Join us as we sit down with Moataz Salim, a Palestinian-American activist and grad student with a heart entrenched in the struggles of Gaza. In the echo of personal anecdotes and a quest for understanding, Moataz guides us through the turbulent realities of Palestinian families in Gaza—where daily life is a negotiation of identities and the resilience needed to thrive under siege. His journey from the front lines of advocacy to the corridors of Congress is a powerful reminder of the human stories behind the headlines and the transformative potency of narrative in the quest for peace.
00:13:03 Seeking Humanity in Israeli-Palestinian Relations
00:25:39 Peaceful Resolution for Israel-Palestine Conflict
00:40:00 Arab States' Betrayal of Palestinians
00:48:18 Youth Activism and Palestinian Support
Recorded: 4/16
Intro: Metropolis Nights- penguinmusic
Outro: Powerful Beat- penguinmusic
Join us as we sit down with Moataz Salim, a Palestinian-American activist and grad student with a heart entrenched in the struggles of Gaza. In the echo of personal anecdotes and a quest for understanding, Moataz guides us through the turbulent realities of Palestinian families in Gaza—where daily life is a negotiation of identities and the resilience needed to thrive under siege. His journey from the front lines of advocacy to the corridors of Congress is a powerful reminder of the human stories behind the headlines and the transformative potency of narrative in the quest for peace.
00:13:03 Seeking Humanity in Israeli-Palestinian Relations
00:25:39 Peaceful Resolution for Israel-Palestine Conflict
00:40:00 Arab States' Betrayal of Palestinians
00:48:18 Youth Activism and Palestinian Support
Recorded: 4/16
Intro: Metropolis Nights- penguinmusic
Outro: Powerful Beat- penguinmusic
As Palestinian protests continue to sweep across the nation, particularly on college campuses such as Columbia and elsewhere, we see violence also occurring, both from counter-protesters and police and from the protesters themselves. But what we're seeing less and less of is actual dialogue on the issue, on the perspective that these protesters and counter-protesters may be bringing to the forefront, and today we're looking to remedy that. The following conversation is with Motaz Salim. Motaz is a George Washington University graduate student who is also a Palestinian-American activist who is currently partaking at the Palestinian encampment there. Motaz offers an insightful perspective to this issue, as he is from Gaza himself and has lost numerous family members since the war broke out.
Speaker 1:Following the October 7th terrorist attacks, this conversation seeks to understand instead of debate or dismiss, and if you enjoy it, all I ask is that you share it with a friend Now, without further ado. Welcome to Overcoming the Divide. Welcome to the show. Motaz, happy to have you here today. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's a pleasure. You are a palestinian american and growing up you spent time in Gaza, a place that most people pretty much virtually all people, I'm sure have heard of today.
Speaker 2:But can you take me back to when you were growing up there, how it was, like what you saw, what you felt and, in hindsight, if anything stands out to you now that you maybe didn't realize as a child, yeah, so I only spent a very brief time of my life there and so, to be entirely honest with you, the memory of it is quite murky because I was really young, yeah, um, but I can sort of give you a better explanation based off um, what I, what I hear from a lot of my cousins, um, a lot of my uncles who live in Gaza.
Speaker 2:It's, on one hand, life is the, you know the the the human mind is very adaptable. Um, I find, and I think if you ask most people, like if I asked my cousins, what life is like, and because on the day-to-day they would say things are normal for them, because in their context I mean not right now, obviously, this is for October 7th and not when Israel is doing one of its campaigns where they, quote-unquote, mow the lawn, like in Operation Protective Edge in 2014, for example. But outside of when there are those campaigns, people go about their life, they have jobs, they have families, they have, sort of like, different relatives in different parts of the Gaza Strip. But underneath all that is, you know, this reality that sort of everyone collectively accepts, which is we are under siege. For example, let's say, one of my family members who lives in Gaza wants to visit the West Bank or vice versa. It's an extremely difficult process because they're separated.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of landmass that is considered Israel between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and to be able to get out or to come in, you need a permit from the Israeli government.
Speaker 2:You need, you know, all kinds of background checks, and so things are restricted for sure, and there are certain foods that are not available.
Speaker 2:I don't have the list off the top of my head, but I mean I think, for example, like pasta was banned for a long time until this is kind of a weird story Like John Kerry visited Gaza at some point and then questioned the Israeli government as to why they felt there was a security threat with pasta going into Gaza and they couldn't come up with something.
