued attempt till now to rewrite history to this day if you like well I mean you’re right look at the racism in

33:19

the West how Palestinians since 1948 have been saying all along that we have

33:25

been forced out of our land by force and we have been shot out they were death marches just like the Nazis did death

33:32

marches to the concentration camp the Zionist did marches outside of Palestine i mean George Habash’s own aunt died in

33:39

one of those death marches from La Ramla area and uh the Palestinians were saying all along that we were kicked out and

33:46

professor Khaled wrote an article in the 1950s about planet in a journal it

33:53

doesn’t exist anymore Middle East forum and in that uh magazine he spoke about

33:59

an Israeli plan on paper which basically planned the expulsion of Palestinians

34:04

ethnic cleansing of Palestinians at that time it wasn’t taken seriously it wasn’t believed look at the racists in the west

34:10

only when Israeli historian the so-called new historians of Israel dug through the Israeli archives and found

34:18

information to document plans and actual processes of ethnic cleansing that the

34:24

Palestinians were believed that yes they were kicked out of their lands and now even the New York Times will always say

34:29

about 1948 Nakba that Palestinians either were kicked out or left i mean

34:35

how do the Palestinian leave on their own valition they decided to take a uh trip a march from Hifa all the way to

34:43

Beirut for example i mean nobody left voluntarily they were all forced in order to uh to to leave yeah yeah yeah

34:50

very much so um and and I think it’s it’s now you’re very right the the new

34:56

historians and we um we know more about them but they tend to believe them more over our rhetoric our historians experts

35:04

like yourself and and others so it’s really we need we still have a way to go

35:09

right and you know Rosemary Sire uh the American uh historian published a book

35:15

in 1975 about the Palestinians from peasant revolutionaries and she basically collected the memories of

35:21

survivors of the Nikkba and they spoke about their experiences but they were ignored because he you cannot believe

35:27

the natives they lie you can only believe you know white people and Israelis yeah well that’s part of the

35:34

the colonizer playbook I believe um and I say that as the uh you know the

35:40

descendant of apartheid uh South African parents uh and grandparents who who who

35:46

grew up under a parttheid in South Africa which I thought was awful but I have to say having been to Palestine I

35:53

what I saw there was I I feel as bad or worse uh it’s you don’t want to compare these things but it but it certainly

35:59

you’re right to my mind is not not it’s definitely a partite which is a crime against humanity under international law

36:05

well as you know uh you know Desmond 2 to the famous arbishop in South Africa

36:11

he uh over time and over again he said you know Israel is an apathide state

36:17

this was long before these western human rights organization only a few years ago decided that oh yeah there is apathide

36:24

in Israel what why Why why have you been silent all these years i mean they are all complicit in the silence about the

36:30

reality of what Israel and Zionism has represented for the Palestinian native population and for the Arabs and surrounding countries look look what’s

36:37

happening today i mean as we speak Israel is engaged in bombing campaign against Lebanon against Syria against

36:44

Palestine they bombed Yemen in my own lifetime Israel has bombed I am 65 now

36:51

born in 1960 in my lifetime Israel has bombed the following countries: Tunisia Sudan Egypt Somalia Lebanon Syria Jordan

37:01

Palestine Iraq uh Yemen i think I’m leaving and down and Iran you’re

37:09

actually right iran and they downed a Libyan civilian airliner in 1973 i mean

37:14

uh they killed around the world according to an Israeli journalist uh Ronin Bergman who writes for the New

37:20

York Times uh in his book Rise and Kill Israel has committed more assassination

37:25

than any country in the world since Second World War more than any other country and of course when you think about that assassination sometimes they

37:32

kill somebody because he resembles a Palestinian leader i mean they killed in 1974 a Moroccan waiter because they

37:39

thought he was Abi Hassan Salami uh on another occasion they killed a Palestinian scholar in Italy writer who

37:46

had absolutely no he’s never held a gun in his life because they thought he was involved in something even Abra Salam

37:52

they thought that he was responsible for what is called Black September series of operations and he wasn’t really linked

37:59

to Munich at all unlike what they thought and so on so uh they can they

38:04

can do no wrong in the eyes of the West and we’ve seen that i mean we have an issue as an Arab with the West in

38:10

general it is a monolith we are not imoliths they are a monolith it is a military alliance through and through

38:17

we’ve seen it in the issue of Ukraine we we’ve seen it in their solidarity with Israeli violence and genocide in Gaza uh

38:24

they are the one who are abetting these crimes year after year uh and certainly they make it uh very obvious to all of

38:31

us Arabs in that they don’t value our human lives the way they value lives of Israelis um yeah which they don’t try to

