0:00

Hello, you are listening to Red Minus.

0:15

My

0:18

name is Allison and I am here with Brett and

0:20

it has been a little bit since we have

0:22

done an episode. We've had pretty

0:25

busy schedules in both of our lives that have taken us away

0:27

from the show for a little bit, but

0:28

we are back today to discuss

0:31

a very important issue that I think

0:33

is an

0:34

obligation for communists

0:36

to speak out about at the moment and to be pushing

0:39

where these discussions are going. So today

0:41

we are going to dive into what is happening

0:43

in Palestine and the conflicts

0:46

that we are seeing there as Palestinian

0:48

resistance is fighting back against Israeli

0:50

occupation and genocide and we

0:52

are seeing a big flare up happening in this context.

0:55

One of the reasons that I think it's important

0:58

for us to talk about this is really one

1:00

of the things that I'm most proud of Red Minus for

1:02

is that we have been very vocal about decolonization

1:05

both as a historical reality and

1:07

as a theoretical position. We have

1:10

episodes throughout the past of our show looking

1:13

into the work of Fanon, looking into

1:15

how decolonization was explored in the Battle

1:17

of Algiers as a film, and looking

1:19

into how to understand the entire

1:23

genocide that is happening within Palestine

1:26

through the lens of settler colonialism and decolonial

1:28

struggle. One thing that I think is

1:30

very important that we always come back to as

1:33

communists is to tie our views

1:35

into the necessity for decolonization for

1:37

decolonial struggle and what that means. At this

1:39

moment, this is particularly key. We

1:42

are seeing a intensification of resistance

1:45

that has struck a very sizable

1:47

blow to Israel that has also

1:50

led to intense backlash from the Israeli

1:52

occupying forces with a brutal

1:55

and devastating and absolutely genocidal

1:58

bombing campaign happening within Gaza

2:00

as well as now a ground

2:02

invasion which is taking place. It is hard

2:04

to tell the scope of that at the exact moment, but

2:07

in this moment we think that it's really important

2:09

and key to discuss these issues because

2:12

as communists we need to be finding these struggles

2:14

that are at the forefront of

2:16

the struggle against imperialism and capitalism

2:19

and the struggle against Israeli occupation

2:21

of Palestine is definitely one of these. Israel

2:24

as a client state of the United States serving

2:26

imperialist hegemony within the

2:28

region is important for us to understand

2:30

and we have to be able to stand in solidarity

2:33

with the national liberation struggle taking place

2:35

now to reclaim that land from

2:37

settlers who are occupying it. So I

2:40

think it's incredibly important to discuss this. We have

2:42

a bunch of points that we'll get into, but that

2:44

is kind of what we will be diving into here today.

2:47

Brett, do you have anything? Yeah, definitely just

2:49

have some opening thoughts. We're recording this just

2:51

so everybody knows on October 30th, so the day

2:53

before Halloween, I say that because this

2:55

is a very, you know, evolving situation

2:58

and it's going to continue to evolve. You

2:59

know, we're at a precipice of, I

3:02

mean, the ground invasion more or less started

3:04

officially in the last 24 to 48 hours. We have countries like

3:08

Turkey and Iran talking about

3:10

their red lines, which are seemingly being

3:12

crossed as we speak. We'll touch

3:14

on that a little bit further into the episode as well.

3:16

But yeah, so it's a very evolving situation. So of

3:19

course we want to come and present stuff

3:21

in real time as this situation develops.

3:23

Now Rev. Left listeners will know I put

3:26

out two episodes called Palestine on Fire,

3:28

where I did sort of monologue style

3:30

episodes breaking down the conflict

3:32

of the first week or two. And then

3:34

also on Guerrilla History, we've done a bunch of interviews.

3:37

They're still going to be coming out. And

3:39

on Rev. Left, I released a lot of the old episodes

3:41

Allison and I did on Red Menace for

3:44

people to help them orient themselves

3:46

to decolonial theory. We re-released all the

3:48

France Fanon episodes. We re-released

3:50

our wonderful two-hour episode explaining

3:53

settler colonialism in Israel and the

3:55

United States. I think I even put up

3:57

Allison's wonderful Jewish

4:00

anti-Zionism, the history of Jewish anti-Zionism,

4:03

which was interesting. We also have that Emmaus

4:05

Cessair episode that I forgot about as well,

4:08

and probably another one I'm forgetting about. But we've

4:10

tried to provide people with the theoretical

4:14

underpinnings and analysis that is essential

4:17

to understand a situation like this. And

4:19

we hope that longtime listeners of Red Menace,

4:22

when this situation pops off, you

4:24

immediately have learned some stuff that you

4:26

apply that helps you understand and

4:28

break down the situation to use the

4:30

correct language, right? Because one thing

4:32

that is very apparent is the pro-Zionist

4:35

side, they want to talk about terrorism.

4:37

They don't want to mention words like settler colonialism. You

4:40

really... I listened to a two-hour debate

4:42

with like four different people, all different stripes

4:45

of Zionists, and I didn't

4:47

hear the word settler colonial once. That's

4:49

just one example, but these words

4:51

matter. It's important to understand and to label

4:53

things with what's actually going on. Is

4:56

this an act of terrorism or is this a national

4:59

liberation struggle? Once you have the analysis

5:01

that hopefully Allison and I have helped people learn,

5:03

it becomes very clear this is a national

5:05

liberation struggle, and as Marxists, we have

5:07

to support it. So yeah, we're going

5:10

to touch on... I think we might even start with

5:12

some US domestic issues, but we're going

5:14

to get into the internal dynamics of Israel, ground

5:16

invasion, a bunch of other stuff that has

5:19

not been covered on the

5:21

previous Rev. Left Palestine on Fire episodes

5:24

and has not really been covered to the extent

5:26

that we're going to cover on anything we've done on G.H. So

5:28

I really... A grill of history. So I

5:30

really hope that this can be

5:32

a useful sort of intervention in an

5:34

evolving situation. Yeah, absolutely.

5:38

And yeah, to start us off, I figured I wanted

5:40

to talk about something that I think is a hopeful

5:42

opening potentially that we can use to

5:44

dive into this issue and to position

5:47

ourselves in relation to this, because obviously both

5:49

you and I, Brett, are in the United States. We

5:51

are in the imperial core. We are in the country

5:54

whose funding makes this genocide possible.

5:56

And so from within this country, we

5:59

have a... specific position

6:01

where it is especially important to be

6:04

in opposition to Zionism, to be

6:06

in opposition to the U.S. funding of the Zionist

6:08

project. And one of the things that

6:10

I think is really hopeful and that I

6:12

don't know if you've seen this where you are, obviously

6:15

I am in a West Coast city which probably

6:17

leans more left-wing in some ways, but I've

6:20

seen just for the first time in a long

6:22

time just the discourse

6:24

on this issue finally starting to shift

6:26

a little bit, I think. There has

6:29

been a slow steady tide of

6:31

increased solidarity with Palestine in the West.

6:34

The BDS movement has had gains

6:36

in terms of the size of its support. That's

6:39

part of the reason they've tried to criminalize it

6:41

throughout parts of the United States. But

6:43

I have never seen people

6:46

in the streets at the scale that we have seen the last

6:48

two weekends in Los Angeles here standing

6:50

in solidarity with Palestine. It is incredible

6:53

to see. I've talked about this before

6:55

but I grew up in conservative religious

6:57

community of Christian Zionists

7:00

and I'm seeing people I grew up with who are deeply

7:02

indoctrinated in this with me talking

7:04

about how this is a genocide, right? And

7:07

how we need to be thinking about this

7:09

as an issue of fighting against colonialism.

7:12

And that's fucking insane to me, honestly,

7:14

because these are people who are incredibly

7:16

indoctrinated in the American Zionist

7:19

kind of thought project who have seen

7:21

through that, who are coming around and

7:23

who in this moment really can't deny

7:25

what is happening right in front of their own eyes,

7:28

what they're seeing on the internet in these

7:30

films, that that is a genocide. And

7:32

I think it's really important. And one of the

7:34

reasons I think that this episode matters is that

7:36

I want to encourage everyone to be fucking

7:38

loud about this issue, right? Because there

7:41

is a turning point happening. Discussing this

7:43

actually matters. Discussing this unapologetically

7:46

matters because it emboldens more people

7:48

to be willing to stand up on this issue. Zionism

7:52

requires the idea that it is the default

7:54

position, right? And that a rejection

7:56

of it is somehow anti-Semitic or monstrous.

7:59

But really, normal people pushing back

8:01

and being able to call Designist Project what

8:04

it is shows the lie that that

8:06

really is. It shows that there isn't an actual

8:08

consensus around this and that good people

8:11

disagree and are willing to call a spade

8:13

a spade and stand in opposition to what is blatant

8:15

ethnic cleansing. And I think it's really

8:17

important that as many people choose

8:20

to be unapologetically vocal about this as

8:22

possible because part of the reality

8:25

is that there is a real attempt to silent

8:28

dissent on this issue. We've seen this here in the United

8:30

States with the Harvard students who had their

8:32

faces put on an electronic billboard

8:34

calling them Harvard's top anti-Semites driven

8:37

around the neighborhood. That same group then

8:39

put their faces on billboards that they put outside

8:41

their fucking houses. Right? So

8:44

there is real attempts to get people

8:46

fired to get people having their careers

8:48

ruined over this and the fact that they want

8:50

to silence this so badly tells

8:52

you how important is to be vocal but it also tells

8:55

you that they're scared. Right?

8:57

They know there isn't actual consensus about

8:59

this. They have to force people to believe

9:01

this. They have to force people not to speak

9:04

out. And so the more people that speak out

9:06

the more that there is an actual turning point

9:08

here the less those kind of social

9:10

punishments become viable and the more we

9:12

are able to push back against Zionist

9:15

and imperialist propaganda. So one of

9:17

the reasons that I think you know this matters

9:19

and there's a real reason for hope is yeah I

9:21

think we're at a turning point. I think people are starting

9:23

to be vocal and I hope we can encourage and inspire

9:25

other people to do the same thing because

9:28

it's really crucial in this moment that

9:30

solidarity actually exists and you

9:32

know as however we can contribute to

9:34

that I hope this episode is a small

9:36

part of that.