Speaker 2:So I think they might have reinstated it around then. But there are certain food items that are restricted, certain imports. Anything that's imported into it is controlled by the Israeli government, so that has an effect on what people have access to in terms of food, in terms of certain items like soccer balls, for example. So it's kind of like people try to live as normally as they can, just go about their day, about their life, but there's always an undertone of we're under siege and we're not. We don't have the same level of freedom that the rest of the world has. But also a lot of the younger people don't even know that, because all they know is that's yeah, and now kind of finding yourself here advocating for your family in gaza.
Speaker 1:You are also a full-time grad student, but now find yourself in the halls of congress on a regular basis. How'd that come to be what drove you, uh, to that?
Speaker 2:um, well, I mean, as someone who's palestinian, as someone who's from gaza, um, you know, you, you always follow the news and you, there's, there are crimes being committed against palestinians in gaza and in the west bank on a daily basis, even before october 7, and this is something that doesn't really get talked about unless something major happens. I mean in mainstream media. So for a long time, when I was here in the United States, in North America really, because I went to college in Canada before I moved here for grad school I actually would hide my identity, like I wouldn't necessarily tell people I'm Palestinian, or I would. Just once I became like closer to someone, or someone was like a friend that I trusted with that information, I would tell them that and the reason for that is justifiably like my parents and a lot of palestinians can attest to this like we're told to keep it hush, hush because, um, it's, it's a, it's a controversial topic to bring up, like people always have just to be, just to be palestinian, literally just to be pal, literally, just to be Palestinian.
Speaker 2:Yes, because even if someone means well, sometimes their reaction will be like, oh, and they'll get kind of weird with you, and it's almost like they want to say like I'm sorry that you're from there, because it's a place that that's always, you know, experienced occupation in terms of Gaza siege and, like many, many, you know, like, uh, military efforts against it every couple of years, every two, three years, honestly, um. But the really scary part is that there are people who just like there's there's, you know, this very powerful zionist ideology and establishment here in north america especially, that like views us as bad, for lack of a better term right now just, it's just, being palestinian carries a lot of charge with it um, I see what you're saying so what happened recently was just like after october 7th.
Speaker 2:Um, it was a build-up of many years. Um, especially when I moved to the us and I saw the kind of sentiment that people have here, it was really shocking Just to hear a lot of misinformation about Palestinians, sort of claims that people who say free Palestine are anti-Semitic, or from the river to the sea or things of that sort. Even before October 7th, I mean, I've had things within my own program where we had these Zionists who are my classmates and you know, advocating for Palestine whatsoever, even within this space, was very difficult and came with a lot of blowback. After October 7th and after seeing the way that the Israeli military sort of responded to that, which didn't happen in a vacuum, I just couldn't anymore. I couldn't do the hiding the identity, I couldn't not speak up, I couldn't just sit and, like you know, for the first few months, just like consuming all these horrific videos, horrific news.
Speaker 2:And then news started coming from my own, uh extended family in Gaza. Um of this family was struck by an airstrike. This other family had to uh relocate to the south. Um, everyone had to south and as more time passed, more deaths, more deaths. Um, so I found myself at some point really not able to even pay attention to my environment that I was in, whether it be grad school, whether it be the gym, you know, just the day to day stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah especially because it felt so normal, like everyone was just going about their day, not a care in the world. It seemed that way and I felt like I was losing my mind, honestly, because while I'm here and talking to people and socializing and whatever, it's just my people are being slaughtered and a genocide is going on. So I was really driven to just okay, you got to do something about this. You got to do something about this. And I saw like what Code Pink was doing and Medea Benjamin in Congress and I you know cause I was going to protests and the sort, but the protests were like once a week or maybe once every couple of weeks or there might be an action here and there, but I saw that they were going to Congress every single day, putting the pressure on every single day. And that's kind of what I felt I needed to do, like I needed to work every single day towards helping my people and being a voice for my people.
Speaker 1:Have you spoken now to both congressmen congresswomen across the aisle and in a Breaking Points interview hosted by Crystal Ball and S and jetty? You were mentioning that the responses usually you'll be speaking to the staff of these congress, of men and women, and the responses range all over the spectrum from sympathetic, supportive to rather robotic and kind of aloof, but have you seen now, like showing up day after day or just meeting with certain people, some minds change.