38:39

hide it which is the basis of any kind of apartheid actually it’s because we are better than no doubt and there’s an ethnos supremacy to the to the whole

38:46

core of Israel that has been repeated at infinitism by by Israeli leadership and

38:51

very much so in the last year or so but but most people listening to this haven’t been to Palestine uh even those

38:57

of Palestinian descent whose parents lost their homes some of them cannot go back they either don’t understand what

39:05

Israeli apartheid means or they don’t believe it can you just discuss a little bit about you know the humiliation of

39:11

life under a part what what are the differences between Palestinians and Israelis uh in in these in the same

39:18

place the illegal well I have not I have not been to Palestine because as

39:23

Lebanese I am opposed that Arabs visit the place except Palestinians whatever passport they carry they should visit

39:29

and see the place and so on but I believe in the boycott and uh as Arabs I believe we should adhere to it but uh

39:37

the litany of charges against Israeli apathite is very long there are many good books on that the first one is by

39:43

subreious Arabs and Israel which catalog the whole series of laws measures regulation in which Israel blatantly

39:50

distinguish between Arabs and Israel it goes all the way from funding to the substance of material being taught in

39:55

school to the special rows designated for Israelis in the West Bank and once for for the Palestinians to the

40:01

budgeting to the fact that only the Jews are recognized with the right to self-determination but not the others in

40:07

the state uh I mean it’s becoming more and more apparite it has always been appetite because people forget that in

40:14

1948 the Arabs who the only small percentage who were allowed to stay behind 50,000 out of over 800,000

40:21

Palestinians those who were allowed to stay behind uh were put under military

40:26

rule until 1966 uh I mean military rule didn’t disappear i mean look what happened the

40:32

last year palestinians who are citizens of Israel have been summoned over likes

40:38

on Facebook and I mean we’re talking about professors and students and professionals and so on that’s the

40:44

record of Israeli apparite and there is also another level of Israeli appetite against Jews from Arab countries i mean

40:52

the country is blatantly racist against Jews who are not European look how many I mean the country is 50/50 split we

40:58

don’t see any Jews who are from Arab and Muslim and African countries uh I mean the only one David Levy who held the

41:05

position of foreign minister was the only exception I can think of uh but um

41:10

there’s a book by Tom Sev one of those new historians who spoke about how the new Israeli state treated the Jews from

41:17

Yemen horrendously they treated them as subhumans made no bones about it yeah

41:23

obviously Zionism sorry yes zionism Zionism is a European

41:29

movement it is a European colonial racist movement from the start made it

41:35

very clear in the writing of Fudel Herzel the creating an outpost of civilization versus outpost of

41:41

backwardness in Asia they spoke blatantly about pushing them into the desert he wrote that in his diary

41:47

Wiseman writing David Bengurian’s uh writings and orders to his subordinates

41:52

they never made any any bones about it even in 1967 the air force order of the

41:58

day was which started the war was pushing them into the desert and yet they invent slogans they invent the

42:04

notion that Abdul Naser said that we’re going to throw the Jews into the sea he never said that they claimed that said

42:10

that he never said that either yeah and yet said Yeah sorry go ahead yeah go

42:16

ahead go ahead no I just say yes said many bad awful things but it’s not one of them yeah yeah and it becomes the

42:23

sort of the propaganda that they keep regurgitating again and again i think from the bombings also they also didn’t

42:29

they attack outside Lebanon the US liberty and and killed American sailors

42:35

as well and covered up absolutely covered up one student asked me about

42:40

that in my Arab Israeli conflict course in 97 they bombed an American reconnaissance ship the Liberty which

42:48

resulted in the killing of scores of sailor and many of the survivors I don’t

42:53

know if there are still any left but used to go around the country and speak on college campuses i know they came to

42:58

my campus uh and spoke about their tragedy and they were very angry at the government because they covered it up in

43:04

order not to embarrass Israel uh I mean Israel was caught spying in the United States in the 1980s the famous Polar

43:11

affair and so on and yet he was forgiven and let go back to his country to Israel

43:16

yeah no it’s a ruthless ideology definitely now we’re seeing it

43:22

um also part of their propaganda as you mentioned earlier about being the only democracy in the Middle East could you

43:29

discuss this uh accuracy or lack of uh and that that propaganda as well well I

43:36

maintain that the freest country in the Middle East is actually Lebanon uh it is really the place where you can express

43:42

all point of view you can criticize anybody any political party without fear of punishment or penalties you can like

43:48

and dislike anything on Facebook and social media israel is not that place israel is a limited democracy for its