9:38

Absolutely. Yeah I've never ever seen Zionism

9:41

sew on its back foot in the West in

9:43

particular. Their their attempt

9:46

to clamp down on all

9:48

dissent you know these these riot police

9:50

and every major metropole in the West

9:52

beating protesters who come out with

9:55

the Palestinian flag trying to pass legislation

9:57

to silence people to make a like

10:00

from the river to the sea which is a chant about decolonization

10:03

into some sort of hateful anti-Semitic

10:06

genocidal, you know statement and

10:08

that's another thing that's very fascinating is the Projection

10:12

on the part of Zionists right they're accusing

10:14

their enemies of what they do So they'll

10:16

say something like oh look at these pro-palestinian Protesters

10:19

saying from the river to the sea they want to genocide

10:21

us They want to ethnically cleanse us as

10:24

they're engaging in genocidal ethnic cleansing

10:26

right and you can go down the list and see This

10:28

manifests in a bunch of different ways And

10:31

so I think they're incredibly insecure. I think

10:34

when when they are insecure. What do they turn

10:36

to they turn to? Fascistic tactics

10:39

the fact that the fact that you could have somebody

10:41

like I don't know if anybody's been keeping up with the freaks on

10:43

The American right but Nikki Haley, you

10:46

know just absolutely acting as if she's

10:48

BB net in Yahoo talking about she wants

10:50

to run for president So she can help Israel

10:53

eliminate them all and no amount of money is enough

10:56

to protect Israel and do what they was As if she's

10:58

running for the presidency of Israel

11:00

instead of the United States now of course Nikki Haley

11:02

will never ever win in a million years, but

11:04

it's just fascinating how How

11:07

insecure they are and it's fascinating

11:09

also, and this is to our advantage

11:12

this Enormous never-before-seen

11:14

split between the Western government

11:16

ruling classes and the Western population

11:19

centers, right? This is a fascinating

11:22

divide that that speaks to some deep

11:24

internal divisions in Western countries

11:26

themselves that go beyond just this conflict

11:28

right that this sort of inability For

11:31

the actual interests and desires of

11:33

the populations to get through

11:35

the ruling class and be instantiated into policy

11:38

is The Democratic facade

11:40

is really falling off completely And

11:44

Allison was mentioning this

11:46

this and we're talking about it right now, you know this unprecedented

11:48

support for Palestine, of course It's always been

11:51

present in the global West Definitely always been

11:53

present in Arab states and in the in West

11:55

Asia But to see it in the West is fascinating

11:58

and I would argue that There's

12:00

many many reasons for this shift one

12:03

of them I think in the US in particular

12:05

is and I make this argument quite a bit We've been

12:07

through a lot right if you're a millennial or

12:09

a Gen Z person, right? Like we started

12:11

with 9-11 We watched the war on

12:14

terror So we saw how a traumatic

12:16

event was weaponized for the by the worst

12:18

people for illegal criminal

12:20

behavior That was a very big lesson for

12:23

us. And I also think or

12:25

you know, we can think of Standing Rock 2015 2016 2014 I

12:28

can't really remember that was huge. We blew

12:30

past it. A lot of other events happened We had Trump

12:33

and BLM, but if you remember at that

12:35

time Standing Rock was a

12:37

big thing and what that does is it educates

12:39

people So when Standing Rock was all over

12:41

everybody's Facebook feeds back then when we used to have Facebook

12:43

pages You

12:45

know It was it was a it was another notch in

12:47

the belt of political education a young generation

12:50

coming up like, you know This is disgusting. This pipeline

12:52

is disgusting these indigenous people have every right

12:54

to stand up And then we had Black Lives Matter

12:57

in 2020 a lot of the same themes

12:59

right an internal nation That is that is a press

13:02

the racial dynamics the the

13:04

primitive accumulation dynamics the colonial

13:07

dynamics, right? That was very educational

13:10

for people and if you remember Alison and

13:12

I did our two-hour episode on Settler

13:14

colonialism in Israel in the United States

13:16

in 2021 when the last big

13:18

conflict happened now It's been overshadowed

13:21

by this latest 2023 basically

13:23

war medieval siege on Gaza

13:26

but in 2021 a big flare-up did

13:28

occur and Right after Black Lives

13:30

Matter when people were really primed to see

13:33

the dynamics of oppressor verse oppression, right?

13:36

Oh the oppressed verse oppressor and so I think

13:38

what we've seen is especially in the US in particular

13:40

But of course, this is all global given the internet

13:43

is a slow and steady building up of experiences

13:46

Material realities that younger

13:48

people have had to face that have educated

13:50

them in such a way that when they look

13:52

at this conflict They can no longer

13:55

be tricked hoodwink convinced

13:57

Israel are the good guys and that's not even

13:59

bringing up

13:59

the delegitimization of institutions in

14:02

the US, the fact that people don't even get their

14:04

news from these corporate mouthpieces, that

14:06

you come to a show like us, you know, or on

14:08

the internet, or go on YouTube to find a

14:11

broad swath of perspectives. All

14:13

of these things and more, I think, are contributing

14:16

to this process, but I really wanted to emphasize stuff

14:18

like Standing Rock and Black Lives Matter as

14:20

educational processes within themselves

14:23

that help set people up intellectually and

14:26

morally and analytically for

14:28

them to make sense of a situation like this. I think

14:29

those truly did help. Yeah,

14:32

no, I think that's really important. And I think that

14:34

this is a conduction that I think we've

14:36

always tried to draw, right? Which is that the situation

14:39

that is happening in occupied Palestine

14:42

is not unique and the sort of thing

14:44

that has never happened elsewhere in history, right? Settler

14:46

colonialism exists in many contexts,

14:49

including here in the United States, right? So

14:51

you're totally correct that the contradictions that

14:53

we've seen bubble up in the United States, that our

14:55

generation and the younger generation have

14:58

encountered and have mobilized around our

15:00

colonial contradictions as well, right? And

15:03

understanding the way that colonialism operates

15:05

globally in different contexts, I think really

15:08

has done a lot. And you know,

15:10

talking about like just the normalization of terms,

15:12

the amount of people using the term settler colonialism

15:15

now to talk about what is happening is

15:17

more than I've ever seen. This is becoming an increasingly

15:20

mainstream concept. Decolonization

15:22

is becoming an increasingly mainstream concept to

15:24

the point that the Atlantic had to run

15:26

like a stair piece about it today, about

15:28

the danger of decolonization as an idea

15:31

and what it poses. And you know, that is incredible

15:34

that we are seeing these breakthroughs this way, that

15:36

people are starting to make these connections. And

15:39

yeah, I think it's worth just highlighting that up top

15:41

because it is a point of hope for the

15:43

possibility of global solidarity

15:46

in opposition to imperialism, colonialism,

15:48

and capitalism. And we should point

15:50

out those openings where we see them, I think, and really,

15:53

you know, emphasize

15:55

how important that is.

15:57

Absolutely. Absolutely.

15:59

Yeah, so while we're talking about domestically

16:02

what this means in here in the United States, I think

16:04

another thing that it's really important for us

16:06

to, you know, give some attention

16:09

to is how this is affecting domestic politics

16:11

as we are going to be going into an election

16:14

year soon. And one

16:16

of the big things that I am seeing

16:18

intense frustration about, and I'm glad to see intense

16:20

frustration about, is that there is not

16:23

a candidate going into this next

16:25

election who is opposed to

16:27

Zionism, who is even fucking critical of

16:29

it, you know what I mean? Like to set the

16:31

bar as low as possible. Even

16:33

the supposedly sort of outsider

16:36

candidates like RFK, who we add, were

16:38

huge supporters of Zionism and

16:40

the Zionist project. And there's

16:42

a lot of frustration here. And as we are going

16:45

into this, obviously, you know, I speaking

16:47

a little too broadly, I will say Cornel West was

16:49

at the rally in Los Angeles this weekend

16:52

speaking out against this genocide. So

16:54

not no candidate, but no mainstream candidate,

16:56

certainly. And I think that as

16:58

this is happening, we are seeing the liberal

17:01

democratic establishment starting to panic

17:03

about what this means, because it

17:05

is clear to them that for many,

17:07

many young people, this is an important

17:10

issue where they are not in line with the democratic

17:12

party's position on this. But at the same time,

17:15

the Democratic Party and Joe Biden, who

17:17

for some fucking reason is going to be their candidate,

17:19

will not budge on this issue.

17:22

And we've seen this to the extent where it's not

17:24

just that they're not giving into pressure from outside

17:26

the political establishment, from the public, but

17:29

people within the State Department and you

17:31

know, the people in the State Department, these are like fucking

17:33

ladder climbing, like liberal political

17:36

elites, essentially, are quitting over the

17:38

inability to budge Biden and the Democrats

17:40

on this issue. And so really, the Democratic

17:43

Party is locking down its position

17:46

as willing to fund the Zionist project through

17:48

its most horrific acts

17:50

of violence that we have seen. And

17:53

part of what they're having to do in order to get away with

17:55

this is the thing that liberals and Democrats love

17:57

to do more than anything, which is to just try to

17:59

shame you. into fucking voting for them, even

18:01

though they're opposed to every value

18:04

that you have and think that you believe in. And

18:06

so one of the things that we've started to see is really

18:08

this discussion of, well, you

18:10

know, even if Biden is his

18:13

Zionist and supports genocide, he's still

18:15

the lesser of two evils, etc., etc. And

18:17

I think this position is just obviously

18:19

fucking absurd for a number of reasons. One

18:22

of the arguments for this, right, is that

18:24

Trump essentially emboldened Netanyahu

18:27

in some way and the right within Israel. And

18:29

even if there were a level of truth to that, guess

18:31

what? Trump is out now and we're still fucking

18:33

funding them. Biden is

18:35

still emboldening in Israel and Netanyahu.

18:38

So there has not been a reduction

18:41

in, you know, aid to Israel in any

18:43

way that could be meaningful. And in addition

18:45

to this, I think it's important to point out that Biden

18:47

in particular and the Democratic part, broadly,

18:50

have Zionism baked into their history,

18:52

right? Biden has spoken out throughout his

18:54

time as a politician about how important

18:57

Zionism is to him, how he says he is a Zionist

19:00

in his heart. And when someone

19:02

like that is who the candidate is, we

19:04

shouldn't reject the idea that they are the lesser

19:06

of two evils, someone who is so blatantly

19:09

committed to this genocidal project.

19:12

And despite all the shaming that is going on,

19:14

I think it is really important for us to say that

19:17

among the two candidates, it's going to be fucking

19:19

Biden and Trump. Neither of them is a choice

19:22

that any progressive can stand behind because

19:24

both of them are involved in this genocidal

19:26

project. And I just think it's important to

19:28

say, don't let these fuckers shame you, right?

19:31

Don't let these

19:32

cynics manipulate you into

19:34

voting for them, punish them for fucking

19:36

supporting genocide and don't let them win.

19:39

You know, kind of my thoughts there at least. Yeah.

19:42

If Biden wins, if for some reason Biden can still

19:44

pull this out, what will they take that as?

19:47

As just like, okay, we can do whatever the fuck we want.

19:49

There's no price to pay for anything. We

19:52

can literally help and fund and assist

19:54

and, you know, a genocide, we can be a genocide

19:57

denier, we can disgustingly.

19:59

Cast doubt on the number

20:02

of innocent fucking human beings being

20:04

slaughtered and pulled out of the rubble

20:06

Like what are you talking about? Where is your floor?

20:08

If if if that is not enough if that

20:11

if that's not your red line as a voter What

20:13

the fuck do you

20:14

even believe in what is the fucking point of any

20:16

of this shit? I mean, we're literally going from

20:18

I saw a tweet the other day that got

20:20

a fair amount of traction and apparent

20:23

agreement Which is they admitted

20:25

up front? Yes, Biden is doing

20:27

a genocide, but we should still vote for

20:29

him So we've now we've now following

20:32

their path of politics We've gone

20:34

from the lesser of two evils to the lesser

20:36

of two Genociders my genociders

20:38

better than your genociders. That's that's

20:41

the fucking low Point

20:43

in American

20:44

politics right now that democratic fucking

20:46

weaverly liberals are trying to tell us to

20:48

choose their Genociders over the other

20:50

one. No, what is happening

20:53

is we are in a global crisis period and

20:55

an American crisis period happening Simultaneously

20:58

right unipolarity is ending

21:00

the the the American Empire

21:03

is now on its back foot in ways It's never

21:05

been before and at home. It

21:07

is under increasingly intense

21:10

pressure Because all of the institutions

21:12

are being utterly Delegitimized the

21:15

gap between what the American people

21:17

right left and center want first what maybe

21:19

not center first What the American

21:21

ruling elite is doing is getting bigger

21:24

and bigger young people in particular

21:26

Because of their material reality not because

21:29

of the romantic, you know

21:31

wide-eyed bushy-tailed nature of being young

21:34

But that's idealist but because of the material

21:36

reality of young people are disgusted with

21:39

all of this shit And the thing

21:41

is the American crisis that

21:43

we're living through right now will continue no

21:45

matter who is president There is no anti-fascist

21:48

vote between Biden and Trump. There's no

21:50

way to get out There's no vote

21:52

ballot box that you can check off

21:54

that will get us out of this crisis The crisis

21:57

is in full downward spiral. It is it is

21:59

the event horizon. The

22:02

crisis has to play out and

22:04

no amount of voting for Biden or

22:07

Trump or any of these two parties as they currently

22:09

are constituted will do anything to

22:11

prevent that. In a sense, whether you want

22:13

to be or not, we're all accelerationists

22:16

in the sense that

22:17

the crisis has now

22:19

its own momentum. It must go

22:21

down. The status quo is simply

22:23

untenable. If you still

22:26

think that picking the D versus the R

22:28

is going to make any real impact

22:31

on your life, on global policy,

22:33

on climate

22:34

change, on anything that matters,

22:36

you're deluding yourself. You're

22:38

deluding yourself. So I have morals.