Speaker 1:Rather, people stick to the same lines. If they were supportive in the beginning, they're obviously still supportive, but if they were colder and more distant in the beginning, is that still the case? How have you seen this kind of evolve over time?
Speaker 2:It's a great question. I think think there have, like there has definitely been some change in terms of the way people view it. Um, I would say the change isn't as fast as I'd like it to be, because I always try to tell people that like we don't just need change, we need urgent change. We need change with urgency, because every day there are airstrikes and killings and people continue to. You know, in the North of Gaza people are on like an average of 250 calories a day, which is just, and you know, the mind doesn't can't even fathom how horrible that is and how difficult that would be, especially being like coerced into it. But just stick to the answer.
Speaker 2:I would say that with time there have been more people, more more of the staffers have been really listening to us and receptive to our efforts, and I think I've gotten pretty good at like gauging um responses, because, especially when I speak with staff, I really try to look them in the eye and tell them my story and relate it to the larger picture, but also to remind them that these are real people on the ground and that I try to really humanize it. And unfortunately, there are still many robotic responses um, still some um, offensive responses too, um, but I I feel like, in terms of the lower level staffers, like the interns, um, a lot of the sort of mid-level people as well legislative director or like the foreign affairs person that a lot of offices have I mean they have been more receptive to listening and more have been more receptive to what we're saying and they've also sort of been more willing to really hear us out and make a comment about, you know, as opposed to like, oh, I'll just relay this to my congressperson or I'll just relay this to the senator. So I would say things are changing Like. One example I would say is I've gone to a few offices now, very few, but I think it's two or three offices where some of the interns were wearing like Palestine flag pins, which I thought was.
Speaker 2:I never thought in a thousand years that I would be, I would see that in the halls of Congress. But there is change. It's slow and it's going to take a long time for more change to occur.
Speaker 1:Yeah, slow and it's going to take a long time for more change to occur. Yeah, you mentioned prior about. You mentioned prior about people being more or less desensitized to all this. And as the days go on, people's lives go on, and this is, you know, largely a normal tuesday for myself and many others, but for you, you carry the weight of your family who are still located over there and um, there's this line attributed to joseph stalin, but it goes that one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic and I think in the fog of war the numbers just become whether it's 5,500, 5 million.
Speaker 1:It's just a stat, it doesn't mean nothing. But for you, in that same interview on Breaking Points, you mentioned that you lost over 100 family members now since the start of the war in Gaza. How do you try to, I guess, communicate that with people, whether it be congressmen, congresswomen, their staff or just your average american really, and like, uh, this brings some humanity to it, because, as you said earlier, there's like this charge that maybe, if I am a zionist or believe that there should be a Jewish state, then you hear anything about Palestinian lives, you're like, nope, sorry, not, not here, but you you're living it, like you're living all this. I think a lot of people could care more if they, you know, with that humanity. So I'm just curious on your thoughts on that and yeah, so I it is.
Speaker 2:I think it's very true that, like people are, are numb to the numbers, um, because, like you said, once the number gets large enough it sort of becomes just like a number and it loses some of its weight. So the way I try to fight back against that reality, that like psychological reality is to say, is to try and emphasize some of the stories of my individual cousins that have been struck and killed by the Israeli state. So, like I mentioned, I remember, on the Breaking Points interview, like my cousin Iman, for example, she was sheltering with her husband's family, like his extended family, with her four kids, and they were all killed in one airstrike. And she was just like a regular person, you know, she had recently completed like a graduate degree in business. She had recently completed like a graduate degree in business, you know, was working just a regular job and just someone who really loved her husband, really loved her kids, and that was all taken away just because she happened to be in Gaza as a Palestinian. She was a completely innocent person, just another civilian.
Speaker 2:And so stories like hers are ones that I try to really relate to people, just to sort of fight back not only against the numbness to the stats, but also to fight back against the dehumanization that occurs, especially with palestinians. That has been very normalized on both sides of the aisle. Um, you know, like I I had a conversation just today actually in congress with the congressman, uh moskowitz. Jared moskowitz, who's a very staunch like pro-israel guy he has an israeli flag outside his office, he's well funded by the pro-israel lobby and like frequently tweets about like needing to wipe out hamas and you know that sort of thing, and we had like a 15-minute conversation and he was very in the way he spoke, was very sensible and reasonable, but if you listen to the content of his speech, there's just a clear sort of disregard for the palestinian humanity. You know it's just like oh it's.