43:56

Jewish citizens with privileges for European Jews over the years that have been documented uh so it’s a very

44:03

limited case also as uh you know the author Nasim Talib has argued that it’s

44:09

not a sustainable project because for its preservation it requires the use of

44:15

regular violence on a large number of people all the time I mean for how long can this formula

44:21

continue it’s not sustainable yeah um Assad Han and I are very big on

44:28

representation in our films our books everything that we do um so we’re looking now at an you an 18month brutal

44:35

liveream genocide in Gaza uh we’ve seen severe dehumanization of Palestinians to

44:41

the extent that even though everybody can see what’s going on nothing is actually reaching governments even

44:47

though people are coming out to to uh to protest this this Zionist propaganda

44:52

machine after years of social engineering and suppressing the history suppressing the facts is really still

44:58

having a huge impact when it comes to influencing opinion so for us we feel like the need for effective

45:04

representation of Palestinian voices is is more important than ever so what what do you think are the steps to reaching

45:12

to improving Palestinian representation but also how did we get here to start with how did we get so dehumanized for

45:19

for Palestinians well I mean it’s it it wasn’t our doing right i mean the Westerners decided not

45:26

to allow the natives to speak for themselves i mean oftent times they are represented by Israelis i mean you read

45:32

articles I read the New York Times every day in the Washington Post every day there are articles about Palestinians in which no Palestinians interviewed edward

45:38

said always complain about that sometimes they’ have Israelis to speak on behalf of the Palestinian point perspective sometimes if they want to

45:44

speak to an Arab lately they would get a uh journalist who is employed by Saudi

45:50

or UAE media certainly not sympathetic to the Palestinians uh that’s when they

45:55

want an Arab represented and lately there’s a new trend they bring those Arabs at western think tanks most of

46:02

whom are indebted to Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates who pay their salary or or they work for them directly

46:09

uh so you get a very distorted point of view about the natives i think we should insist on speaking for ourselves as much

46:15

as we can even though we are often ostracized and isolated and misrepresented and unrepresented

46:21

completely and uh but the westerners have very sinister agenda in

46:26

representation i remember one time ABC news had a need for a translation by a

46:32

Muslim preacher so one producer contacted me to if I know any uh Muslim

46:39

uh translator an Arab translator so I suggested one to them very professional person in Washington to see a

46:44

Palestinian friend of mine and so I called him the next day i said “Did they call on your service?” He said “No they

46:49

didn’t like that.” I said he said “Why?” He said “Because they wanted a heavily Arabic accented translator so that it

46:57

sounds threatening on the air.” And sure enough when they aired that piece of translation it was horrible somebody

47:02

with very bad pronunciation of English and he had very garbly voice and gravely

47:07

voice and so on and it’s stereotype i mean they love the stereotype uh they

47:12

don’t want real people you know and they don’t see us as individual it’s like uh you know Renoir’s painting uh you know

47:19

the mosque we are like a blob without any shapes uh that’s how we are to them

47:26

so uh in the year I spent at the women’s college and all these my colleagues were very wonderful progressive uh feminists

47:32

and so on so one time one of my colleagues she asked me she said you know I’m so excited you’re coming here

47:38

because we want somebody with an Arab perspective and remember I challenged her on that notion i said I’m not

47:44

bringing an Arab perspective i bringing you know one Arab perspective not the

47:49

Arab perspective you know we have many perspective we cannot speak about an American perspective on abortion or on

47:55

women’s rights you know there are many perspective they they don’t see us in diversity and fluidity and so on exactly

48:02

exactly and and you’re right and they try to bring like you said before colonized if you like um uh Arab

48:09

speakers whether they’re funded by the UAE or uh totally sorry or Israel or

48:16

especially yeah to to reinforce that stereotype that they want

48:22

the West or Western audience to believe um and in terms of the uh settler colony

48:28

of Israel’s track record on ceasefires uh again now we’re we’re we’re living and breathing it they’ve always

48:35

systematically violated them and yet they frame every collapse as blaming

48:42

whether it’s the Palestinians or the Lebanese even though the world and the media the Western media keeps re

48:47

regurgitating that it was our side who broke the ceasefires can you talk about this because that’s there’s been

48:53

something going on since you know eternity basically you’re

48:58

absolutely right take the last ceasefire with Lebanon they have violated it more than 1,000 times there has not been one

49:05

violation by the other side which has in Lebanon not one uh it’s all by Israel

49:10

and yet the American government condemned the Lebanese side for these violations they said it’s our fault that

49:15

Israel is violating the ceasefire the same thing with Palestinians israel has always had a very long history of