22:41

Instead of choosing between that genocidal and this

22:43

genocidal, I'm actually against genocide

22:45

actually. I'm against it and I'm

22:47

not going to support anybody that engages

22:50

in it. And we'll get to this later.

22:52

This is a bit of taking us off course,

22:54

but I'm going to talk later and I have it circled

22:56

on my notes about genocide. And

22:59

I'm going to address full-throatedly this

23:01

idea that you see from some Zionists and some

23:04

liberals that is not actually a genocide.

23:06

So we will get to that. And I will defend

23:08

wholeheartedly that this is a genocide.

23:11

But for now, I just wanted to make

23:14

that point. No matter who's president, this crisis

23:16

has to play out. We'll continue to play

23:18

out. And that's what we are seeing. And

23:21

the Biden quote, I

23:22

thought you were going to say this one. There's plenty of Biden

23:24

quotes to go around. There's

23:26

that old clip of him saying, if there were

23:29

no Israel, America would have to invent

23:31

an Israel. Because it's not merely

23:34

that Biden and his inner

23:36

circle just agree with Netanyahu

23:38

or just like Israel a lot. It's a material

23:41

reality that Israel serves the

23:43

US empire's economic and geopolitical

23:46

interest in the region. It is a huge,

23:49

well-funded and America makes sure of that military

23:52

base in West Asia for America

23:54

to carry out its operations just like there's

23:57

an Afro-com. Right. I just did a whole episode

23:59

on Rev. Left about

23:59

the African command.

24:01

Every continent has their own sort of command

24:04

where the U.S. imperial empire has

24:07

a sort of command just for that continent, just

24:09

to do imperialism in that area. And

24:11

you can see Israel is sort of a really

24:14

big glorified version of just that. And

24:17

so there's a deep material interest

24:19

in the military industrial complex of

24:21

which both parties are completely

24:23

wedded to maintain Israel at

24:26

any cost. And that's what they're going to do.

24:28

Yeah, no, I think that's super important to say,

24:30

and I'll expand on that a little bit, because I think this

24:33

can be a transition to discussing Zionism

24:35

broadly. But I think one thing to get at, right, that

24:37

you're really, you know, correctly

24:40

emphasizing here is that Zionism as

24:42

an ideology in the United States,

24:44

right, so as an ideology of American

24:46

politics, isn't really even fucking

24:48

about Jewish self-determination at all, right?

24:51

Like, those claims are just fundamentally

24:54

incorrect. If you really look at it, Zionism

24:56

in the context of the United States is exactly

24:58

like you said, it's about essentially having a military

25:01

base within the region, it is about power

25:03

projection, it is about having a client state that

25:05

is loyal to us in an area where

25:08

the United States has had a lot of political

25:10

and warfare based conflict. And then

25:12

on top of that, ideologically within the United

25:14

States, some of the largest Zionist organizations

25:17

in the U.S. are Christian right wing organizations,

25:19

right? And these organizations don't

25:22

give a shit about the Jewish people, they are made

25:24

up of people whose politics is actually fairly anti-Semitic

25:27

in many ways, and by and large

25:29

are part of kind of the like, villainarian

25:32

evangelical death cult that believes

25:35

that in order for the end times to

25:37

occur, an Israeli state

25:39

has to exist on the entire historical

25:41

land of Israel, and so much of the support

25:44

among the American right for Zionism is

25:46

about wanting the world to end, basically,

25:49

and about this weird end times

25:51

prophecy bullshit in which they believe Jews

25:53

will be wiped out or converted to Christianity.

25:56

So Zionism in the United States

25:59

is not even even strictly speaking really

26:01

ideologically in Jewish national projects,

26:04

it is this weird, hybrid Christian

26:06

imperialist sort

26:09

of power fantasy that exists

26:11

there. I think that's important to point out. And

26:14

I think this is crucial to say, right? Zionism,

26:16

ideologically in the US, cannot be disentangled

26:19

from imperialism, cannot be disentangled

26:21

from American nationalism in its attempt

26:24

to project itself globally whatsoever.

26:26

And we need to make sure that that relationship is

26:28

understood correctly. And we need to make sure to understand

26:31

that Israel really is a tool

26:33

of the United States internationally. And

26:35

that gives us a really useful framing

26:38

moving forward, I think. Absolutely.

26:40

Yeah, the point about Christian Zionism being

26:42

insane and also deeply anti-Semitic is

26:45

really, really important. Now that

26:47

form of Zionism tends to proliferate

26:49

on the American right, of course. But

26:52

they find themselves in bed with certain

26:54

liberal, well-off ruling

26:57

class types who have an interest in

26:59

Israel for the more materialist reasons, not

27:02

the crazy biblical ones. So

27:04

this is weird sort of cohesion,

27:06

which makes the Democratic Party and the Republican

27:08

Party both have huge bases

27:11

of sort of support for this. Not

27:13

huge numerically, but huge in their influence.

27:16

And that's not even bringing in a pack,

27:19

right? The actual lobby for Israel

27:21

that is incredibly powerful in

27:23

its own right and is one of the most powerful lobbies

27:26

in the United States and has been for a very,

27:28

very long time. And of course, Zionists

27:31

abroad in Israel, in the US,

27:33

everywhere know that this lobby

27:35

they have and they've built over decades is

27:37

really crucial. It's not about one party

27:40

or the other. It's about this lobby

27:42

making

27:42

sure both parties will do Israel's

27:45

bidding, even if you have to articulate

27:47

it slightly differently for the Republicans

27:49

versus the Democrats, right? Your Zionism

27:51

will be articulated a little differently, but it gets

27:54

to the same end. And so this lobby knows

27:56

that and it operates in that way. And

27:58

the other thing I wanted to mention...

28:00

Two things one of course Israel

28:01

is Zionism is

28:03

a euro colonial project and

28:06

then it can't it can't be made more clear

28:08

other than the fact that it was the colonial Brits

28:11

in 1948 that helped go and partition

28:13

Palestine to launch this entire Zionist

28:15

project in the first place, you

28:18

know, literally British colonialism

28:20

the British Empire holding the hand of European

28:23

Zionists to go and steal the land from

28:25

the Palestinians and do the first Nakaba and

28:28

I really do think that what we're seeing Right now is

28:30

the second Nakaba. I think it is in the

28:33

it's the explicit goal internally

28:35

Israel won't be super outward about

28:37

this, but it is their goal to displace

28:40

as many people as possible

28:41

Killing is one thing. It's nice to make them

28:43

disappear But ultimately they're not gonna be able

28:46

to slaughter all two million two point two million

28:48

of them They want to push them out into the fucking Sinai

28:50

desert and then lock off the Rafa crossing

28:53

and turn all of Gaza into greater Israel

28:55

that really is the fucking goal And

28:58

we can't we can't lose sight of that the last

29:00

thing I will mention on this front Self-determination

29:03

the idea that Zionism is self-determination

29:05

for anybody is like saying the the French

29:08

in Algeria You you have to oppose

29:10

the Algerian national liberation movement because it

29:12

steps on French self-determination, right?

29:14

It is crazy It's a complete wacko

29:17

upside-down world version of that No self-determination

29:20

means that the people of Palestine who are

29:22

indigenous to Palestine have the right to

29:24

self-determine and not live in an occupied

29:26

Apartheid ethno state or not live

29:28

in an open-air concentration camp, which

29:31

interestingly I think is more

29:33

more appropriate than saying an open-air prison.

29:35

I heard an interesting critique And yeah, yeah, we sticks

29:38

but the the idea of a prison is like well, somebody was

29:40

convicted for something, right? The prison might be terrible

29:42

and disgusting But these are fundamentally guilty

29:45

people in some way and I know that's not what people mean

29:47

when they say that But I think the

29:49

use of the word concentration camp is

29:51

more evocative and it also is actually

29:53

more correct It's a concentration of

29:55

the leftovers from the Nakaba pushed

29:58

into this little sliver of land

29:59

the size of fucking Philadelphia, packed

30:02

to the brim almost as dense as Tokyo and

30:05

bordered off and actually the Israel

30:07

is even over the years as it's sort

30:09

of sealed off Gaza put a full

30:11

fence around it and now with automated technology

30:14

they have like automated surveillance

30:17

and drone activity sort of surveilling

30:20

and policing the border So

30:22

it's kind of like this insane sort of mixture of

30:24

21st century technology and like 18th century

30:27

colonialism coming together It's

30:29

pretty fucking sick. But yeah, I

30:31

think I'm calling it a concentration camp is

30:33

a little more on the nose and Yeah,

30:36

it spells it out quite well.

30:38

Yeah, absolutely Yeah,

30:40

so building on a little of what we discussed about Take

30:43

us to another point that I want us to touch on

30:45

but I think if that our discussion just

30:47

now is like what Zionism Is ideologically

30:50

and how it's a colonial project and

30:52

one of the things I want to talk about that I've seen

30:55

over the last few weeks from liberals

30:57

and kind of liberal progressives Domestically

31:00

internationally is this kind

31:02

of idea that they're putting forward of okay It's

31:05

fine to be opposed to Netanyahu, right?

31:07

It's fine to be opposed to illegal settlements

31:10

It's fine to be opposed to

31:12

the current government of Israel But

31:14

the thing that is fundamentally wrong

31:16

is being opposed to Zionism right? That's a step

31:19

too far and this is kind of this Language

31:21

that you've seen with people like Brianna Wu

31:23

saying like hey I think that the left is

31:26

actually really anti-Semitic because they're talking

31:28

about whether Israel should exist instead of criticizing

31:30

the Israeli government and You know

31:33

you'll notice throughout this episode Brett and

31:35

I are very directly talking about our opposition

31:37

to Zionism, right? not to Netanyahu not

31:39

to the current existing government the current

31:42

coalition, but to Zionism itself and

31:45

There's so much to unpack about what Zionism

31:48

is and its history We have an episode on that that

31:50

episode on the history of settler colonialism

31:53

in Israel in the United States where we go back To

31:55

Theodore Herzl we look at where

31:57

Zionism comes from and I highly recommend

32:00

that you check that out. But one of the

32:02

important things that I really want us to emphasize

32:04

is that for any progressives

32:06

and for communists especially, no, it is Zionism

32:08

that we need to be opposed to. And there's

32:10

a couple of reasons for that. One of the

32:12

other kind of talking points that I've seen bubble up is

32:15

like, oh, like the international left stands

32:17

with Palestine and like ignores the Israeli

32:19

left, right? Like the opposition parties

32:22

within Israel. But one of the things that I think

32:24

we can start off by saying and or understand why Zionism

32:26

is the problem is that the Israeli left is complicit

32:29

in the genocide as well, right? It

32:31

was under the early more socialist and

32:33

liberal leaning Israeli political

32:35

parties that the first Nakba took place,

32:38

right? There is not an opposition

32:41

within Israel, which is actually

32:43

opposed to this genocidal process

32:45

of land theft. And that is because built into

32:47

the idea of Zionism is

32:50

the idea that the Jewish people have

32:52

a sole and singular and exclusive

32:54

claim to this land and

32:57

that any state which ought to exist there

32:59

ought to be an ethnic state that

33:01

reinforces that claim, right? This

33:03

is central to the Zionist idea

33:06

and central to the Zionist project. Again, go

33:08

listen to our history of that. And unless

33:10

you are the kind of person who's down with fucking

33:12

reactionary ethno-nationalism, you should

33:15

be opposed to that, right? That is

33:17

a fundamentally absurd idea that a state

33:19

should exist that grants a fundamental

33:21

right to the land to a specific

33:23

ethnic group is absolutely fucking

33:26

fascist to begin with. And so one

33:28

of the things that I think is very important to

33:30

point out and that we have to insist, and that, my

33:32

God, if you read the Palestinian

33:35

resistance documents, they've pointed this

33:37

out too, is that to reject Zionism

33:39

isn't to reject the idea that there's a place

33:41

for Jewish people in the region. It's to

33:43

reject the idea that there ought to be an ethno

33:46

state that's an explicitly Jewish state

33:48

who with a sole claim to the region, right?