Speaker 2:you know it's tragic it's really awful and I know it's personal for you. This is him speaking to me. He says I know it's very personal for you and nobody likes innocent people dying, but here's why we actually do still need to send more weapons to Israel and not use our leverage against them for them to stop this. You know daily massacres. Try to like talk about these specific members of my family and like their stories and just like to relate to them that these were just regular people who, like all of us, you know, at the end of the day, you just want to like go to work hang out with some friends, like kick back and and live your life.
Speaker 2:That's it, yeah, and you know I want.
Speaker 1:That's it. Yeah, and I want to bring it to this point too, because I have friends, I have people close to me who are Jewish and who believe there should be an Israeli state, or Israeli directly, who I've met in my travels and they're good people. I think they're sincerely good people and I'm not suggesting that you are thinking otherwise or putting forth otherwise. But there's something you said earlier about the charged remark that as soon as it's brought up, or as soon as the simple acknowledgement of a tragedy is occurring and there should be some push for a different course forward to chart for us, there's like this instant reflux of wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Well, there's Hamas, and this isn't meant to be a debate, but I think most people would agree that Hamas is an issue, whether how you root cause that issue and to what extent you can get into the details rather quick, but I don't see a lot of people. I mean I'll just speak to you, like from the content that you put out there. I it's inflammatory, but I understand why.
Speaker 1:You know that makes sense to me um, but it's not dismissive of october 7th, it's not like calling for the massacre of Israelis or anything like that. So my question to you is like where, where do you think or where have you seen, maybe people that you can like meet the middle ground on? Because anyone could go out and watch a whole host of videos, literally titled middle ground, where Israelis and Palestinians are debating on the future of everything, but it's always gets bogged down the history a lot of the times. You never get past a history point and then also the present. Every point is meant where counterpoint, and I think that always stems from like saying on two different sides of the table. That's why I always say you're always on two different sides of the table. It's never like we need to figure this out or this is going to be awful for both of us. For the rest of our lives, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren and for the rest of history. We will never move past this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so remind me again, like, what the question is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I apologize, I kind of just made a remark. Yeah, no apologies. So I guess, how do you think about that? Like, what, what the question is? Yeah, I apologize, I kind of just made a remark. Yeah, no apologies. So I guess, how, how do you think about that? How do you think about like bringing, like moving forward together because, I mean, you must I'm sure you acknowledge israeli has the, the power dynamics or is, or, in israel's favor. So, when you think of just like approaching this issue, like and people who are israeli or who are zionist, how do you think, like, how do you like speak to them? Have you spoken to them? How, how have those interactions been and how has there been any productivity in in around that? Because that's, that's about the video point, because a lot of, a lot of the videos. I see you're sitting on two different sides of the table and you know there's some agreement that things aren't the best, but you really get bogged down in the history and what ought to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah I mean, that's kind of like any time we've we've spoken to people who are zionist or I've spoken to them, it does always end up being a history thing. I think the history does play a really important role For sure, and I think it especially does because and I find this to be quite unfortunate I think a lot of people who are Zionists they I don't want to comment on whether this is a sincere argument or not, but a lot of that will start off at October 7th, disregarding anything before that.
Speaker 2:We hear this argument a lot like on October 6th there was a ceasefire, not really, october 6th there was a ceasefire, not really. And you know like there wasn't this mass like genocidal campaign that they have been doing for almost seven months now, but before that it was still.
Speaker 1:I believe the deadliest year on record for children in Palestine, Before October 6th Specifically the West Bank, deadliest year on record for children in palestine before october.
Speaker 2:Specifically, the west bank, yes, in the west bank, so so, where there is no hamas presence, um, and so, to be like very honest with you, those conversations are very difficult and I have not found, at least in within the context of a single conversation, like much to be able to connect on. Um, I mean, I, I think some things that we have like agreed upon, like and I'm thinking of like speaking to staffers or Congress people is that there should be a ceasefire. How it looks like can differ sometimes. The urgency with which we need to go through and really push, pressure Israel for a permanent ceasefire, that that's the way I see it. Um, there's differences in terms of the urgency and that's kind of where if, even if there is sort of a, uh, even if we do agree on that, that's kind of where it ends. Because, for me, as a Palestinian, my ultimate goal is, like we always say, a free Palestine, a state where Palestinians have equal rights, where there's sort of like one democratic state where Palestinians have equal rights with the Israelis and there is a, you know, like their rights, the, the, the ability to have justice, to have legitimate freedom to not be subject to apartheid, subject to sort of the restrictions that the Israeli state imposes. That's my ultimate goal, because for me, a ceasefire is very much needed, very, very much needed. Obviously, because we need to stop the killing first and foremost.