49:21

disrespecting all agreement and treaties that it signs with Arabs uh since 1948

49:28

even before that all agreement they pledges promises they made they were broken they never took them seriously

49:33

even when they agreed to the Balf for Declaration they knew they wanted much more than a national home for the Jewish

49:40

people in Palestine they wanted all of Palestine and they clearly and bluntly asked the British to change the phrasing

49:46

to become Palestine be as a Jewish home uh you know national home for the Jewish

49:52

people even a state at the time they wanted to call it but they British said it would be better to camouflage the phrasing so that we would not upset the

49:59

Arabs that early on uh and even in the history of PLO and Israel ceasefire when

50:05

I was still in Lebanon before 1983 before 1982 there was a ceasefire that was observed by the PLO israel is the

50:10

one that violated it and it does all the time but it doesn’t get condemned by the

50:16

western world the western world is a full partner in Israeli crimes since 1948 and now we can speak about full

50:23

Arab partners in Israeli crime especially UAE which is a very close partner of Israeli crimes nowadays yeah

50:30

very much so and and just few days ago they they bonded uh Beirut not only Lebanon and and uh yeah just yesterday

50:39

yesterday Yeah exactly so it’s really atrocious um but yeah that’s continuing

50:46

their their aggression if you like um and their sort of bigger plan for the area yeah well let let’s talk about that

50:52

actually Han since you brought it up is there’s these these regular attacks call them breaking ceasefires or just

50:58

straight out attacks on various countries in West Asia from from is is

51:04

it true that Israel has never quite it’s never really defined its borders because they and they now illegally occupy land

51:10

in in many countries and control a large part of those countries water supplies and and and important resources can you

51:17

just talk a little bit about that because that’s something again Yeah no I mean Israel does not want even peace

51:24

with Arabs it wants subjugation of the Arabs even those who do not want a fight with Israel like the new Syrian

51:30

government these jihadis who are now in charge of the Syrian government have made every attempt to reassure Israel

51:37

we’re going to protect your security our only enemy is Iran and despite all these reassurances Israel continues to bomb

51:44

Syria continues to bomb Syria they want to subjugate them so that they will surrender to them and they will be

51:50

forced to sign a humiliating treaty the likes of which they made Lebanon sign in

51:55

1983 May 17 agreement but it was within a year reversed and revoked by the Lebanese parliament uh Israel is having

52:03

difficulty if you think about it of course they are militarily powerful of course we are weak of course Arab governments are sellouts uh all of them

52:09

without exception but on the other hand after more than a century the Palestinians have not submitted to their

52:15

dictats they refuse to surrender i never thought that after all this bombing of

52:21

Gaza the Palestinians are not surrendering you know I mean sure now the UAE government and the Palestinian

52:28

Authority in Ramallah are engineering few hundreds of young people to protest against Hamas and so on but uh the

52:34

Palestinian sentiment of Gaza is one of defiance and one of resistance against

52:40

Israel yeah and it’s the Palestinian sum that and and as you said earlier when we

52:46

first started talking Assad it’s it doesn’t matter what the movement it’s the ideology you cannot crush is the

52:53

love of your land of the love of um your culture your history yeah correct and

52:58

that’s what I mean that’s what bothered the Zionist they did not anticipate and

53:03

this is something that Schlummo in his book on making of modern Zionism wrote about admitted and he’s a Zionist he

53:10

said they never anticipated that the Palestinians are going to be able to forge a Palestinian national movement

53:17

the only Zionist leader was the farright Japotinski who said do not assume the

53:23

Palestinian going to are not going to fight back against Zionism that they will he’s the only one who had failed

53:28

but in response he suggested the creation of the iron wall against Palestinians the use of force against

53:34

the Palestinians subjugate them but after a century Israel is not having you know an easy time to subjugate the

53:40

Palestinians yeah no absolutely because Zionism is is a racist ethnosuppreist

53:46

ideology but but since the genocide of we’re seeing a a very large number of

53:54

Jewish people in the west especially not not in the settler colony of Israel but in the west distancing themselves from

54:00

this Zionist ideology and saying this we are Jewish and we don’t we’re

54:06

anti-ionist if you like um what strategies do you recommend to dismantle

54:12

this ideology and to get more and more people sort of aligned if you like to to

54:18

um to overthrow or to dismantle the Zionist ideology i’m so glad you brought that up Hanan it’s a very important

54:24

point which is the fact that we in the Palestinian movement have always had Jewish comrades with us always i have

54:31

never spoken at an event on Palestine on US college campuses without having Jewish students being part of that club

54:38

or the movement invariably invariably look in this protest movement in the

54:44

last year and a half jewish students have been in the forefront in every place you can think of from Colombia to