33:51

That's what we're fucking rejecting, and we have

33:53

to explicitly reject that. That is

33:55

an ideology built on a settler

33:58

colonial political system that can only end

34:00

in that genocide. There's no other place

34:02

that that idea can take you. That is

34:04

an ideology meant to justify a settler

34:07

colonial project modeled after the settler

34:09

colonial projects in the United States, modeled

34:11

after settler colonial projects throughout

34:13

the world, and that needs to be fought against.

34:16

And so if you're scared to call yourself an

34:18

anti-Zionist, if you're scared to say, no, I'm

34:20

not a post-it Yaku, I'm opposed to Israel,

34:23

then I want to walk you through why you have

34:25

to get past that. Because I

34:27

think, like many people in the world, if

34:29

you asked me, what do I want to see in this region?

34:31

My answer would be, well, what I would love

34:34

is a multinational state with equal rights

34:36

for the Jewish people and the Palestinian people,

34:38

right? That is what would be beautiful

34:40

to see. And okay, here's what I'm going to

34:42

tell you, and this is hard to swallow. If that

34:45

is what you want, you want something that

34:47

is fundamentally incompatible with

34:49

Zionism and fundamentally incompatible

34:51

with Israel as an existing reality, because

34:54

built into Israel as a Zionist state

34:56

is the denial of the possibility of

34:59

that multinational, multi-ethnic state

35:01

with equal rights. So if that's what you

35:03

want, if you want a world where

35:05

equality under the law can

35:08

exist in the region, you have to be an anti-Zionist,

35:10

you have to be opposed to Israel. It's not a matter of criticizing

35:13

Netanyahu, it's not a matter of

35:15

criticizing the current government or criticizing the settlements,

35:17

it's a matter of criticizing the entire

35:20

project and relationship to the material

35:23

reality of land that has produced

35:25

those problems in the first place. Beautifully

35:28

said, absolutely. What we want, ideally,

35:31

and I've said this many times in many places, I'll say

35:33

it again, a singular, multi-ethnic,

35:36

democratic state with equal constitutional,

35:39

human, and civil rights for Jews,

35:41

Muslims, Christians, and the secular

35:43

alike. That would require

35:46

full decolonization and the toppling of

35:48

any artifact of colonialism,

35:51

but it would actually, actually

35:54

be the prerequisite for peace

35:56

in the Middle East, right, for a, for a, for actually,

35:59

for a, for a, for a, for a, addressing the problem

36:01

at its root. And I think that is so

36:04

essential to understand because what will happen,

36:06

and this is very anti-dialectical but it's very

36:08

obvious this is what happens all the time, is

36:11

they'll present this to the average person. It's

36:13

like they presented this one, they presented all the past ones,

36:16

as here's the series of events, here's the

36:18

dominoes falling. Hamas does

36:20

a terrorist attack. Israel responds

36:23

and has a right to defend itself. And then everything

36:25

follows from that point. But that is,

36:27

and

36:28

you know Hamas has said this,

36:30

everybody

36:30

with the fucking brain has said this, the

36:32

inauguration of violence comes with

36:34

the occupation. It comes with settler colonialism.

36:37

It comes during the Nakba. It comes the

36:39

moment you go from Europe, come

36:42

to another people's land and start violently

36:44

slaughtering them or displacing them. Everything

36:46

that happens after that, every

36:49

fucking ounce of blood that is shed after

36:51

that point is inaugurated by

36:53

that colonial violence, by the putting of one

36:55

person's boot on the throat of another human

36:57

being. And if you really want peace in the Middle East,

37:00

it's not about Israel has a right to defend itself or

37:02

Israel has a right to exist. You strike

37:04

at the root of the problem, which is occupation,

37:07

which is apartheid, which is ethnic

37:09

cleansing, which is an ethno state, which is

37:12

Zionism,

37:12

which is Zionism. Now what

37:14

you'll often hear from the liberals

37:16

and what you're gonna hear a lot in the coming weeks, months,

37:19

possibly years, from people like Biden

37:21

and from people all over the West in

37:23

the ruling class, as this situation

37:26

gets more and more intense, you hear and you've

37:28

often heard calls for a two-state solution.

37:31

Now I want to make it clear, two-state

37:33

solution would be an improvement

37:36

over the current situation. I'm sure the people

37:38

in Gaza would say, goddamn, if we have to

37:40

choose between

37:41

fucking this living in a concentration

37:43

camp or actually having a state,

37:45

even if it is weaker and geographically intermeshed

37:47

with Israel,

37:48

we'll take the political power please.

37:50

So I'm not trying to say this in a vacuum or that I wouldn't

37:53

take one step forward because

37:55

I only want five steps forward. No, I'll take that.

37:58

But what that fundamentally does, and you have to understand...

37:59

is ideologically. The reason why somebody

38:02

like fucking Biden wants a two-state

38:04

solution has actually said so in the last couple weeks.

38:06

He's come out and said that the ultimate solution

38:08

to this would be to return to the two-state

38:11

solution, which for a very long time has been dead

38:13

in the fucking water because Israel doesn't

38:15

want a two-state solution first and foremost,

38:18

right? But what will that do? Well, the fact

38:20

that the U.S. wants it should make you cock an

38:23

eyebrow, right? Because what

38:25

it would do would allow Israel to

38:27

remain. So even if you had a weaker Palestinian

38:29

state, you know, Gaza and the West Bank,

38:32

whatever, you still have Israel,

38:34

so it would still serve the material

38:36

interest in the region for the United States.

38:39

And then what they would do is just do their normal

38:41

imperialism. So you would be, the Palestinian

38:44

people would be promoted from colonialism

38:46

to imperialism. The moment there

38:48

was a Palestinian state, the U.S. and Israel

38:51

would be behind the scenes funding

38:53

new media outlets, funding new political

38:55

parties, trying to cause internal strife,

38:58

making sure the economy is strangled,

38:59

making sure they never get nukes

39:02

or even powerful military weapons, trying

39:04

to box them in and keep them in close, keep

39:06

them weak, keep the threat subdued.

39:09

So it actually doesn't solve the problem. It

39:11

just shifts the problem a little bit. Now it is a

39:13

better shift because at least they'd have a military,

39:16

at least ideally they would have a government. They could have relations.

39:19

They could form alliances with other nations around

39:21

them. But the fact that America wants

39:23

it should really make you be suspicious. And I really

39:26

truly think it is merely not

39:28

solving the problem, not creating peace

39:30

in the region, but is merely an upgrade

39:32

from colonialism, which is so last century,

39:35

to imperialism, which is so in. And

39:38

I don't think that's a win ultimately for

39:41

Palestinian people, though again, it would be

39:43

an improvement on the horrific, unholy,

39:46

disgusting conditions that they're forced

39:48

to live in, not just in Gaza, but in the

39:51

West Bank. And Alison mentioned earlier the problem

39:53

of settlements. This is undertaken by

39:55

the most

39:56

far right, ultra-

39:59

or orthodox freaks

40:02

on the planet. This is what people that are hardcore

40:04

Zionists in the US will fly, Americans

40:07

will fly, right? If they have

40:09

a, I think it's like if you, one of your grandparents

40:11

were Jewish, Israel will allow you to have citizenship

40:13

there. They'll fly there and they'll start

40:15

going, being a settler immediately for

40:18

the ideological reasons that they may have, which are

40:20

of course a diverse. But

40:22

in the West Bank, you basically

40:24

have these settlers

40:27

filling the function.

40:29

We always talk about the ideology of settler

40:31

colonialism must be fascism. These are

40:33

the black shirts and brown shirts of our time. They

40:36

harass Palestinians, they beat

40:38

them, they brutalize them. The IDF is there

40:40

with guns to back them up. They steal their homes.

40:42

They take their plants out of their, out of the grounds.

40:44

They take trees out of the ground, olive trees, ruining

40:47

their material, the Palestinians material opportunity

40:50

for, for income, for finance. They

40:52

smash windows of, of Palestinian

40:55

owned stores. These mobs of young, Israelis

40:58

will like go through the, the neighborhoods

41:01

and just like jump people. These are

41:03

fascist motherfuckers. You know,

41:05

they are not innocent civilians. They

41:08

are violent arms of the

41:10

state and they're backed up by the official

41:12

arms of the state. And I think it is

41:15

disgusting. And so anything

41:17

that would, that would end that would definitely be again,

41:19

an improvement on the situation. But we got to think deeply

41:22

about what a two state solution means, whose

41:24

interest is served. But even

41:25

that, even that tepid step

41:28

is too much for Israel to accept. Even if

41:30

Biden accepts it, even if both the Democrat

41:32

and the Republican party start asking for it, Israel

41:35

and the Israeli ruling class will do everything

41:37

they fucking can to make that not

41:39

possible. And what they're doing right now, if

41:42

this is the second Nakba, if they're trying,

41:44

you know, the settlements are a way of picking apart

41:46

the West Bank, turning it to Swiss cheese. So

41:48

there's no contiguous territory there to be turned

41:51

into a state. And if they get their way in Gaza,

41:53

they're going to take this chunk of concentrated Palestinians

41:56

and they're going to disperse them into the Sinai

41:58

desert so that even Gaza can.

41:59

no longer be formed into a fucking state. So

42:02

while Biden sits here, or while the Democrats

42:04

or the ruling elite of the Western fucking countries

42:07

for 10 years are talking about the possibilities

42:09

just around the corner of a two-state

42:11

solution,

42:11

the Israeli elites are doing

42:13

everything they can to eradicate

42:15

the very possibility of exactly

42:18

that. Yeah, absolutely.

42:20

And I think the other thing to say on the two-state solution

42:23

as a concept is part of the reason that

42:25

that is a palatable thing for the Democrats

42:27

in the United States to kind of

42:29

push for is that built into that

42:31

two-state solution, right, is an affirmation

42:34

of Zionism inherently because

42:36

the idea is that the land that they already fucking

42:38

got is theirs, right? The land that's

42:40

already been stolen was rightfully taken and

42:43

they have a right to it and now it gets to be a legitimate

42:45

state. So there is this still kind

42:48

of continued ideological justification

42:50

for land theft that would make

42:53

continued settlement in what would now be a Palestinian

42:55

state inevitable, right? Because

42:58

the reality is it's been affirmed by the political

43:00

reality of the existence of an Israeli

43:02

state in the first place and of a Zionist

43:05

state in the first place. So I think that is the

43:07

other reason that we need to understand why it is

43:09

that the liberal establishment can grab onto

43:11

this as something acceptable is because built into

43:13

it is the premise that Zionism is correct and

43:16

that land theft is justified at

43:18

the end of the day. Exactly. And

43:20

that original British partition of Palestine, the

43:23

opening bid, right, is 80-20. Israel

43:26

gets 80% of your land, you get 20%. If

43:29

some asshole came into your house, some

43:32

group of squatters, and they said, hey, 80% of

43:34

this house is now ours, but you get 20%, we'll

43:36

let you have that, what would you do? Fuck

43:39

you. You don't get 80% of this shit, fuck off. And

43:43

that's what we say to anybody saying a two-state solution

43:45

or any of that bullshit. So yeah, it's

43:47

really important that we think through that because that

43:50

is going to be something that you continue to hear, especially

43:52

as the bloodshed increases. And

43:54

countries want the sort of moral

43:57

and diplomatic facade of trying

43:58

to be solution or

43:59

oriented so they're gonna continue to trot out

44:02

this two-state solution. But just know that Israel

44:04

is doing everything that came behind the scenes to undermine

44:07

it. And I really truly think that in a lot

44:09

of these ruling class elites that are that are pushing

44:11

this line, they know that what they're basically

44:14

doing is they're holding the line a little

44:16

longer. Allowing Israel a little more time

44:18

to do what Israel needs to do and then by the time

44:21

it gets around like okay let's do the two-state solution.