Speaker 2:But after all of this and I think every Palestinian would agree with this we need to stop this sort of like what was happening before October 7th, which is just like the Israeli army acting with impunity whenever they felt, like it is just not on a mass scale. And so I'm going to finish the answer with saying like I really don't know how to convert the minds of Zionists, especially the more staunch Zionists, because on one hand, I recognize, you know, obviously like I don't think it would be productive at all to do like a counter Nakba or a counter ethnic cleansing or a counter genocide, to like get rid of the Israelis that would be an absurd idea. And like I don't want innocent people to die and suffer Hands down. That's like I don't think anyone wants that really.
Speaker 2:But I think there's also this huge strain in terms of the way a lot of people in Israeli society think, where, especially after October 7th, I mean they hate palestinians. They really do, and that's something I have an issue with. When, when the rhetoric is just about netanyahu and the far right, it's like, yes, they are. You know like, someone like-Gvir is on the fringe, but one, he has a lot of support. And two, you know like I feel like the average Israeli citizen who lives in Israel, at least, may not agree with him, but they do not see Palestinians as equal to them, and there lies a sort of. For me, the crux of the issue is that if you can't view a Palestinian as equal to you in humanity, in the pursuit of freedom of life, I don't know how you can convince someone like that. I really, unfortunately, do not, but that's part of the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't speak that specifically, but what almost reminds me of going back to October 7th and the days following was there were concerns that were brought up about how Israel would respond appropriately, and there was this parallel from the 9-11 attacks of how, when the US, the trade centers went down in the US heavy-handedly went to Afghanistan and went to afghanistan.
Speaker 1:I went to iraq a couple years later and we, 20 years now from that event or those events, we see the mistakes that were made, the live loss, the money spent just just wasn't worth it. For most it was not. It did not end as a net good people, everyone would admit, and there were people back after October 7th I spoke about this point to Javed Ali, who worked in the Trump administration on their national security team, but I was like are people pointing that out? Are people pointing that forward? Now to Israel, because a tragedy occurred on October 7th.
Speaker 1:But how you respond is almost just as important to this, because it could get so much worse in terms of instant lives lost and obviously there's a lot that could be done. But whether you should do everything that you could do are two different things. What ought to be done is different from what could be done. So I guess, turning it back over to you and how you think about that and how people in Israel because you mentioned a point people in Israel or elsewhere, zionists are not ready or just unaccepting of Palestinians. I think it's this kind of war craze that people get in and that happened in the United States that I think could happen anywhere. I don't think that's exclusive to a people, but nonetheless it presents these challenges. It presents these challenges that now you and others have to kind of counter, because I have heard these awful remarks from Ben Graveer and others have to kind of counter, because I have heard these awful remarks from ben gravier and others also, like us congressmen, saying that we should nuke gaza, that I don't care if we killed every palestinian.
Speaker 1:like these are congressmen yeah yeah, these are objectively abhorrent remarks and I don't, and I think the day after, uh, october 7th happened, there was a congressman that came in and, like some kind of israeli uniform, I I really yeah, what? Yeah, what the hell? Like, what's going on? And just to to the point, and the question of this is that I believe it's like maybe time, but to your so what's happening like time, it's not. You mentioned urgency earlier and urgencies of the essence.
Speaker 1:So I guess I don't have an exact question, that just a response. But the question I do have, um I wrote down, was um you talk about a state that exists for Palestinians? Do you, when you think about the state, do you think about a two state solution? Because you hear two state solutions so much and there was to hope for that during, specifically during, like the first Oslo Accords in the early 90s. Didn't happen, evidently, but nonetheless, is that how you envision it? Like what do you when you picture like Palestinians who are free, living, you know, living a life that they're going to the job, safely trying to home, hang out with friends and family, is that two state, or do you still see Israel in that equation, or do you see just a one state?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean for.