54:51

San Francisco and in between uh also public opinion surveys indicate younger

54:56

Jews are much less likely to identify with the state of Israel just think about it onethird of Jewish people in

55:03

America describe what’s happening in Gaza as genocide that’s an amazing number there is a lot of awareness i

55:10

mean I know that uh Jews I have befriended over the years reached out to me during this war telling me how awful

55:15

how bad they feel and so on uh so uh Jewish protesters have been part of the movement and this is why it has been

55:22

amazing that Zionists want to paint all of us in the movement as anti-mite it doesn’t work like that having said that

55:29

we in the Palestinian movement and I always say that in Arabic and English we should be vigilant not to allow

55:35

anti-semmites to infiltrate into our rank and that happens often enough i see it on social media i see it sometimes a

55:43

former Israeli who pretends to be against Zionism and he would say mean things about Judaism and Jews and so on

55:48

we should reject these people categorically our movement I always tell them is way too just way too sublime to

55:56

allow for these kind of creeps to seep through we won’t allow them and uh we

56:01

should reject anti-semitism and we should also remember that there are anti-semites on the other side with

56:06

Israel many of the western support of Israel are anti-semites themselves yeah yeah especially the Christian

56:12

evangelical movement and all the others and far right in Europe christian Zionist and Europe of course yeah right

56:19

no 100% you’re right we have to be very very um vigilant is the right word right

56:27

absolutely because um the other question I wanted to ask you is is I’ve been surprised you know we talked about

56:32

feminism and your your role as a feminist and and we always considered ourselves to be very pro- free speech

56:39

women’s rights human rights in general but it’s it does seem like there’s a a

56:44

kind of stark inaction in certain people like the feminist movement in general um

56:50

in in the West when it comes to Israel’s massacres during this genocide of a

56:55

disproportionate number of women and children and civilians uh what are your thoughts it has it has been terrible but

57:02

before I continue I want to say the following about being a feminist i’ve often been asked what on college campuses how is it that you are an Arab

57:08

man who is a feminist and I always get really upset by that question and I always respond to that by saying why are

57:14

you surprised like American men are all radical feminists and it is uncharacteristic only for Arab men to be

57:21

feminists and so on so on that question yeah after October 7th I kept checking

57:27

the website of the National Organization of Women the main feminist organization

57:32

in the United States and they issued one statement only to condemn Hamas and the

57:39

Palestinians they issued no statement of sympathy the last time I checked about Palestinians not only that I think that

57:47

liberal groups look at civil libertarians where are they now what’s happening to freedom of speech in the United States where are these advocates

57:54

uh I mean the civil rights movement have been silent during this war against

57:59

freedom of speech in the United States on college campuses or discrimination against Arabs and Muslims at airports we

58:05

don’t hear anything about that by civil rights leaders i think many of them have been co co-opted by the Zionist lobby

58:11

there’s no question about that uh having said that I also noted that during the

58:16

months of the war of genocide in Gaza many African-Americans were in the forefront to put pressure on the

58:22

Democratic Party to sympathize with the Palestinians many many Christian churches black churches were in the

58:29

forefront to communicate to the White House directly about their pain at the horrible stand of the Democratic Party

58:36

yeah you’re right and and actually we we noticed that also our so-called liberal European feminist friends female friends

58:45

were in the west and in Europe they not a word and if anything they actually supported immediately the settler colony

58:52

of Israel after October 7th and we were horrified by by the views because we

58:58

never realized the sort of level of dehumaniz dehumanization and anti-Arab

59:04

anti-Muslim anti-Palestinian that was there but we didn’t realize it there no no and the

59:11

thing is like sometimes they are unaware of their own racism to put it very bluntly i remember I watched the movie

59:18

Steen Spielberg’s movies uh Munich in in Berkeley with a very progressive

59:25

filmmaker and after we finished watching the movie so I asked her how did what did she think and she thought it was so

59:32

nice and sensitive to the Palestinians and I was livid i thought it was a

59:37

terrible movie racist insensitive it just shows you i mean this is progressive very progressive Berkeley it

59:44

I mean if there’s something called typical Berkeley progressive she was a typ she’s a typical Berkeley progressive and she couldn’t see the dehumanization

59:50

of Palestine in that movie yeah no I agree and and um sorry Shim

59:57

you’re saying no no not at all i I think that’s what it is it’s so pervasive and so ingrained that that vigilance as you

1:00:05

said against anti-semitism which is so important you know equally there needs to be a vigilance about uh exactly

1:00:12

putting this kind of assumption on on on the on Arabs and stereotypes or that as

1:00:18

you said I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had this experience where you know you’re actually you know coming out for