44:23

Be like oh, Gaza's already gone and the West Bank

44:25

is is beyond Swiss cheese. There's

44:28

no there's no even there's no possibility

44:29

for a two-state solution. What are you talking about? Right? I think

44:32

that's kind of the long game. That's the long game.

44:35

Yeah, I agree.

44:37

All right.

44:38

Well, um, so I'll shift into do

44:40

you have anything else to say on that front?

44:42

No, I think that covers the stuff I had. So

44:45

I just want to shift quickly into an interesting kind of discussion

44:47

of the internal dynamics

44:49

of Israel that some people might

44:51

not know and if you're a veteran of this issue, if

44:53

you've studied it very deeply, if you have a

44:55

good grasp, none of this would be particularly

44:58

earth-shattering or brand new to you. But I assume

45:01

a lot of people don't know the intricacies of

45:03

a lot of this. So for the

45:05

past 10 months plus there

45:07

has been incredible

45:10

internal division within Israel. They have the

45:12

furthest right government they've ever

45:14

had in their entire history. There

45:16

has been months, 10 months of really

45:19

aggressive protests by the

45:22

more secular, let's say liberal elements

45:24

of Israeli society and the Netanyahu

45:27

government, which is far-right, fascist,

45:29

has lots of ultra-orthodox within

45:31

it, etc. So that's

45:34

just that's like the background sort of internal

45:36

division going on. So when Hamas

45:38

is planning this attack, I don't know all the things

45:40

that went into their planning, but surely

45:42

just ripping a page out of Sun Tzu's The

45:44

Art of War, you know that the best time

45:47

to launch an attack on your enemy is when they're at

45:49

their weakest point internally and Israel,

45:52

I think it's fair to say the last 10 months over the last

45:54

year has been at its weakest point

45:56

in its entire history. Making this

45:59

attack

46:00

much more impactful and also creating

46:03

big divisions. So while there is a sort of a

46:05

rally around the flag, not rally

46:08

around Netanyahu, but a rally around the flag

46:10

effect after the events, that

46:12

quickly dissipates and the underlying internal

46:14

divisions will continue to stack

46:16

up, not least because one

46:19

of the things driving this divide between more

46:21

traditional or you know more moderate secular

46:24

Israelis and the ultra-Orthodox is

46:26

military conscription. So if you

46:28

are ultra-Orthodox, which is about 13 to 15

46:31

percent of the Israeli population, the far far

46:33

right religious you know sort of inclined

46:37

sorts of people, they

46:39

get a military exemption. So everybody

46:41

else in Israel when you turn 18 you got to

46:43

go serve in the IDF, in

46:45

one faction, in one facet or another. But

46:48

the ultra-Orthodox, this relatively

46:50

small community of 13 to 15 but growing

46:52

community, gets complete

46:54

military exemption. So that causes a lot of heat

46:57

already. So because

47:00

of this ultra-Orthodox run government, the

47:03

conscripted secular Israelis are gonna

47:05

have to go into Gaza and get fucking slaughtered

47:08

while

47:08

the ultra-Orthodox children

47:11

get the military exemption and won't

47:13

have to see fighting.

47:15

So when the IDF bodies start stacking up,

47:18

this contradiction I think is going to become more

47:20

and more and more of an issue. On

47:23

top of that, the ultra-Orthodox

47:25

also have a carve-out where their men

47:27

just have to study the Torah and not go to work.

47:30

So they get full state

47:32

welfare programs. So not only do they not have to

47:34

join the military at 18, they don't have to

47:36

have a job and the Israeli state, i.e.

47:38

the Israeli taxpayers, fund their

47:41

lives. And

47:41

on top of that, they

47:44

have an incredible birth rate. So

47:46

the average ultra-Orthodox

47:49

woman

47:50

averages about seven babies.

47:53

While secular Israelis I think are like 2.1, 2.3 babies,

47:55

more in line with other parts of the world.

47:59

of the world, Europe, America,

48:02

other parts, Japan, etc. Although I think those

48:04

are even a little smaller. I mean, over two is

48:06

pretty good even, you know, for the secular

48:09

Israelis. So you have now this new

48:11

dynamic where a small population,

48:13

relatively 13 to 15%, is having babies at an incredible

48:17

rate such that their numbers by 2050

48:20

by 2060 are projected to be

48:22

a third of all of Israel. So

48:25

then you have this ultra-orthodox, far-right

48:29

element within Israeli society that

48:31

secular Israelis in particular, more modern

48:33

Israelis in general, have a lot

48:35

of problems with.

48:36

They're taking over the government, right,

48:39

with the Netanyahu government,

48:41

and they give all these exemptions from shit

48:43

that other people have to do, and they're

48:45

producing children at such a rate that they're going to become

48:48

even more sizable,

48:50

right? Which means that Israel, an

48:52

insanely fascist state, is

48:54

going to become more fascist, if

48:56

that's even fucking possible at this point.

48:58

So those internal dynamics, I think,

49:01

are really interesting, and they're going

49:04

to play a role. It's not going to be in the

49:06

headlines, right, as this conflict continues

49:08

to unfold. You're not going to read

49:10

a lot of headlines about it. It's not going to be the topic of

49:12

a lot of talk shows, but I think it is

49:15

an underlying, very important

49:17

thing that people like you and I should sort

49:19

of keep our eye on if we want to make

49:21

sense of the full scope of how

49:23

Israel is going to conduct this war, how

49:25

it's going to carry out, and what the underlying contradictions

49:28

just within Israeli society are before

49:31

the external pressures of war even begin

49:33

to kick in. And I think Israel

49:35

is at an incredibly, incredibly

49:37

fragile and weak moment for those

49:40

reasons and so many more, and it's really worth keeping

49:42

our eyes on.

49:43

Yeah, I think it's important to think about those

49:46

internal contradictions. Definitely tensions

49:49

about mandatory conscription, not applying

49:51

to Haredi communities, right, have been huge.

49:53

And then, yeah, the subsidization

49:55

of full-time Yeshiva students, right,

49:57

so studying Torah and Talmud. full-time

50:00

instead of working is obviously a huge

50:02

point of contention. Yeah, looking at the numbers, some

50:05

half of Haredi men within Israel do

50:08

not work but instead study full-time,

50:10

so those tensions obviously are

50:12

large in creating issues. And I also think

50:14

we see internal contradictions just between

50:16

different kind of factions within Israeli politics

50:19

generally happening right now that shows

50:21

how much this all occurred at a time

50:24

when things were already really unstable. Two

50:26

that I think are kind of worth pointing out is

50:28

the extent to which fucking Netanyahu and

50:30

the families of hostages are just at odds

50:33

with each other now. Very much

50:35

we have seen the families of hostages

50:38

wanting to prioritize the return of

50:40

hostages and the position of Netanyahu and the current

50:42

government being fuck that we really don't

50:44

care if they die in the crossfire, right? And

50:47

that already shows us some of those tensions which

50:49

are showing up even to the point where

50:51

families expressing

50:53

the need to get hostages back and

50:56

criticizing Netanyahu were interrupted by basically

50:59

paid thugs for Netanyahu's party,

51:01

right? And we can see these political

51:03

contradictions coming up there. And the other thing too

51:06

that I think is really interesting here, you know,

51:08

if we think about this on the military level, is

51:10

these kind of military contradictions that are

51:13

coming up now where Netanyahu,

51:15

who is this kind of hardliner, has

51:17

kind of talked shit about parts of the Israeli

51:19

military for letting this attack happen. And

51:22

there's this buck passing game that's being

51:24

played right now that he's actually kind of losing.

51:26

He just tweeted like an apology out, basically,

51:29

being like, I shouldn't have criticized the rest

51:31

of the military for this and said it was their fault. But

51:33

this shows you that these contradictions exist.

51:35

There's been this very long term battle

51:38

over changes to the court structure

51:41

within Israel and to the judicial system

51:43

where Netanyahu is based opposition. And again,

51:46

I think it's important not to overemphasize

51:48

what these contradictions mean. Even the opposition

51:50

parties on the more liberal side are still fully

51:52

on board with the genocidal project of

51:54

Zionism. But it does show you that these

51:57

contradictions create instability that allow

51:59

these kinds of situations to happen.

52:01

And certainly, you know, it is interesting to wonder

52:03

like to what extent the calculation happening

52:05

within the Palestinian resistance is taking

52:07

into account these kind of contradictions

52:10

that are happening domestically. But they are real, they

52:12

are happening, and it's extremely important for us to

52:15

pay attention to it because if we want to understand

52:17

what's happening, we need to recognize that internal

52:19

and external contradictions both exist

52:22

and both are at play in the movement

52:24

of history that we're seeing right now, essentially.

52:27

Exactly. And while the external contradictions

52:29

are being emphasized right now because of the conflict, I

52:31

just thought it's worthwhile to think also about

52:33

the internal ones. And you're right. And this

52:36

kind of is a nice segue into the ground invasion aspect

52:38

of this because, you know, what do they have? 200, 230 hostages,

52:40

they believe so far. Now, Israel has, for all intents

52:45

and purposes, been indiscriminately bombing

52:48

northern Gaza, I mean all of the Gaza Strip, but

52:50

particularly the northern half of

52:52

the Strip. Almost certainly.

52:55

I've heard different stuff coming out.

52:57

I know it's fog of war. I haven't been able to follow

52:59

up on every single claim, but it's almost certain

53:01

at this point that Israel has killed some of these

53:03

hostages themselves. And one of the big

53:06

hesitations on part of the Israeli populace,

53:09

especially those, you know, Israel's a small country.

53:12

Everybody knows, is a one or two degree separated

53:14

from somebody who, you know, was

53:16

impacted on October 7th, was killed,

53:18

or knows somebody that has hostages. So

53:21

this is not just like a tiny little part of

53:23

the population that can be totally ignored. It's

53:26

an important part. And

53:27

so their fear is if

53:29

the IDF goes in this ground

53:31

invasion, which looks like they're doing, and

53:33

giving how they don't give a fuck

53:35

about civilians or anything else, that you

53:38

very well could lose the opportunity

53:40

to get those hostages back because

53:42

Israel themselves would put them in harm's

53:44

way and possibly slaughter them

53:46

directly. And so that's

53:49

a huge concern, and I think that is going to continue

53:51

to be an issue. People want their loved ones

53:53

back more than anything else, right? If you

53:55

lost the person that you love more than ever, you

53:58

don't care about what Netanyahu's government

53:59

wants to do to Hamas, you want your fucking loved

54:02

one back and that's going to continue to create tensions.

