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Trump and Israel’s Plans for Gaza with Diana Buttu
2.3k Plays2 months ago
Diana Buttu and Mondoweiss’s Yumna Patel discuss the challenges facing the ceasefire in Gaza in the context of the Trump administration and its support for Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and Palestine. This is the second episode of a three-part collaboration series between Al-Shabaka and Mondoweiss.
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Transcript
Trump's Statements on Gaza: Support and Context
00:00:00
Speaker
And then when you look inside Israeli society and you see the numbers of Israelis who are actually supporting what Trump is saying, it's very high. And it's high because they've never had to be held to account for their war crimes and for the Nakba and for any of the things that they've done. But I don't think that it's packaged in this nice bow that the Israelis think it is. If this 15 months has taught us anything, is that Palestinians can disrupt. And they did disrupt. And will continue to disrupt.
Series Introduction: Trump and Palestine
00:00:31
Speaker
This episode is the second in a three-part series between Ashabaka and Mondo Weiss. Diana Buto, Palestinian lawyer and board member of Ashabaka, and Yumna Patel, editor-in-chief of Mondo Weiss, discuss US President Trump's statements on Gaza during Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's trip to the US, and his calls for a continuation of the genocide through ethnic cleansing.
00:00:52
Speaker
They also discussed the ceasefire and the challenges facing Palestinians in Gaza today. Make sure to follow and subscribe to both the Shabbokah and Mondevise wherever you listen to your podcasts, as well as on social media and YouTube so you don't miss anything.
00:01:10
Speaker
Deanna, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, Yumna.
Ceasefire and Gaza: Post-Genocide Reflections
00:01:14
Speaker
So we're here to talk about the ceasefire in Reza, what the situation is like on the ground right now, three weeks in, and the prospects for reconstruction and rebuilding Gaza, which as we know has been decimated after 16 months of genocide.
00:01:31
Speaker
But before we do that, we've got to talk about Trump and Netanyahu.
Trump-Netanyahu Meeting Analysis
00:01:37
Speaker
So we are speaking fresh off the heels of this meeting between Trump and Netanyahu at the White House. We'll get more into the specifics of what was said, but I want to start off by asking you, what was going through your mind when you were watching that press conference yesterday and what were your initial reactions?
00:01:56
Speaker
You know, so being in Palestine, I woke up to the news. I didn't actually watch it live. And I'm kind of glad that I didn't watch it live, because being able to watch it and pause it gave me a little bit of a a perspective of being able to read the room in its entirety. And so there were a few things. The first is that Netanyahu had this grin.
00:02:17
Speaker
like the cat like the Cheshire cat grin, where he looks as though he just swallowed a canary and he's gotten everything he wants. And he did. And then on the other hand, Trump was specifically Trump, meaning that he's not very bright, very driven by his own ego, and very driven by his own past experiences. And so getting into the actual specifics of just the optics of it, it looked like Netanyahu was the one who was in charge.
00:02:47
Speaker
And it looked as though Trump was just fudging his way along. And what's also interesting is that if you're watching the whole press conference and everything he said, Trump was reading off of a set of notes. I've never seen him read off of a set of notes.
00:03:03
Speaker
So all these things were the things that were like for me again because i woke up to it were very interesting as a perspective now getting into the substance of it is the is i think the more interesting part of it and on the substance there's a lot to say the first is that.
Gaza Struggles: Policies and Reconstruction
00:03:19
Speaker
and And this might sound odd, but this really was Trump's way of saving Netanyahu. And I say this because Netanyahu is viewed inside Israel as a failed politician. Remember, he was he was a man who, he's facing a corruption trial, and he was very unpopular all throughout 2023. And so for him, prolonging the genocide was to his benefit.
00:03:48
Speaker
When the ceasefire was signed, Israelis very much looked at this as a sign of defeat because it is. And that coupled with the image of the nearly 400,000 Palestinians going back to the north,
00:04:04
Speaker
led Israelis to say, what are they going back to? I thought we decimated it, which they did. Then they realized that this was their symbol of defeat. So for for Trump to come out with this statement of um this is what we're going to do and people are going to have to leave, it's the only way that he can revive Netanyahu.