1:00:24

feminism and being being treated badly as a result it’s it’s Yeah right yeah

1:00:31

and and in terms of um you know democracy I I believe that the only

1:00:36

solution for Palestine is a single democratic decolonized state from the river to the sea and with equal rights

1:00:43

and justice to all regardless of your nationality your skin color your

1:00:48

religion and so on which is not something very hard to imagine because in the west anywhere that supposedly has

1:00:54

a democracy it doesn’t matter this you know you’re an equal citizen with equal rights and of course the right of return

1:01:00

to of of all Palestinians which is recognized under international law but

1:01:05

Assad can you talk about your vision of a just and lasting solution because we talked to various people and some say

1:01:12

two states some say confederacy um and so on so and and when do you

1:01:17

think that could be achieved and what do you think is realistic and and doable well I mean uh I mean on that I’m very

1:01:24

uh similar to the vision that you represented and articulated i’m along those lines really and I do not feel uh

1:01:31

I think Palestinians should sort these things out we should figure out matters of compensation matters of immigration

1:01:38

of uh you know uh how is the new form of government is going to be uh do they

1:01:44

represent individuals or ethnic communities religious communities and so on these things have to be sorted out by

1:01:50

the Palestinians and uh residents of the Holy Land at the time uh I think it’s

1:01:55

very realistic it’s more realistic than the project of today i mean there is much more historical survivability to

1:02:02

the formula of coexistence uh and the restoration of Palestinian rights in Palestine than there is for

1:02:09

this violent project of mass vinus every year or every two years uh it’s not sustainable as I said it’s it’s not

1:02:15

going to you know withstand the test of history and for that reason Palestinians

1:02:21

are asking for a secular state and that’s the PLO vision from 1968 has been their demand they never said they wanted

1:02:28

to discriminate against Jews contrary to all the propaganda myth about the Israeli lobby in America and elsewhere

1:02:34

um I see that happening not anytime soon as long as the United States is

1:02:39

bankrolling supporting sponsoring this violent project uh Israel will continue

1:02:44

to get away with it unfortunately and it seems the more um for them to

1:02:50

survive whether in Netanyahu’s government or all the other governments they need that continuous war uh machine

1:02:57

yeah to go that it’s part of the ideology it’s the ideology exactly and and and just one more thing because the

1:03:04

settlements have been increasing whether it’s liquid or labor or they haven’t stopped and the so-called peace treaties

1:03:10

that they keep accusing the Palestinians of of breaking we know are are it’s a farce and um they it just bought them

1:03:17

more time to to continue their expansion can you talk about that a bit and what your thoughts are well I mean I never

1:03:24

believe that Israel wanted peace uh they never showed any interest in that and

1:03:29

there’s a history of them in fact uh sabotaging peaceful overtures by Arab

1:03:35

governments from very early on from the 1950s uh they didn’t want that they want

1:03:40

to subjugate and pose their hgemony throughout the region and something they’re still trying to do when they

1:03:46

bomb in faraway places like Yemen uh I think also there has never been a peace camp in Israel that’s a total

1:03:52

misinvented by liberals of the west uh I mean I used to clear back in the 1970s from leftwing group popular front for

1:03:59

the democratic for the Palestine democratic front for Palestine that we are not against dialogue with Israelis

1:04:04

but we are only for dialogue with radical people who are uh for real peace

1:04:10

and they used to mention all always maken which is radical Israeli group left-wing group really radical group and

1:04:17

I one time I wanted to do research on that group and I found out like we’re talking about five members these were

1:04:23

five members one is in London one is I don’t know where and they made it sound like I thought there’s a mass movement

1:04:29

called Matzbin when I left Lebanon in 1983 and I realized it wasn’t the case and the so-called peace now movement

1:04:35

where are they now these are racist movement that were interested in what is for the benefit of Israel they never

1:04:40

care about the Palestinians you see all these mass protests in Israel today it’s all about the Israeli hostages none of

1:04:45

them speak about the 8,000 Palestinian hostages they don’t speak about the genocide that’s still occurring in Gaza

1:04:51

even which impresses many liberals in the west it impressed me it’s a racist Zionist newspaper that is intended to

1:04:59

make liberalism in the West Zionist liberal in the West feel good about the Zionist project yeah exactly because

1:05:05

liberal Zionist is another way of of disguising Zionism it’s really at the end of Absolutely to make it palatable

1:05:11

for Western audience and press absolutely and I always remind people how Aritz captures the leadership of 4%

1:05:18

of Israelis people think it’s like the main leading Israeli newspaper that’s how the New York Times and other newspaper talk about it most Israelis