54:05

Another thing with the ground invasion in particular, the

54:09

IDF, you know, I mean, to be

54:11

a little flippant here, they're used to beating up on kids

54:14

and old people, right? They're

54:17

not really ready for what's coming. On top

54:20

of that, because of the

54:22

nature of conscription, you

54:24

know, you're having a bunch of reservists, people

54:27

who served their time in the Israeli army

54:29

like they were supposed to, but almost certainly

54:31

never saw any real conflict. Again, maybe

54:33

you're backing up settlers in the West Bank, maybe

54:35

you're breaking a kid's arm here and there, but

54:38

you're not necessarily taking on a fighting

54:40

force like Hamas, you're certainly not taking

54:42

on something like Hezbollah, right? And

54:44

so you have a lot of reservists who have

54:47

very little experience, right,

54:49

who might be inspired in the short term

54:52

to protect their country or whatever,

54:54

but don't have the sort of

54:56

the grit, the experience, the

54:59

badassery to go in there and do a

55:01

brutal urban warfare in

55:04

the rebels of Gaza fight with

55:06

Hamas and other

55:08

factions, of course, as well in

55:11

Gaza, who

55:12

are battle tested just from having

55:15

to be Palestinians growing up in Gaza, who

55:17

are battle tested from just being a part of Hamas,

55:19

whose every day is a fight for survival

55:22

and who are fighting for their liberation

55:24

or annihilation. So these are people with

55:26

everything to fight for with a hard,

55:29

hard, hard life. They're not relaxing

55:31

on the beaches of Tel Aviv

55:32

and then get called up to go fucking

55:35

fight a war. They're in the trenches of fucking

55:37

Gaza. They were there from 2021. They

55:39

were there in 2014. They've been through

55:41

this shit. A lot of the Hamas fighters, which

55:44

everybody in the Western world wants to dehumanize

55:47

as less than animals, where do the people

55:49

from Hamas come from? They come from the

55:51

Palestinians. And what do you think happens

55:54

to a little boy in 2008 who

55:56

gets his mom and dad fucking killed by an Israeli

55:58

bomb when he grows up in Gaza?

55:59

What is he gonna do? He's gonna put on

56:02

that motherfucking bandana and pick up that

56:04

gun and I personally

56:06

refused to dehumanize that person I

56:08

refused to dehumanize or condemn Hamas

56:11

I refused to separate them from

56:13

the rest of the Palestinian populist civilians,

56:16

right? Because that's kind of the liberal social

56:18

democratic progressive thing to do is

56:20

to say listen Hamas is fucking disgusting Cut

56:23

their heads off shoot them into the fucking space.

56:25

I don't care but just be careful about the civilians

56:28

those civilians are the Mothers

56:30

and fathers and uncles and best friends

56:32

and children of the people who are

56:35

fighting

56:35

for Hamas, right? So there is that

56:37

Hamas is not fundamentally alienated

56:39

from the masses and the people who join

56:41

Hamas are doing what I think Almost

56:45

any person in their

56:46

position given their life experiences

56:48

would do which is either you accept

56:51

your Miserable fate where the people

56:53

you

56:53

love are constantly brutalized slaughtered

56:56

killed pendant at will and just accept

56:58

that your life is going to Never go outside

57:01

of Gaza all your

57:02

opportunities and life horizons are just

57:05

right there in the street in front of you You have no

57:07

opportunity 50 60 75 percent

57:09

unemployment rate hardcore poverty

57:12

in that situation What would almost anybody

57:15

do you would find meaning you

57:17

would you would regain your sense of control

57:19

over your own life? And your sense of dignity

57:21

by picking up the gun and fighting back and

57:23

that is what Hamas and these other fighting factions

57:26

in Gaza and as part of the broader Palestinian

57:28

resistance are doing and

57:31

I refused to dehumanize them And

57:33

I truly think that IDF the IDF

57:35

is gonna have a hell of a time Going

57:38

into fucking Gaza and conducting urban

57:40

warfare with a guerrilla army. That

57:42

is as as sort of seasoned

57:45

as Hamas is It's not gonna

57:47

be a good time for those guys and that's

57:49

gonna that's also gonna be Implicated

57:51

in a broader regional war, but before I get into that

57:54

part Allison Do you have anything else to say about the

57:56

ground invasion Hamas anything like that?

57:58

Yeah a couple important things I think to touch on.

58:00

So one of the things that you were saying about

58:02

the conditions that have produced this resistance

58:05

in the first place, right? This is one of the things that Amoss

58:07

said recently is that 85% of

58:09

their fighters are orphans, right? Who

58:12

were orphaned by violence coming

58:14

from Israel. And again, if you think

58:17

about the reality of that, if that is

58:19

what your fucking childhood is, what

58:21

else can you do to a certain degree, right?

58:24

We have to understand the conditions that

58:26

produce this. And I think to tie

58:28

it back to Fanon, this is this kind of reality

58:31

that Fanon gets at over and over again, which

58:33

is that the lashing out against colonization

58:36

sometimes is the only thing that the colonized have

58:38

left in whatever form it'll take, right?

58:40

That is something that is produced by

58:42

the conditions of colonialism, though. It's not

58:44

produced by some hatred that begins

58:46

within the human heart out of nowhere on its

58:49

own. It's not produced out of just

58:51

pure malice. It is produced by conditions which

58:53

take humanize in ways that are unthinkable

58:56

to so many people within the Western world who

58:58

have never had to face them. So I do think

59:00

that that is just such a crucial framing to

59:02

understand where this is coming from. And again, to

59:05

say, if you want an end to all

59:07

of this, the only end to that is the end to colonialism.

59:09

And the end to colonialism in the region is

59:12

the end to Zionism. There is no

59:14

way out of this cycle other than

59:16

that, because it is the conditions of colonialism

59:18

which produced the situation in the first place.

59:21

I think that's so necessary to say. And I think the other

59:23

thing that you got at that is true

59:25

is that, yeah, I think there's a level of

59:27

military resistance that they are seeing

59:30

and not being able to overcome that

59:32

is relevant to consider, right? One

59:34

of the things that we've seen is that Israel

59:36

very early on started talking about a ground invasion,

59:39

and they put it off and they put it off and they put it off. And

59:41

one of the reasons for that may be external pressure

59:43

happening from the US or whatever, you know,

59:46

there's a bunch of possible possibilities.

59:48

But another is the reality of the fact that, yeah,

59:50

a lot of free service do not have the high level

59:53

combat training that actually, you

59:55

know, they often brag themselves having

59:57

in that a ground invasion is going to be costly.

1:00:00

and a mistake where it talks about their expanded

1:00:02

invasion happening now and we've already

1:00:04

seen armored vehicles, including several

1:00:06

tanks taken out by Palestinian resistance,

1:00:09

which indicates that there is a real fight that

1:00:11

is happening here that perhaps is more than Israel

1:00:13

thought it was getting and chewing off when

1:00:16

it made those threats now that it's actually implementing

1:00:18

them. The other thing that I think is

1:00:20

relevant to point out here when we think about the military

1:00:23

level of this, and again I want to return

1:00:25

to Fanon here, right, is that in

1:00:27

Fanon's framing of colonialism, one of

1:00:30

the really important

1:00:32

things that happens is that dehumanization almost

1:00:35

goes two ways, right? The colonized

1:00:37

are dehumanized in as much as they are

1:00:40

reduced to subhuman, but the colonizers

1:00:42

almost come to be seen as nonhuman themselves.

1:00:45

They boast about almost godlike powers

1:00:47

over the colonized. And one of the things that

1:00:50

Fanon tells us is when the decolonial

1:00:52

violence comes into play, when we see the clash

1:00:54

of decolonization, there's this mutual

1:00:57

humanness that exists. One, because

1:00:59

the colonized are able to assert their humanity

1:01:01

through rising up, but two, because

1:01:03

the colonized are proved to be just human

1:01:05

as well, right? To be not

1:01:08

the mythologized, unfightable, undefeatable

1:01:11

thing that they have claimed to be, but to be

1:01:13

fellow humans who die in combat

1:01:15

as well. And I think that is a big part of

1:01:17

what we're seeing here as well, is that the idea

1:01:20

that resistance is a useless

1:01:22

thing that can go nowhere because colonial

1:01:24

states like Israel are impossible to

1:01:27

overcome, that they will exist for all of history,

1:01:29

that they are beyond the ability to

1:01:31

defeat. It's been called into question, struggle.

1:01:34

It was called into question in South Africa

1:01:37

when we saw, you know, the resistance

1:01:39

movement that took place against apartheid there. It

1:01:41

has been called into question in Algeria, in

1:01:44

every place where there were fights against the

1:01:46

colonial powers that proved that colonialism

1:01:48

is not something that's destined to exist.

1:01:51

Relentism is enforced by humans as well, and

1:01:53

that it can be fought against and successes can

1:01:55

happen. So I think when we talk about what's

1:01:58

happening militarily here, there are a lot of different and

1:02:00

the extent to which Israel is

1:02:03

not necessarily winning in the way militarily

1:02:05

they claimed they would, it really does kind

1:02:07

of concretely demonstrate that humanization

1:02:10

in a very horrific sense perhaps

1:02:13

that we see coming from Fanon's

1:02:16

theory on this. So I do want to tie it in a little bit

1:02:18

into some of the texts we've talked about because I think it's

1:02:20

a very clear example.

1:02:22

It's actually quite beautiful. It's scary,

1:02:24

right? Horrific, almost like the Kantian

1:02:27

Sublime, both terrifying and

1:02:29

gorgeous. Active nature almost,

1:02:31

but yeah this reclamation of your humanity

1:02:33

and your point about it actually humanizes

1:02:35

both sides of the ledger.

1:02:39

Obviously the colonized are reclaiming their humanity

1:02:41

by fighting back and asserting their humanity

1:02:43

by standing up to their oppressor, but then yeah

1:02:45

it brings down the sort

1:02:47

of bloviating, over-roted,

1:02:51

gargantuan sense of self that the colonizer

1:02:54

has sort of

1:02:56

internalized, programmed within themselves, that

1:02:58

they are a superior human being to

1:03:01

the colonized and they truly believe it. They

1:03:03

truly believe it and that fascist

1:03:06

supremacist ideology not only leads

1:03:08

to colonialism, but settler colonialism

1:03:11

incubates and nourishes that

1:03:14

sort of psychopathy,

1:03:15

that fascist psychopathy such

1:03:18

that to be a settler colonial and to be truly

1:03:20

devoted to the settler colonial project

1:03:22

makes you into a monster. And you know

1:03:24

to dehumanize somebody else,

1:03:27

you dehumanize yourself in the process

1:03:29

because humans are humans. We're fundamentally

1:03:32

equal and when you have to go out

1:03:35

and make somebody else lesser than you, when

1:03:37

you have to bring them low, make them

1:03:39

less worthy than an animal, you also

1:03:41

at the exact same time whether you know it or not

1:03:44

do that to yourself. Your own humanity

1:03:46

leaves when you dehumanize a fellow human

1:03:48

being and that is what we're seeing and it is fascinating

1:03:51

to read Fanon and then to look at

1:03:53

a situation like this

1:03:54

to go listen to chants, death to

1:03:56

Arabs, Israelis of you know screaming

1:03:59

or listen to the Arab people.