00:04:25
Speaker
And that's why he's saying it. And at the same time, it leaves you thinking, well, if 15 months of the worst of humanity was meted out on people in Gaza with all of the bombs and all of the different types of weaponry and the quadcopters and you name it, and the starvation and and not allowing humanitarian aid and cutting off electricity and and water and you name it,
00:04:52
Speaker
If that didn't lead to empowering hospitals, if that didn't lead to all of these people fleeing, then what is it that America and Israel are going to do, the United States and Israel are going to do to affect this? They have no alternative but leaves.
00:05:10
Speaker
So, on on the one hand, like it was a it's a way to revive Netanyahu. And on the other hand, you you have to step back and think about not the practicalities of it, but what does it mean? What does it mean when the only way that you can have a leader survive is by advocating ethnic cleansing? And if they truly believe in it, what is it that they have in store for Gaza. What is it they're going to do? um And so this leads me to really think that this is a way of them blocking any form of reconstruction of Gaza, because i because you know it is Trump's going to be one of these like spoiled children. If he can't own it, then nobody else can do anything there. And Trump, coupled with Israel, I feel are going to make sure that Gaza doesn't get reconstructed at all.
00:06:04
Speaker
man It's a really interesting takeaway and it makes sense like why you would kind of zero in on that. The repeated comments, you know, about it's devastated. We've just got to level it. It could be the quote unquote Riviera of the Middle East, which I mean that in and of itself we've got to, you know, we can talk about that.
00:06:24
Speaker
But so many things i mean were said yesterday, and you know as you pointed out, people are naturally focusing on this comment of Trump saying that the US is taking it over. And I think that a lot of people, like myself included, didn't really know what to make.
Trump's Statements as Policy Indicators
00:06:41
Speaker
Or we don't really know what to make of Trump's comments a lot of the time. you know Are these just statements, more of the usual kind of unhinged rhetoric by the president? um Or are these indications of real policy measures that we should be concerned about? And that's kind of what you're getting at is these are really concerning and make you don't think about the logistics. like Think about what does it mean that this is what is being advocated as a solution.
00:07:09
Speaker
And there's also something deeper, Yuma, and it's it's troublesome, and i I want to just spend a moment talking about it. It's this idea, as my my friend Daryl Lee calls it, terraforming, which I actually call terra-fantasy. And this terra-fantasy is, oh, we just need to level the place and build anew, right? And that is ignoring the history of Gaza,
00:07:34
Speaker
yeah Gaza is one of the oldest churches in the world, a place that's been inhabited for thousands of years. And so it ignores the the history and the civilization, but then it also ignores why Gaza is Gaza.
00:07:52
Speaker
And the reason that it is Gaza is because 80% of the people who live in Gaza are actually not from Gaza. It's that they fled to Gaza because Israel took over their homes and their lands.
00:08:08
Speaker
And so if we're talking about, quote unquote, solutions, isn't the better solution to have them move back to their homes and lands that are just across the open air prison, places like sterile, places like where the Nova the Festival was? But then there's also something even another level to it, which is he talks about it as though some sort of disaster befell it. Like there was a hurricane, something happened,
00:08:36
Speaker
It's just bad luck, you know, there's people, there's poor people. And because of that, we just need to clean it out. But it's not bad luck. It's calculated. And Zionism is one, is I think as Muhammad al-Kurd says, it's one hell of a drug because it is.
00:08:55
Speaker
And it's this idea that the that it's such an ideology that the only way that it can be implemented is through ethnic cleansing. That's the only way that it can be implemented. The other part of this, Yumna, is that this site like terra-fantasy is not new. I remember as far back as 2005, when the Israelis finally pulled out of Gaza. They took away the settlements, but they obviously kept the place enclosed and besieged.
00:09:23
Speaker
They started talking about, oh, we need to turn Gaza into Dubai. you know that was always the Even Hillary Clinton said it could have been Dubai. And then at a different point, it became Singapore. But then they realized that people didn't know what Singapore is really a about. So they went back to Dubai, right? And now it's the Riviera of the Middle East and and all of these things. And and so these are not new. This has always been their fantasy because they have no connection to the land because for them, this is a colonial project and you can just erase things and you can put up something new and you can erase churches and and bomb them to smithereens because they have no connect. Because they're they're settlers. These are colonizers. And the the policy kit was as far back as 2005 in terms of the Israelis. It was picked up by Kushner. Kushner was talking about it all of his time.