1:05:25

read like you know uh u very right-wing blatantly racist

1:05:32

publication yeah as you say I mean what’s really uh shocking is even up till now uh the majority I think 92% or

1:05:41

whatever the last number of Israelis still think that there isn’t enough

1:05:46

force against Palestinians and people in they want more force you’re absolutely right i keep following these stubbling

1:05:52

opinion surveys they show the fundamental racism of Israeli society our problem is not with the Israeli state it’s also with the Israeli society

1:05:59

itself that is so racist and so violent against Palestinians and Arabs i remember there was one after several

1:06:06

months of genocide they did a survey in which 1% of Israeli

1:06:11

1% accepted the idea of a ceasefire in Gaza 1% accepted tolerated they didn’t

1:06:18

demand it they tolerated the idea of a ceasefire i mean look at American politics i mean Bernie Sand is

1:06:24

considered a socialist here in America a far-left person in in in Congress and he

1:06:30

supported and opposed gen opposed ceasefire for many months for many months and he still refuses to condemn

1:06:37

what’s happening as genocide and he always referred to it as Netanyahu’s war it’s not that war it is every political

1:06:44

party since 1948 war all of them were part of the ongoing campaign of patterns

1:06:50

of wars and genocide against Palestinians yeah well it says a lot about the PR and

1:06:55

it says a lot about the uh the perception that is that is presented and

1:07:01

the racism it is blatant racism unfortunately absolutely way u because

1:07:07

you know that in if you took certain instances and put in white Europeans uh

1:07:12

in the place of Palestinians there’s no way they would be tolerated uh including this absolutely um but on let’s look at

1:07:20

a happier thing is that that the Palestinian movement is certainly you know gaining a lot more global support

1:07:25

from people who you know are as you say are so young that they don’t remember this you know these the peace process or

1:07:32

anything about where this started but they’ve looked into it and there’s a blatant injustice that is firing them up

1:07:37

um so people are boycotting they’re raising their voices in solidarity they’re going to protests keeping that

1:07:43

momentum now seems really really important because we need a lot more of it just to push into government uh

1:07:50

change but so what advice do you have for activists who want to make a meaningful impact well I think not to

1:07:57

despair at this particular point when I speak to Arabs I really worry that there’s a mood of despair creeping in to

1:08:04

the to to to the region especially because of the Israeli military and genocidal successes against you know

1:08:11

resistance group in the region uh the fact that they succeeded in killing a

1:08:17

large number of leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah and attacking many of their weapon and arsenals and so on uh a lot

1:08:24

of people feel like uh you know we we can’t fight a state like Israel because America is behind it but on the other

1:08:30

hand you’re absolutely right I feel a lot of awareness throughout the world that is not something Israel can do that

1:08:37

I mean this war against freedom of speech in America is an indication of their failure right I mean in the past

1:08:44

they used to argue we’ll debate their point of view we’ll have a free debate between us and them and let’s see what happens but now they don’t want debate

1:08:51

they realize they have the majority of opinion on college campuses so what do we do they are not asking for what they

1:08:58

used to do let’s let’s invest in more Israeli visiting professorship on college campuses let’s not invite more

1:09:05

Israeli professors to speak in America no now they say let’s stamp out freedom of speech on college campuses because it

1:09:11

is bothersome to the interest of Israel there’s a lot of awareness around the world i see it in America i saw it in

1:09:17

Italy last year uh protest by young people i was driving in a beachfront

1:09:23

community of rich Americans uh here in California in central California and I

1:09:28

saw the sounds of people chanting it i couldn’t dream when I got closer that

1:09:34

these were Americans chanting from the river to the sea i never thought in my lifetime I would see something like that

1:09:40

in this particular community of retired wealthy Americans it shows you public opinion is changing and that’s why

1:09:46

Zionist lobby is very worried and they are resorting to heavy tactics but they are overplaying their hand this is

1:09:53

becoming like McCarthyism somebody is going to finally like that lawyer

1:09:58

uh forgot his name who stood up before Congress and challenged Senator McCarthy and somebody’s going to do that to the

1:10:04

Israeli lobby at some point and say this can’t continue have you no sense of

1:10:09

decency at long last yeah yeah and I think they uh their foreign policy of standing for human rights and democracy

1:10:16

and freedom of speech that they supposedly advocated for all these years

1:10:21

on foreign policy and yet they supported all the dictatorships that Exactly the line exactly but now this kind of

1:10:29

hypocrisy is being exposed as you say locally with the Americans with the Canadians because the it’s the mosque