1:03:59

Abby Martin interviews on the street with

1:04:02

random totally normal looking people

1:04:04

who say the most fucking Psychotic

1:04:06

things you've ever heard in your life like they're

1:04:08

asking what time it is right that the casualness

1:04:11

with which they say it It is it's

1:04:14

it's it's horrifying actually to

1:04:16

see that ugly face come to the fore

1:04:18

it is it is it is yeah It's disturbing for sure

1:04:22

I do want to get into the regional war here. I will just say

1:04:24

yeah talking about The

1:04:26

the ground invasion you know Hamas

1:04:29

has some bangers when they put out their

1:04:31

little their little you know Memos

1:04:33

or whatever they say shit like you

1:04:36

know IDF soldiers are welcome Gaza

1:04:38

will be your grave And you

1:04:40

will meet various forms of death that awaits

1:04:42

you. I don't know it's almost poetic It's pretty

1:04:44

cool whoever their whoever their literary

1:04:46

forces But one

1:04:48

thing is for sure the IDF is not going to be able

1:04:51

to tick-tock dance their way to victory

1:04:53

here It's going to be fucking metal and

1:04:55

that raises this other prospect

1:04:57

the prospect of regional war And

1:04:59

I think the real prospect which ebbs

1:05:02

and flows as far as whether it's on the top

1:05:04

of people's minds But this breaking out even

1:05:07

beyond the region into something like a

1:05:09

de facto world war even if it's not called that

1:05:11

at the time So right now you

1:05:14

have a situation and many

1:05:16

of you will be vaguely familiar with this But

1:05:18

you have a situation in which Hezbollah

1:05:21

and southern Lebanon is right on the border

1:05:23

already exchanging fire with Israel

1:05:26

It has been for the last several weeks We

1:05:28

have Iran saying that their red line

1:05:30

is more or less a ground invasion Israel

1:05:33

if you do this ground invasion you were you were forcing

1:05:36

us to come into it Turkey Erdogan

1:05:38

over in Turkey no friend of the left no friend

1:05:40

of humanity to be sure But

1:05:43

runs a very big you know Muslim

1:05:45

majority country

1:05:47

Has been sort of saber

1:05:49

rattling in very interesting

1:05:51

ways going up to if not Out

1:05:54

like outwardly saying that turkey

1:05:56

might get involved if Israel continues

1:05:59

the bloodshed And then there's Syria

1:06:02

right there. There is, of course,

1:06:04

a little less of a threat. Jordan

1:06:06

and Egypt, they're more integrated into the

1:06:08

sort of global system at the moment. But

1:06:11

their populations, their populations

1:06:13

though, especially in Jordan,

1:06:15

I mean, what happened during the first Nakba? The

1:06:17

dispossession and the scattering of Palestinians

1:06:20

to the surrounding Arab states, including

1:06:22

Jordan. So you have a lot of ethnic Palestinians

1:06:25

in Jordan in the population, who even

1:06:27

though their government is sort of in bed in

1:06:29

various ways with the West and with the US,

1:06:32

they still have immense pressure from below

1:06:34

to stand up for the Palestinians,

1:06:37

to stand up for Muslims being slaughtered, etc.

1:06:40

So

1:06:40

what we could see is, and I think it's

1:06:43

almost guaranteed at this point, insofar

1:06:45

as Israel is doing a ground invasion,

1:06:47

that this is going to almost certainly become

1:06:50

a regional war. And what happens if,

1:06:52

I mean, if Turkey gets involved, all bets

1:06:55

are off the table. This is a fucking NATO country. Like,

1:06:57

who knows what happens at that point?

1:07:00

But Iran could get involved either

1:07:02

explicitly, although more likely through its

1:07:04

proxies by giving the green light to

1:07:06

Hezbollah. And at that point, the

1:07:08

US is getting involved. I mean, the

1:07:11

US already has boots on the ground. The US

1:07:13

has two carrier ships off the coast

1:07:15

of the Mediterranean, basically acting

1:07:18

as a bodyguard for Israel while it kills fucking

1:07:20

babies. And I heard that there's

1:07:22

a 2000 man special forces team.

1:07:24

I

1:07:28

heard earlier today, you know, you're just going through the ephemera

1:07:30

of Twitter. You're not sure what sticks and what doesn't. Right.

1:07:32

But there's a force coming in, American

1:07:34

boots on the ground is more of a special force. We'll

1:07:37

see what happens. But, you

1:07:39

know, I think the US is

1:07:41

really trying to keep this confined. I think

1:07:43

the US knows that this could get out of control very

1:07:46

quickly. The Europe

1:07:49

and the US, of course, has been funding Ukraine for

1:07:51

the last year or two, throwing all their

1:07:53

surplus equipment and everything like that at

1:07:55

Ukraine. Now you can see the possibility of this other

1:07:58

war opening up. It's

1:08:00

it's it's a big concern right now for

1:08:02

the US and I think a lot of behind-the-scenes Diplomacy

1:08:06

is the US trying to be like hey. Hey, we're

1:08:08

trying to let we're trying to talk to Israel So

1:08:11

let some humanitarian aid or whatever trying

1:08:13

to keep this the lid on this fucking thing Don't

1:08:16

get involved literally to straight-up telling Iran

1:08:18

don't don't you dare because if

1:08:20

you do we'll do it You know and so

1:08:22

now this is very interesting point because you

1:08:24

know Iran also has its internal divisions as

1:08:27

does the US All these countries. Yeah What

1:08:30

what will they do does Iran really want

1:08:32

a full-on confrontation with the US

1:08:34

military proper? If

1:08:37

it uses its proxies is

1:08:39

that really going to protect it from a US

1:08:41

direct? Conflict or is the US just

1:08:44

going to fight its proxies. That's not certain It's like

1:08:46

the most intense high stakes game of chess

1:08:49

imaginable right now, and so

1:08:51

I'm not really sure where things are gonna Go I'm definitely

1:08:53

not gonna make any predictions But it seems

1:08:55

like things have been moving and are continuing

1:08:58

to move in the direction of

1:08:59

this

1:09:00

becoming a Regional war at least

1:09:02

what are your thoughts on that Allison?

1:09:05

Yeah, I think to summarize my

1:09:07

thoughts broadly This is the closest

1:09:09

to a flashpoint for a larger

1:09:11

conventional war that I think we've

1:09:13

seen in a very long time The amount

1:09:16

of things that could spill this over into a regional

1:09:18

war and possibly into a larger global war

1:09:21

are just huge Right. I think you got at them But also

1:09:23

I think in terms of the US military

1:09:26

in the area the US is sending ships the

1:09:28

US is sending military into the area And the

1:09:30

US military is being fucking attacked right now Yeah,

1:09:33

they were attacked in Iraq in Syria over 20

1:09:36

times within the month Like

1:09:39

we are seeing the US mobilizing

1:09:41

and we are seeing that being met by Military

1:09:44

resistance from various groups in the area and all

1:09:46

of that increases the likelihood of

1:09:48

a flashpoint occurring the US just

1:09:50

engaged In what they called defensive airstrikes

1:09:52

in Syria, right? So we

1:09:55

are seeing these tensions boil up in a

1:09:57

way that is very intense and very cute and

1:09:59

we're thinking about I don't fucking

1:10:01

know how to protect it, right? Because I think you're right,

1:10:03

you know, at the end of the day, states like Iran

1:10:06

also have to make real, you know,

1:10:08

politicians about their continued

1:10:10

existence and what that would mean if they were

1:10:12

to get involved in the conflict. But I do think fucking

1:10:14

hell, for a NATO state to be talking the

1:10:17

way that Turkey is talking does

1:10:19

tell you how much of a crisis of imperialism

1:10:21

this is at the moment, and how much

1:10:23

we are seeing kind of the imperialist

1:10:26

order not know how to respond to and

1:10:28

handle the situation whatsoever.

1:10:31

And yeah, it's hard to say. I do

1:10:33

think, though, that I struggled

1:10:35

to think of a time within the last five years

1:10:38

or so where we have seen such a possibility

1:10:41

of spillover into something broader. Nothing

1:10:43

in Ukraine had the risk on this level. And

1:10:45

the fact that the US has now stretched in a

1:10:47

proxy war in Ukraine and mobilizing

1:10:50

in this region just indicates all the

1:10:52

potential for some sort of miscalculation to happen

1:10:55

even higher. And that's all the more reason

1:10:57

why we have to stand in opposition

1:11:00

to the, you know, material situation

1:11:03

of settler colonialism, which is producing this. Because

1:11:05

settler colonial states don't just enact genocide

1:11:07

domestically, they also destabilize

1:11:10

the world around them because of their projects, because

1:11:13

people around the world are fucking humans who

1:11:15

can see

1:11:15

the evil that is taking place and who want

1:11:17

to fight back against it. And we've seen this

1:11:20

wherever settler colonial states have happened,

1:11:22

that there has been externalized violence as well. And

1:11:24

it's important for us to say, like, we

1:11:26

have to oppose these settler colonial systems

1:11:28

because they enact violence on a global

1:11:31

level because of the destabilizations they

1:11:33

create because of the violence that they enact. And

1:11:35

we're seeing that here. And that's all the more

1:11:37

reason why Palestinian liberation is

1:11:39

necessary, right? All the more reason

1:11:42

why, whoever you are, you have a vested interest

1:11:44

in this issue and standing in solidarity

1:11:47

with national liberation.

1:11:49

Absolutely.

1:11:50

And, you know, I think

1:11:52

Zelensky is playing the role of the jilted lover.

1:11:54

Zelensky's over and you're like, oh shit,

1:11:57

I'm not getting my shit in my – He's like, people forget

1:11:59

about me because I'm a man.

1:11:59

Please I'm out here So

1:12:02

I think like you know that's just in the background so no matter

1:12:04

what happens with this war if it pops off to a Regional war

1:12:06

something bigger the Russia Ukraine European

1:12:09

fronting war is already happening right now

1:12:11

And so that's gonna feed into anything that happens

1:12:14

of course Russia and Iran and Syria

1:12:16

have have alliances They have that you

1:12:18

know they have each other's backs to some extent

1:12:20

now is Russia gonna be able to get involved

1:12:22

in this when It's getting involved with Ukraine already.

1:12:25

No, but is Ukraine on the ropes

1:12:27

I genuinely feel that they are and if

1:12:29

US gets dragged into this war in West

1:12:32

Asia You know the the support

1:12:34

for Ukraine is gonna continue to dwindle and they're

1:12:36

already fighting a losing battle like you just eventually

1:12:39

Run out of Ukrainian men,

1:12:40

and that's you know that's that's sad to say But

1:12:42

that's literally

1:12:43

the sort of situation that Ukraine

1:12:45

is looking at right now They don't

1:12:47

have enough to keep going and of course

1:12:49

America is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian, but

1:12:51

is Ukraine I'm not so sure and

1:12:53

so we're gonna see how that that situation Plays

1:12:57

out now. I don't think this is gonna happen, but

1:12:59

it would be very funny This is in a vacuum

1:13:02

if we're dispassionately talking about Amusing

1:13:04

things if China just takes Taiwan

1:13:07

right now Sure, right

1:13:09

imagine what the US deep state would

1:13:11

fucking be the meetings that would be going on Right,

1:13:15

just be wild

1:13:17

But the other thing that I wanted to mention more seriously is

1:13:19

this This

1:13:20

fucking insane thing that happens

1:13:22

where America has bases all over the world And

1:13:25

then when one of their bases get attacked they treat

1:13:27

it as if the homeland has been attacked And

1:13:29

then they talk about our assets are being targeted like

1:13:31

you're in every place everywhere like

1:13:34

why are you in Syria right now? Why

1:13:36

do you have a base? They're getting bombed at all

1:13:38

fucking go home, and you won't have assets

1:13:41

being struck

1:13:42

You know so I but they're gonna

1:13:44

use that they're gonna use that if they have to go to

1:13:46

war They're

1:13:47

going to frame it such

1:13:49

as we were trying to stay out of this

1:13:51

we were trying to deescalate But enter country

1:13:54

here attacked our military base and enter

1:13:56

country here, and now we have to go in right

1:13:58

now They've already have been attacking these

1:13:59

bases and of course it's sort of it's escalating

1:14:02

etc but the US if they have

1:14:04

to will present it to the American population as

1:14:06

they might as well have attacked

1:14:09

a town in Maine or a town in Florida

1:14:11

because this is just as much America but America's

1:14:14

everywhere so that is like it's just

1:14:16

it's just it's crazy making to hear

1:14:18

them talk about it like we're being attacked we're defenseless

1:14:21

innocent people and our bases everywhere being

1:14:23

attacked it's like no to get the fuck

1:14:25

out of there

1:14:27

but I do want to move as we're getting

1:14:29

sort of towards the end of this conversation to

1:14:32

some to some buzzwords right we talked earlier

1:14:34

that words matter and I said I was going to return

1:14:37

to the question of genocide now

1:14:39

what is a genocide when somebody

1:14:42

comes across on Twitter or whatever and they say this

1:14:44

is this is this is bad but it's definitely

1:14:46

not genocide these little these little liberals

1:14:48

that when people are being slaughtered these these

1:14:50

little dorks want to go to the dictionary and say

1:14:52

well actually the definition is

1:14:55

what is genocide really it's a process

1:14:58

it's a process with many aspects

1:15:00

many

1:15:00

elements it is not a one-off

1:15:03

event

1:15:03

and we can think about this in terms

1:15:05

of the genocide of the of the indigenous

1:15:07

people of North America nobody has

1:15:09

a problem talking about that was

1:15:12

a genocide what happened to the Native Americans

1:15:14

was a genocide and it's an ongoing genocide

1:15:17

but it's been so successful that the numbers are so

1:15:19

reduced and and you know it's

1:15:21

not like 50-50 like it is in Palestine

1:15:23

right now but that genocide was

1:15:26

not a one-off event

1:15:27

that was a centuries-long process

1:15:30

and that process had many different

1:15:33

aspects to it it had broken treaties

1:15:36

it had outright slaughtering of civilians

1:15:38

it had ethnic cleansing it had

1:15:41

the pushing of the frontier further and further

1:15:43

into indigenous land and then using

1:15:45

the indigenous attacks that inevitably followed

1:15:47

from that as a pretest to

1:15:50

to then launch more genocidal attacks it had

1:15:52

the Trail of Tears

1:15:53

right it had all these events

1:15:56

over hundreds and hundreds of years and

1:15:58

that culminates in what we look

1:15:59

back on and call a genocide.