00:10:12
Speaker
But then there was an important
US Proposals and Media Narratives
00:10:14
Speaker
part in October of 2023. The first was, I believe it was Danny Iolone, who gave an interview with Marc Lamont Hill, on up front with Marc Lamont Hill. And he talked about ethnically cleansing Gaza, making it smaller in size, thinner in population, and people going to Sinai with the Gulf states paying for it. And nobody interrogated him.
00:10:38
Speaker
Nobody that interrogated him or Markhamon Hale did, but no other journalist has interrogated him or or Netanyahu or their policies. And then magically, two weeks later, we get this document, this White House document asking for money. It was the supplemental asking for money, $9.5 billion dollars to relocate Palestinians outside of Gaza.
00:11:05
Speaker
So all of it like all of this is not new But it just shows you how this policy has been shaping and developing over time I'm glad you talked about that because What has been really striking about obviously like you said, this isn't a new policy. This is a policy that israel has The policy of ethnic cleansing is literally is what israel was founded upon right? But in terms of like the most recent context of what we're talking about this was the foundations, the groundwork for all of this was laid and started by the Biden administration, right? So it's not a new policy. And the comments from Trump are not new. I mean, since he assumed office, he's been talking about, we've just got to clear the Palestinians out, send them to you know some neighboring countries, Jordan, Egypt, they'll do it, whatever it is. And what's been so striking about these
00:11:58
Speaker
comments and the way that it's being received by the media is rather than... There hasn't really, I think, at least from the mainstream media, been an acknowledgement or an attempt to push back on the reality that this is just blatant ethnic cleansing. like That is what is being called for. Instead, we've been seeing you know when he makes these comments, people jump into questions around like the logistics. Well, how How are you going to do it? How is that actually going to happen? I mean, that just normalizes this premise that it's OK to even think about this, that, yeah, it's OK to even think about the idea of ethnically cleansing these people. And I think that that just like that subtlety is also just really important to kind of understanding the moment that we're in and sort of the willingness of
00:12:53
Speaker
the West, Western society, the media, everybody outside of Palestine to just accept that Palestinians, you know we can do with Palestinians what we want to do with them. It you know furthers this idea that they don't really have this claim over their land.
00:13:11
Speaker
That's the irony of all of this is that, and you see this being now touted even within the gaslighting liberal circles within Israel. Oh, it's so difficult for for Palestinians in Gaza. And so yes, of course they should get a better life.
00:13:24
Speaker
But you are the one who created this condition, and their better life is when you leave. it's That's what's going to be their better life. But it's this, it's to say oh, you know we're we're here, and we're here to stay, and we're just we just have to find a better life for Palestinians. And it's because they don't understand a friend of mine and I were talking about this today, that people don't understand the idea of attachment to land, but I think that's bigger. I think that they don't understand attachment to community, and they don't understand. The Nakba wasn't just the taking over of land. It was the destruction of communities. It was the destruction of the places that that people knew. It was the the taking over of the land, destroying the houses, but destroying these communities.
00:14:10
Speaker
And that's the part that I don't think a lot of the Western media is understanding, because for them, it's all about the logistics. So is Egypt agreeing? is Is Jordan agreeing? How are you going to move them? How this and how that... But they don't understand that what they're... A, what they're pushing is ethnic cleansing and normalizing it. But B, is that they don't understand that that this was caused by Israel. And it wasn't caused by Israel just now with bombs. It was caused by Israel.
00:14:39
Speaker
in 1948 with the Nakba.
International Politics: Netanyahu's Image
00:14:43
Speaker
if you're enjoying this podcast please visit our website a al shabaka dot all where you will find more palestinian policy analysis and where you can join our mailing list and donate to support our work
00:14:57
Speaker
I mean, what you're describing this just like sick irony was, I mean, that was what was on full display. Earlier you talked about this smug kind of look and smile that Netanyahu had on his face the whole time. And people were kind of commenting on this on social media about the fact that, you know, Trump is over here talking about the bad luck.