Speaker 2:I know it's kind of difficult but it's difficult, yes, and I don't have a complete answer, because this is something I ponder every day, and I think part of thinking about what's happening now is not just trying to solve what's happening now, but also planning for, you know, the day after, so to speak. And for me, I mean what I, what I can say is the the two state is dead. I, I, I will, I will say that I don't think there is a realistic two-state option, especially if we do like a two-state with like 67 borders. I think on both sides and I will say this, not just on the Israeli side, but on the Palestinian side there is a lot of animosity, there's a lot of anger, there's a lot of, I think, more so on the Palestinian side. But you know, obviously I'm biased.
Speaker 2:I think there's justifiable anger at the Israelis for what has been now like over 75 years of occupation, of many different wars and, as it pertains to Gaza, many different wars and, as it pertains to RZA, many different, like, using their words, mowing of the lawn type events, you know, like, uh, like protective edge and 2018, there was a little bit of a of a sort of war going on, and so for me, it would, you know, it's sort of like one democratic state that gives equal rights to all its citizens. What that state is called, I don't know I, but for me, like the way I can envision it, is that there's one democratic state. There are sort of like sort of a pulling out from all of the illegal settlements. There is a sort of leaders from both the Palestinian side and both the Israeli side. They come together and we actually discuss having one state where people have equal rights amongst regardless of of jewish, muslim, christian, ethnically palestinian, ethnically jewish everyone has rights. Part of that would be that, you know, there would be a right of return for like over 800 000 palestin Palestinians that have been displaced. How that works, I wish I could answer, but again, I'm not. I also honestly haven't had much.
Speaker 2:I think about this a lot, but I think before we even get there, we need to end the occupation. That's like kind of the more immediate goal, like before we even start to think about what this state looks like. We need to stop the apartheid, stop the occupation, like and I think that is a much easier solution, like that's like that is just what it is it's stop having sort of all of these different laws that that apply. You know, like at the top of the pyramid are, um, just like jewish israeli citizens and then like arab israelis or, like you know, palestinians who have is Israeli citizenship, like that's in second tier, and then, like you have a huge thousand mile gap, and then at the bottom of that are Palestinians who are in the West Bank or in Gaza. And once we sort of can figure that out, then we can talk about OK, what does this one state look like?
Speaker 1:Understood, understood, understood, and you brought something about the right return and how there's Palestinians across the Middle East. Now, how do you view different Middle Eastern actors in all of this? Because you see that the state, the populations of certain states are very supportive of palestinians, but governments give maybe strong, strong rhetoric but their actions not so much. I'm just curious, as a palestinian, how, how do you view that? Because largely throughout the palestinian israeli conflict I don't mean to be harsh with this, but Palestinians have been used kind of as pawns against Israelis. From Middle Eastern states no, egypt kind of immediately comes to mind. But yeah, I'm just curious on how you think of it.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, very simply put, I think they, especially as it pertains to other Arab states, they have let the Palestinians down. They've let us down in an egregious manner. In an egregious manner Especially, I mean, you know this comes to mind just because it was like three days ago but when you know Iran sort of shot all those missiles and did all of that. You know all those reports about Jordan helping Israel, like shoot down those missiles and those drones. I mean, I think it's very valid that people had a lot of anger with the Jordanian king and the establishment for that action, because it just showed in it very egregiously so that, like, you have this action that is happening and you can feel however you feel about it, but it's like this action that is in support of Palestine and you're going to betray us in that manner, betray us in that manner, and it's just, it's very, it's maddening and it's very heartbreaking too, because that's kind of what we've seen from the Arab nations, for I mean, the last Arab leader to really really stand up for Palestinians was, like, probably, gamal Abdelnasir in egypt, like many decades ago. Um, and so like, how, how do I feel about the arab states? Simply, they are not doing enough. They're really not doing enough and I think especially with, like, the way that uaeE and Saudi also have been normalizing and pushing forward that normalization effort. Again, it's very anger-inducing because these are supposed to be the people who, especially a country like the UAE or like Saudi, even like they have all this vast wealth and Saudi especially like has this leverage on the world stage of at the push of a button they could spike oil prices, they could like mess with the oil markets all around the world, which they have done before, which they have done before, like there is sort of a historical precedent for it and but you know, mbs is sort of hell-bent on this like normalization effort, this like hyper secularization within his own country, in saudi, and mean that's why I think October 7 was done, which you know it, what have you? I mean the Abraham Accords essentially threw us under the bus completely and said Palestinian statehood. What have you? Whatever we're going to, you know they'll deal with it somehow.