1:10:35

has dropped and they’re saying that they’re cracking down of so-called freedom of speech that they advocated so

1:10:41

I think that will that will come to their collapse and demise uh at this

1:10:47

rate you’re absolutely right uh they cannot continue at this rate they cannot continue to insist that their message

1:10:54

prevail by using tactics of imposition of uh no freedom of speech of banning

1:11:00

speech that they do not like it just I can’t see how this can continue and what this is happening is undermining the

1:11:06

very propaganda claims of western governments because as you said these are the ones who contrasted themselves

1:11:12

with the Soviet Union we are the ones who stand for freedom of speech on college campuses marketplace of ideas

1:11:17

and so on and all that has been sacrificed in the interest of Israel yeah yeah and and the irony is the

1:11:24

quality of life in America i mean where you have high high level of uh poverty

1:11:30

homelessness uh you have no health care you have you know that education etc

1:11:36

while the rest of the world and developing world it’s a you know human right so they they keep um if you like

1:11:44

having their own propaganda anything to support the military machine and Israel expansionism and war don’t know if if he

1:11:49

has You’re absolutely right no you’re absolutely right i mean uh western democracies are in a big crisis because

1:11:57

on the question of social justice they are failing miserably even countries that were socialistic like Sweden and

1:12:02

Denmark have becoming like naked uh Americanstyle capitalism whereby the

1:12:07

weak groups and classes are not in any way being sought after or taken care of

1:12:13

by the state uh you know the tax system are becoming more unfair than ever and

1:12:19

uh the advent of immigrant is bringing about so much racism and islamophobia

1:12:25

and the idea of taking care of the weak is now less popular because the weak and the poor are not white they are mostly

1:12:32

immigrants and that’s not something that appealed to the western mindset I guess

1:12:37

interesting yeah you’re right there that’s interesting and then are there

1:12:43

anything else any sort of current projects that you’d like to share with

1:12:49

our audience that we should be aware of that you’re working on i think that uh I

1:12:56

mean I have an idea of working on a history of the civil war of Lebanon 7576 because I think it components it

1:13:02

encompasses a lot about Palestinians and Lebanese and their struggle and what Israel has done to Lebanon uh but the

1:13:08

message that I want to leave with the audience is that despite all the tragedy despite all the agony it’s important

1:13:14

that we we do not succumb to despair because if you keep watching these children being killed every day in I

1:13:21

know a lot of people are like depressed and traumatized we all are to some degree but if we succumb to that it will

1:13:26

lead us to inaction we need to maintain our composure we need to keep on being motivated in order to deliver the

1:13:33

message our enemy is extremely strong and very pervasive especially if we live

1:13:39

in the west and especially if we live in the Arab world now i mean all these governments that are aligned with Israel now so as a result I think we should be

1:13:46

very proud of our advocacy and insistence on the message of justice to the to the Palestinians and that it

1:13:53

should not be compromised and it should not be polluted i think that’s a beautiful message uh to to wrap up with

1:14:01

because it’s uh I think people have been feeling down you do feel that you’re a single voice in in a in a world which is

1:14:08

going a little bit crazy every time you you switch on any news but ultimately yes Apac can uh can support

1:14:15

and pay most of US Congress most of the US Senate but those people still have to be elected so you know individual voices

1:14:24

on mass make a difference and I think it’s very Absolutely is there anything else we haven’t

1:14:29

covered that you’d like to add you know you ended a message

1:14:34

no I think we you know we end on a good note and I think a message of hope message of optimism and ultimate victory

1:14:41

and the fact that the Palestinians uh never give up and the Palestinians are the word sumud resilient and

1:14:48

steadfast and despite what’s being afflicted to them they continue to deliver a message of insistence on

1:14:54

liberation and that should inspire us all around the world i agree agreed absolutely well thank you so much uh

1:15:02

thank you so much for inviting me i really appreciate it had a good time thank you i enjoyed it i really

1:15:08

appreciate the invitation thank you so much thank you and I’ll just say to our listeners if you enjoyed this episode

1:15:14

please do take a minute to like it to share it to subscribe to help us get the word out thank you though for joining us

1:15:19

today for your invaluable insights really I felt we covered a lot of interesting ground today that we hadn’t talked about in previous podcasts um and

1:15:26

to your Thank you very much thank you and and stories and representation matter stay informed stay engaged above

1:15:32

all take action it’s really important collective power is the way forward in solidarity see you next time and Shukran

1:15:39

Assad uh thank you for your courage and dedication for all that you do for West

1:15:45

Asia Palestine Lebanon and the whole area shukran thank you so much thank you i really appreciate it thank you

1:15:52

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