00:15:18
Speaker
right, that's befallen the people in Gaza. It's just destroyed. there's There's no life for them there, so we just got to clear them out. And next to him, smiling, is the man who oversaw that destruction and created the reality with the help of the United States, of course, to create the reality in which now we're saying, well, there's nothing left there for them. So they've just got to leave.
00:15:40
Speaker
there's There's something very sick about that whole, the smug look of Netanyahu. He's a war criminal who is wanted now by the ICC. And yet he's still able to travel to the United States, which presumably means he'll also be able to travel to other foreign capitals as well. So there's something very sick about this. And I don't know if you saw this, you know but there were reports today in the Israeli press that Netanyahu brought Trump a gift.
00:16:10
Speaker
And the gift that he brought him was a gold-plated pager. Gold-plated because Trump loves the color gold. And the pager as a symbol of Israel's strength, its prowess, its military capability. And there's a sick component to this.
00:16:30
Speaker
We just have to kind of sit with this. The pager is a callback to the attack that Israel carried out with the exploding pagers in Lebanon that killed dozens of people and injured so many more, including children. Yeah.
00:16:48
Speaker
including children, including children. There were doctors that were on on call. or There were 30 people who been made blind by this. Like, it's a sick simple. And here he is, this cat, coming in, Netanyahu, and giving him a pager.
00:17:08
Speaker
as ah as kind of a symbol of like, here here's the gold because we know you like gold. And the pager, because we like the pager. um And so there's something very sick about all of this. There's something very, very sick about the whole thing. it's And it's gross. And that's what the plan is. It's sick and gross.
00:17:28
Speaker
to this point of you know clearly Netanyahu is smitten with whatever has been agreed to, whatever has been promised to him, which we got inklings of right in these statements yesterday, it still isn't completely clear.
West Bank Annexation Speculation
00:17:43
Speaker
But something that isn't getting a lot of coverage that Trump said in the press conference with Netanyahu was actually about the West Bank, and it was about annexation.
00:17:53
Speaker
ah In response to a reporter's question about potential Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank, Trump said that he would be making a decision on the issue soon. He said, quote, people like the idea, but we haven't taken a position on it yet. We'll be making an announcement probably on that very specific topic over the next four weeks.
00:18:13
Speaker
I want to ask like what do you make of those comments? Because there was a lot of speculation that West Bank annexation might be offered up as the sort of gifts maybe in exchange for Israel agreeing to continue phase two of ceasefire negotiations, although that seems to also be hanging in the balance. So I'm curious what your reaction is to the annexation comments and do you see these things being you know West Bank annexation and Gaza and the ceasefire as being connected?
00:18:39
Speaker
Yes, they're definitely connected. So when the ceasefire agreement was signed, it was clear that that yes, this was signed because Trump pushed it, which means that Biden could have pushed it. But it was also clear that it was not without reward for Netanyahu. And that became very apparent the night that Netanyahu appeared on Israeli television and said,
00:19:04
Speaker
we will be getting some very big assets in exchange. And so what does that mean? West Bank annexation, probably, but I think that's the least of it, by the way. i think Look, i' I've long advocated and believed that the West Bank has already been annexed. The only thing that remains is just very small things. One is the existence of the Palestinian Authority, and two is that they haven't yet past the laws fully expelling Palestinians.
Ceasefire Realities and Misconceptions
00:19:37
Speaker
That's all that really hasn't been done. But everything else, it's already annexed. There isn't a separate law in the West Bank settlements than in Israel. thats It's already been, it's one seamless place. um You don't see a sign that says welcome to occupied territory. it's it's It's already been annexed. I think that the things that the Israelis are going after are a little bit deeper.
00:19:59
Speaker
And I think that they're looking for the complete destruction of not only Anurwa, but of the camps, which is why I think they're going after the camps right now. I think that they are going to put into effect a policy of ethnically cleansing the camps and saying, if you want to be considered a refugee, it's not going to be within the borders that Israel controls.
00:20:25
Speaker
And I think that this, when we're hearing these calls that are being made ah to Abdullah, King Abdullah, that's what I think they're talking about. And i I do think that Trump is going to decide that, you know, what do we need to have any of this stuff for? It's just one one big place. And when he says people like it, there's only one people, there's only one group of people that he's referring to.