Speaker 2:And it was just about this normalization effort and I'll admit, even like I will admit this myself, a palestinian I gave up at some point. I gave up in the sense that I it's not like I was like, oh no, we're never gonna see a free palestine. But I gave up in terms of and we're never gonna see anything happen in the near future about this, because all, like all the odds are against us now, because the people who are supposed to be our greatest allies, the people who are supposed to be side by side with us, are breaking bread with Herzog and Netanyahu even. And the UAE opened up the embassy, the Israeli embassy there and made a whole show of it, and it's like they're traitors of it and it's like the I.
Speaker 2:They're traitors like like for me as like as someone who believes in this like unity of of arabs and especially like I mean, in islam, there's this whole concept of the ummah, the, the nation, and that's something like, especially when it comes to Saudi. Saudi is supposed to be this epicenter of Islam in the world and to see the center of Islam just completely throw the Palestinians under the bus. It broke us. It really did. But after October 7th and after seeing just how horrific the response that Israel had to October 7th and after seeing the, you know just how horrific the response that Israel had to October 7th and continues to have to this very moment, it's actually brought Palestine back to the conversation in a way that we have never seen before, at least in my lifetime.
Speaker 1:So I think when people look at when I discussed earlier about how Israel would respond, it's kind of what was theorized and hypothesized was that's exactly how Hamas would want Israel to respond, because this would thwart the attempts and I'm not saying this is your view, I'm just saying out there like they wanted Israel to respond in such an aggressive, heavy-handed manner, in essence to pretty much cultivate these social uprisings in certain populations across the Middle East, because you're talking about Saudi Arabia, uae, these are their governments, not their populations, that are making these deals.
Speaker 1:Obviously Important distinction to make, yes, and definitely different interests. But I wanted to go back to the Jordan point too, because when you felt betrayed and I don't mean this as a push or a dig when you felt betrayed and I don't mean this as a push or dig because, to my understanding, jordan opened up their airspace to allow missiles to be shot down, is it more so them having this support there through a policy measure and then no support for putting on a ceasefire Am I understanding that or just kind of advocating that this stops? I just want to understand a little more there.
Speaker 2:I mean, simply put, just the fact that they were collaborating with the Israelis to shoot down those missiles and and and the drones. It's. It's just the most clear-cut example of like collaborating, like you're. Who you're collaborating with is currently committing a genocide against the palestinians. And so, like you have king abdullah, like he comes here and he's behind you know, biden is giving a speech and he's behind him, like, just sort of like hanging out there and he says a few words about oh, I urged him and what have you, and then goes and like collaborates with the entity that is currently massacring Gaza and starving it. You look at that and you're like you're obviously not on the side of the Palestinians. It seems. This seems like a betrayal, because you shouldn't be collaborating with this entity at all at all, especially while they're actively committing a genocide in raza I understand, yeah, and speaking of biden genocide, joe has been has been.
Speaker 1:That was recently premiered at a trump rally as well, which is yeah, that was to take note of. Yeah, it was video. It was yeah, and trump, in his fashion, was like they're not wrong. So we'll see if he leans into that one or not.
Speaker 2:I think, I think honestly, trump just loves a nickname, so he was he does love a good I'll, I'll take it yeah, yeah, literally, and not to get sidetracked.