00:20:51
Speaker
He's not talking to Palestinians. He's not talking to humanity. He's just talking too talking to right-wing Israelis. And yeah, they like the idea.
00:21:04
Speaker
I want to move a bit now to the situation in Gaza currently with the ceasefire. But before we do that, there's one thing I wanted to ask you. you know In response to this press conference, you posted a thread on X. And in one of the things you wrote, you said, we must think about what Israel and the US will do to carry out their ethnic cleansing program. 15 months of genocide may just be the beginning.
00:21:32
Speaker
That statement is so chilling, especially as with all the hope you know that surrounded a ceasefire, that maybe it would mark the ending of something, but not not the beginning of something. Can you tell us more what you mean by that statement?
00:21:49
Speaker
So although the bombs have stopped, and he wrote about this, by the way, for Ziteo, but although the bombs have stopped, the genocide is not over because genocide isn't just about bombs dropping. It's not just about the number of people you kill. It's about whether you've killed off their ability to sustain life, to have life.
00:22:10
Speaker
And with the destruction of the healthcare care system, with the destruction of the education system, with the destruction of the water system, i mean all of these things that they've done, I think we are going to see a huge jump in the numbers of people who've been killed. And not only the numbers of people who've been killed, but then the numbers of people who won't be able to have children.
00:22:35
Speaker
the numbers of people who are going to leave because they need to leave in order to be able to get medical treatment or even to have a normal life. And so I i think that their plan is, the the idea of genocide, you know we were also focused on ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire, because we needed to have the bombs drop. But Israel did so much damage that these numbers are going to, you're just going to see it go up.
00:23:04
Speaker
And already, just in the past week, we saw that the Ministry of Health came out and said, there's no way we're going to be able to rescue anyone. So that the death toll is now 62,000. That's direct deaths. We're not even talking about the indirect deaths. Deaths from starvation, death from disease, death from inability to get medicines, et cetera. So my fear is that if we don't go along with their, quote unquote, plan, then they're not going to allow stuff to get into Gaza.
00:23:32
Speaker
They've already cut off Onrawa, and if they don't allow that lifeline to get in, and they're not going to allow journalists in either, it's going to be all of this is going to be done in the slow cover of darkness. That's the part that I'm afraid of. And I think that that's very realistic, unfortunately.
00:23:50
Speaker
It's a chilling and devastating picture that you're painting, but it's important you know because, like you said, so many people... I mean, the world was i mean rightfully and and naturally so focused on getting a ceasefire, calling for a ceasefire to happen. Because like you said, the bombs needed to stop, but it does not mean that this is over. And we're seeing that in Gaza. We're certainly seeing it in the West Bank with everything that's been happening there as well.
00:24:15
Speaker
But with that, you kind of bring us to this current moment in in Gaza. We're three weeks into the ceasefire. A lot has happened, but could you give us kind of a a brief recap maybe of what are the most sort of significant things that have happened? And according to the terms that were agreed upon last month, what still needs to happen for phase two and phase three of this ceasefire?
00:24:43
Speaker
You know, I'll first begin with what needs to happen because it's very important in the ceasefire agreement. um So I have my reservations about a ceasefire agreement. Maybe that's a different conversation, but in the actual agreement itself, it calls for the release of the more than a thousand Palestinians who are from Gaza, who the Israelis are holding without us knowing even their condition.
00:25:07
Speaker
These are the ones that are being held in the torture camps and in secret prisons. We have no idea how they're being held. And Israel hasn't released those people. So this includes doctors like Dr. Harsad al-Safiyyah. So there's a lot of things that ah were supposed to happen that have not happened. And that's a major one. The second is we haven't seen that quote-unquote surge of humanitarian aid come in, and we haven't seen any monitoring either. And then when it comes to people who've been released, the people who've been released, they're still undergoing a lot of interrogation and questioning. All of the people I know are still required to
00:25:46
Speaker
present themselves before the Israeli authorities for interrogation and questioning. I'm not sure if they got their actual like certificate, meaning that, not certificate, whatever it is, like their papers saying that they've been released, which means that they're always stuck in this legal limbo.
00:26:01
Speaker
But also the Israelis have not released the number of people that they should have been releasing. It's just not happening. And so those are all the things that they that they haven't done. What am I hearing from people in Gaza? I don't know where to begin, Yamuna. It's everything from friends who, just it's just so sad, friends who message me and say, my friend, my relative was last seen in X, Y, and Z area.
00:26:29
Speaker
Can you try and find out if they're being held in one of the prison camps? To other people posting on social media saying, I know that my relative was killed. If you were the person who buried him, can you please just let me know?
00:26:44
Speaker
where he's buried, to other people saying, if you've seen such and such and such a person, we don't know if they're dead or alive. Please let us know. So people are going back to to the North and literally going back to just rubble and to toxic. And even Trump acknowledged it. The 30,000 tons of of explosives, the unexploded ordinances,
00:27:11
Speaker
There's just, they're going back to really apocalyptic conditions and there's still no, there's still no vision as to how is it that people are going to survive. And that's the part that's so tragic is that, it's not even tragic, it's immoral, it's illegal, it's unethical that we're, we still need to negotiate our our own existence.
00:27:33
Speaker
I mean, we've seen these sort of testimonies that you're describing. It's certainly what we've seen as well you know in the reporting from our our Gaza correspondent, as well as just writers from Gaza who we've who who write for
Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
00:27:48
Speaker
us.
00:27:48
Speaker
just talking about you know after the initial euphoria and just excitement of a ceasefire being announced, just this shock that is setting in at the level of devastation and the reality that's setting in for so many people. And I want to ask you, I mean, it's hard to pinpoint like, where to begin when it comes to the most kind of pressing issues facing Palestinians in Gaza right now. Because on one hand, you have the very, like, on the individual level, people are still trying to find their loved ones that are missing if they're even alive or not and bury them. But beyond that, you have these much bigger questions around reconstruction, around the healthcare system in Gaza,
00:28:35
Speaker
Around food survival like where where do these things stand right now? How do these factor into this? Ceasefire period and I do want to follow up maybe after this and ask you about you, so you know You mentioned that you had your your reservations and and concerns about the ceasefire agreement So I do want to know what you think about that as well.
00:28:57
Speaker
The whole thing is immoral. That's the problem, is that we were forced to be in a place where we're negotiating for our own survival. And if that's not perverse, I don't know what is. um and So you're asking, like, what is the most pressing? All of it is. all Every aspect of it, because people need food. They need water. They need shelter. But life isn't just about food, water, and shelter.
00:29:25
Speaker
it's It's about being able to the people you see and the people you're around and the the places you go and in your education and and the Israelis have reduced life in Gaza even before October to down to a The basics of whether you have food shelter water and in the food like it's all about like just Consuming that's it they and they never viewed Gaza as being a place that other than these are animals that are in a cage Equivalent and we just need to to feed them in order to keep them alive So that we can say that we kept them alive and and gaslight them as well The problem is is that the world has accepted this it's so dehumanizing
00:30:09
Speaker
that even the way the ways in which people are thinking is in this dehumanizing way of just making sure they have enough food, just making sure they have enough water, just making sure they have enough shelter. And all of that is necessary at the same time. But people are not thinking at the at the beyond, thinking bigger. And the part that really bothers me of that is why is it that Israel, the state that committed genocide, why did they get to decide anything? And that's the part that's bothering me now is I'm not sure there's going to be a phase two. I think we're just going to be at a standstill for a long time. And they're going to lord over the idea of humanitarian aid, like dangle it, with the alternative being, if you don't agree, well, the alternative is what Trump has laid out. That's that's my fear.
00:30:58
Speaker
The question that's on my mind that I think is on everyone's mind, I mean, beyond right like the phase two, phase three of the ceasefire, what happens now, which you know you've kind of laid out what you think is going to happen when it
Gaza's Future: Geopolitical Challenges
00:31:11
Speaker
comes to that. But this question around what you mentioned of the bigger picture, like the the future, where where do we go from here?
00:31:21
Speaker
How can you begin to imagine a future for Palestinians in Gaza, given the state of Gaza right now? And the fact that everyone who is making decisions about the future of Gaza is not from Gaza, is not Palestinian. So where does that leave us?