Speaker 1:But a lot of the catchphrases for trump saga was actually breaking this down was they're not from trump, they come from the crowd. Like apparently he was against build the wall at a certain point and the crowd starts saying it to him, so he's like I'm gonna run with this because they like it, but neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:Um to the genocide, joe point you know, as you mentioned earlier, it's been seven months since, uh, gaza has been in this war condition, has been under siege and that's kind of an israeli term using two, because they said they're going to set siege to gaza. Point being is that do you see your, could you see yourself? Or not even yourself, but like people are announcing genocide joe, and with this 2024 election coming up, that young voters a lot of palestinian supporters are young voters in these crowds has ever talked about like, well, if this does stop or if there is a ceasefire, we will vote like vote in 2024, democratically, because it's not as if I think a lot of people will vote for Trump or RFK instead, but rather they'll just sit out entirely. I'm just curious, for someone who has their pretty much finger on the pulse of this movement to a large degree, what your thoughts are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I would. I'll give my opinion, which is I am on the abandoned Biden camp, no matter what, especially after what we've seen from him thus far, because it's I mean, it's been what it's now 192 days and he has not. I think he has been very ineffective in leveraging his power to rein in the Israelis. I think also he's you know, so many reports have come out about him sending not like a massive weapons package, but as many sort of like ammunitions and sort of like restocking their like tank munitions and things of that sort through executive order, sort of bypassing the whole like congressional approval process. So you have that. You have him not leveraging our power enough as, like us, like we, we are the usa and yeah, you know, like I've had congress, people argue with me that, like they're their own, you know autonomous nation, you think we can really rein them in Like, yes, absolutely, Absolutely, we're the freaking US of A. Like we definitely can.
Speaker 2:But it's clear that Biden doesn't want to at this point, because I, you know, I would love to give him the benefit of the doubt that, like he's trying his best or, for me, he's in full support of what's going on. I don't know that for sure. I'm not in his mind, but from from his actions. That's what I can say in terms of the general feeling amongst palestinians, or like people who are very like in the pro-palestine movement, um, or who are just very passionate about like, actually like a lasting peace and a lasting like dignity for palestinians, um, I think most people would agree with me, like most people would say no matter what, and and again, like, we are still in April 16th, so I can't speak to how that changes once we really get into election season, and I'm sure Trump is going to have some outrageous things to say as well which might change people's minds. But I would say, for the majority of people, they have the same view that I do, which is abandon Biden, no matter what.
Speaker 2:I definitely think there are people in the movement who, if there were to be a permanent lasting ceasefire, would probably be like okay, that's good enough for me, like they stopped the killing. I don't want Donald Trump to be president, and you know, that's the like beauty for democracy. I guess people have the choice to make their choice, and, but for me personally, I think no way, like, no way, and I think that's the sentiment for a lot of people too, but not not like I, I'll never like. I don't like working in absolutes. I think it's most people, but I think there are also people who like a ceasefire would satisfy them, a permanent, lasting ceasefire understood.
Speaker 1:And if there was one message you want to communicate to the audience who is maybe not tuned in to this war they just see the headlines and not much else what would that be?
Speaker 2:that's a good question.
Speaker 2:My message would be that I really hope you can find within you, not but like a very real, real empathy and understanding of Palestinians and their humanity, as you know, in the worst case as like just barbaric savages, and we are so, so dehumanized, even when it's not something extreme like that.
Speaker 2:And I guess, like I just really urge people to, if you know a Palestinian or if you know of a Palestinian in your community around you I mean, there's not that many of us in the US urge you to maybe reach out or just like go online and and read things written by palestinians about palestinians and understand that we are a, we are, we're just like regular people with a very rich history and rich tradition and lots of love and and we have amazing food and like great community, and that we have had a very difficult history and you know this might be controversial to say, but we've also had to resist because we've been occupied for over 75 years and and that's not to excuse you know I will never sit here and try to justify the death of innocent people, because that is a crazy thing to do. What I will say is that you can acknowledge that October 7 happened because we were about to be completely forgotten in history and erased, and I hope people can really understand that.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it and I do want to offer you the opportunity to share where people can keep up with you at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my main social media is Instagram. You can follow me at TazSDC, so T-A-Z-S-D-C. I go to Congress every day to sort of talk to Congress people or senators. We have disrupted a lot of hearings and meetings, like just last week we did like Lloyd Austin and yeah, we also. I want to plug this real quick, go for it. I'm part of a group that is currently doing two different occupations or encampments, you can say one that's in front of Blinken's house and one that's at the Israeli embassy. We're on day 82 at Blinken's, day 50 at the Israeli embassy. We just sort of have like a camp set up with a lot of flags and banners where our point is to sort of educate people about the Palestinians, about our cause, about our struggle, and also to be in the face of the people who are responsible for our killing, to tell them we are not going anywhere and we will be in your face Till we actually get our dignity and our rights as as humans well, thank you for your time.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you sharing all this. Yeah, and once more, if I, you put down your social handles, so check those out everyone and thank you for tuning in and until next time. Thank you for tuning in and until next time, thank you.