00:31:48
Speaker
Exactly. We've seen a complete and utter failure of international leadership on all levels. And it's a failure that, like if you can't come up with a plan to address a state that's committed genocide against a refugee population, then this international system does not work. And and that's become perfectly clear.
00:32:13
Speaker
And then when you look inside Israeli society and you see the numbers of Israelis who are actually supporting what Trump is saying, it's very high. And it's high because they've never had to acknowledge or account or be held to account for their war crimes and for the Nakba and for any of the things that they've that they've done. So we're in a very we're in a very sick place.
00:32:32
Speaker
um We're in a very sick place. But even though we're in a very sick place, I don't think that it's packaged in this nice bow that the Israelis think it is.
Palestinian Resistance and Activism
00:32:42
Speaker
If this 15 months is taught us anything, is that Palestinians can disrupt. And they did disrupt. And we'll continue to disrupt.
00:32:52
Speaker
and and will continue to disrupt not only Israel, but this international system and and turn it into, like highlight it for what, how useless it is.
00:33:05
Speaker
So I don't have the answer and in terms of that the short term. I really don't. I do think, though, that with all of these plans that they're talking about of ethnic cleansing, there is starting to be a mind like there's going to there's starting to be a mind shift that we can't just keep kicking the can down the road to the next person. That doesn't mean to say it won't happen. But I do think that there's starting to be a shift in thinking in ways that there hadn't been before.
00:33:35
Speaker
I want to leave listeners with not necessarily an action item, but let's just say I can imagine that a lot of people after listening to this and just looking at the news unfolding, like what's happening in Gaza, all these orders and statements from Trump, what's happening in the West Bank, questions about annexation, what about the movement here in the US? s there's There's so many things kind of swirling around at once. From your view, kind of as people try to make sense of what is happening,
00:34:05
Speaker
What would you tell people to really pay attention to or to look out for or to watch when it comes to the news and when it comes to really trying to get a good understanding of the moment that we're in and what this moment means for for Palestine and for Palestinians?
00:34:26
Speaker
I leave with a couple of things. One is, you know keep your eyes on um making sure that we're our activism is continuing because that's exactly what the what the Zionists want, is they want us to be fatigued and then and to get exhausted and to have the... like They want politics of fear and desperation, always. They want us to be afraid of them and they want us to feel like, oh, it's hopeless.
00:34:49
Speaker
For me, it's not I'm neither afraid nor do I think it's hopeless, and I think it is very important for people to keep pushing on both of those levels. But the things I think to watch out for are are the plans that are being cooked up, because they are. Are they plans that are being decided by Palestinians or for Palestinians?
00:35:10
Speaker
Is there Palestinian decision-making and agency, um or is it is it out of this sense of like, we it's a humanitarian problem? um And so those are things for me that I think, for people who aren't paying attention on them day to day, those are the things that I think are the important ones, is to be looking at who is doing the the decision-making and on what.
00:35:34
Speaker
and the bigger picture of, is Israel being held to account? Because I cannot, I just refuse to accept that in this day and age that a society, a country, um is allowed to commit genocide.
Imprisonment and Oppression in Palestine
00:35:50
Speaker
and get away with it, and that a society is allowed to promote genocide, and the people in that society are allowed to get away with it. It's mind-boggling. And yet, we do see this. you I'm sure you saw this the other day. One of the Trump appointees to the Holocaust Memorial Committee, I think it's called,
00:36:08
Speaker
is somebody who wrote an entire op-ed talking about the references that Nazis used when it came to people who were Jewish. No mercy, no innocence to collective guilt. And so we have to be aware of what Zionism is about and what it is that their plans are. And that's why I think looking through and saying, who's doing the plan drawing? And for what benefit is the stuff that we have to be paying attention to? Plus,
00:36:34
Speaker
Watch out for the number of prisoners because the Israelis are very quickly rounding people up and throwing them into into Israeli jails, into Israeli torture camps, and as you know, vast majority without charge, without trial.
00:36:51
Speaker
Well, Deanna, thank you so much for joining us and for for talking about these really important issues. And I just really want to like hold up what you said. It's important not to be fearful and hopeless, because that is the goal of everything that's happening. um so So thank you for that, and thank you for joining us. Thanks, Andrew. It's my pleasure.
00:37:17
Speaker
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