1:16:02

So for some little, you

1:16:04

know,

1:16:05

worm to come here today and say,

1:16:07

hey it's only 10,000 Gazans

1:16:10

that have been killed so far, is that really, there's two

1:16:12

million of them, is it really a genocide? It's

1:16:14

not just the immediate one-off

1:16:17

acute event in which everybody is slaughtered, that's

1:16:19

like some kindergarten-ass level

1:16:21

understanding of genocide.

1:16:23

Genocide is dispossession, it's

1:16:25

displacement, it's the destroying of

1:16:27

cultural sites, it is the slaughter

1:16:30

of human beings, it's the pushing of people

1:16:32

into new areas out of their homelands. It

1:16:34

takes on all of these different forms,

1:16:37

it's occupation, it's apartheid,

1:16:39

it's ethnic cleansing, and even if

1:16:41

they only ethnically cleanse northern Gaza,

1:16:43

right, let's say ultimately what Israel does is

1:16:46

just take out northern Gaza, you

1:16:48

know, shift the Gaza Strip to an even

1:16:50

smaller chunk of land, maybe push

1:16:53

some people

1:16:53

in the Sinai Desert, but then just incorporate

1:16:55

the northern third

1:16:57

of Gaza into greater

1:16:59

Israel, that is still part of

1:17:01

a genocidal process. And

1:17:03

if we

1:17:03

think about it in terms of processes

1:17:06

and not in terms of one-off events,

1:17:08

it makes a lot more sense and you

1:17:10

could easily say, this is a genocide,

1:17:13

it's 75 years into a genocidal

1:17:16

process. And all

1:17:19

of these different aspects of it are

1:17:21

a genocide. Now what you'll immediately be hit

1:17:23

with is, well, you know, Israel's

1:17:25

so strong, if they really wanted to,

1:17:28

they could really do a genocide, they could just kill

1:17:30

everybody, they could do it, no they

1:17:32

can't, because that would just set off the

1:17:34

entire world. There are still limitations,

1:17:36

right? The Arab states would never accept it,

1:17:39

I think at some point even the West would be like,

1:17:41

okay, we got a fucking, if you literally tried

1:17:43

to kill every Palestinian, right,

1:17:45

you would lose all support. So Israel

1:17:47

has to play politics. Now, as I

1:17:49

said this before, a

1:17:51

fucking Netanyahu or any of these

1:17:53

Yahoos in his inner circle could

1:17:56

snap their finger and the Palestinians

1:17:58

would be gone with no global power.

1:17:59

blowback, nobody else in the world noticed, they

1:18:02

would do it yesterday. The

1:18:04

thing that's holding them back

1:18:06

is that they have to exist in this international

1:18:09

system. They have to take into consideration,

1:18:12

you know, the opinions and the uprisings

1:18:15

and the blowback and the responses from

1:18:17

their neighboring states and

1:18:19

the public opinion worldwide. They can't

1:18:21

just slaughter everybody, okay,

1:18:23

or they would, if they could get away with it, they would do that.

1:18:26

So understanding genocide as a process

1:18:28

and as the genocide of the Palestinians

1:18:31

as a 75 year process that certainly

1:18:33

involves killing

1:18:34

but is not limited merely

1:18:36

to killing, I

1:18:37

think is an important note

1:18:39

to remember and internalize and

1:18:42

hopefully give people ammunition to

1:18:44

continue to use the phrase genocide because that

1:18:46

is what's happening and to be able to

1:18:48

defend that claim when somebody, when

1:18:51

some sniveling little weasel wants to come up and point

1:18:53

to the dictionary and say, well, actually 10,000 people

1:18:56

out of 2 million isn't a genocide. You

1:18:58

can hit them with a much more mature analysis

1:19:01

of what genocide is. What are your thoughts?

1:19:04

Yeah, so a couple thoughts on that. Well,

1:19:06

actually more than a couple. I've spent a

1:19:08

lot of time thinking about genocide as a concept, both

1:19:11

legally and kind of philosophically. I

1:19:13

previously was working on a very

1:19:15

long essay for Cosmonaut that I never

1:19:18

published with them about the history of

1:19:20

the genocide convention. So I spent

1:19:22

a good bit of time looking at the legal side of the

1:19:24

definition of genocide and international

1:19:27

law. And I think that there are a couple of things

1:19:29

that we can point out. So on the one hand,

1:19:32

I want to make a quick case that under

1:19:34

the genocide convention, this is genocide.

1:19:37

And then I want to make a second case where even if it's not

1:19:39

under the genocide convention, the genocide convention

1:19:41

is not great. It's not the best

1:19:43

way to define genocide. But broadly,

1:19:46

the genocide convention looks at

1:19:49

a bunch of different factors for

1:19:51

determining whether or not genocide has been committed.

1:19:54

And it's a convention that obviously is regulated

1:19:56

through the context of international law. And

1:19:59

it's... thus has this complicated sort

1:20:02

of burden of proof to prove genocide

1:20:04

because in international law we're not just trying

1:20:07

individuals, we're trying individuals for their roles

1:20:09

within organizations and so you

1:20:11

have to kind of prove how an individual

1:20:14

and an organization function. But broadly,

1:20:16

the genocide convention defines genocide

1:20:20

as a list of acts of

1:20:22

which several must have been committed

1:20:25

where they are part of an intent

1:20:27

to destroy either in

1:20:29

whole or in part a national, ethnic,

1:20:32

racial, or religious group as such.

1:20:35

So real quick,

1:20:36

couple important things to point out there. Intent

1:20:39

to destroy. The destruction doesn't even actually have to occur,

1:20:42

right? The intent to destroy is enough. The

1:20:44

genocide convention talks about conspiracy

1:20:46

to commit genocide as a crime

1:20:49

in the case where only intent exists and

1:20:51

then it does not have to be the entirety of a

1:20:53

population. In whole or in part

1:20:55

meets the definition of the genocide convention

1:20:58

and specifically it has to be a national,

1:21:00

ethnic, racial, or religious group as

1:21:02

such on the basis of them being that group

1:21:05

and then there are a couple acts which would fall under genocide

1:21:07

according to the convention. There

1:21:09

is killing of members of the group, that's probably the most straightforward

1:21:12

one, causing serious bodily or mental

1:21:14

harm to members of the group, deliberately

1:21:16

inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated

1:21:19

to bring about its physical destruction in

1:21:21

whole or in part, imposing measures

1:21:23

intended to prevent birth within the group, and

1:21:26

forcibly transferring children of the group

1:21:28

to another group. Let's just go through

1:21:30

a couple of these real quick because I think it's straightforward. Killing

1:21:32

members of the group, yep, we are seeing

1:21:35

that. We are seeing the killing of Palestinians,

1:21:37

not just Palestinians who are part of militarized

1:21:40

organizations but Palestinians broadly

1:21:43

on the basis of their nationality

1:21:45

and their ethnicity because the reason they're in

1:21:47

fucking Gaza is on the basis of

1:21:49

their nationality and their ethnicity because

1:21:52

they cannot reside within Israel.

1:21:54

They cannot reside within the land that was taken in

1:21:56

the Nakba because they are not Jewish.

1:21:58

Here we go, we see clear violation of

1:22:01

the first clause. The second, causing serious bodily

1:22:03

or mental harm to members of the group, also

1:22:05

is very straightforward and obvious. Even those

1:22:07

who are not dying or having serious mental

1:22:10

harm and ongoing enacted trauma

1:22:12

being inflicted upon them because of the campaign

1:22:15

that we are seeing right now. And then I think most

1:22:17

importantly, deliberately inflicting on the group

1:22:19

conditions of life calculated to bring about

1:22:21

its physical destruction of holy or in part the

1:22:24

deprival of water, not just during this crisis,

1:22:26

but throughout the history of the occupation

1:22:28

of Gaza, the deprival of electricity needed

1:22:31

to keep people alive in hospital. All of these

1:22:33

things clearly violate just

1:22:35

the text of the convention. And

1:22:37

it doesn't have to be the entire group that was killed.

1:22:40

And it doesn't even have to have succeeded. The

1:22:42

intent to kill a part on the basis

1:22:44

of nationality and ethnicity is enough.

1:22:47

And blatantly, this is genocide under

1:22:49

that definition. There's just no getting

1:22:51

around it. But even

1:22:53

if you're not buying it, even if you want again to the minutia

1:22:56

of the genocide convention. The

1:22:57

other thing I would say is the genocide convention

1:22:59

is not the best way to determine whether or

1:23:01

not something is genocide because the genocide

1:23:04

convention came apart because

1:23:06

of conversations that happened to the

1:23:08

UN where a lot of it's more useful

1:23:11

in radical aspects that focus on systemic

1:23:13

harm to a group or gutted by the United

1:23:15

States. So the definition

1:23:18

within the genocide convention is already

1:23:20

loaded. We actually here again

1:23:22

can connect the struggle the Palestinian people

1:23:25

for national liberation to struggles within

1:23:27

the United States as things that a lot of people don't

1:23:29

know if that Paul Robeson, W.E.B.

1:23:31

Du Bois and others presented a treaty

1:23:33

to the UN in 1951 claiming that a genocide against

1:23:38

black people in the United States had taken

1:23:40

place under the definitions of the genocide

1:23:43

convention. And this was

1:23:45

thrown out because the genocide convention isn't

1:23:47

meant to be able to go after imperialist countries,

1:23:50

right? It's meant to be able to go after

1:23:52

other countries. So even if you

1:23:54

know you want to get into the minutia of the laws of the convention,

1:23:57

I would argue that that is not what the most

1:23:59

useful thing is. genocide as an attempt

1:24:01

to eliminate a group aside from

1:24:03

the sort of international

1:24:06

law definition of it just on a moral level

1:24:08

is taking place here obviously so

1:24:10

I think you can prove it under the convention I also

1:24:12

think you can just prove it morally outside of

1:24:14

the convention this is the correct word

1:24:16

to use for what is taking place here

1:24:19

very well done yeah I did I did not know a lot

1:24:21

of that so that's that's absolutely fascinating great

1:24:23

breakdown another word this is a

1:24:26

lesser issue but sometimes it does

1:24:28

get brought up I just want to touch on it quickly and we can move

1:24:30

towards wrapping up which is occupation

1:24:34

so then some people will make this really pedantic

1:24:36

and deeply disingenuous argument that

1:24:39

hold on hold on you're saying this is an occupation

1:24:41

well you know Israel left Gaza in

1:24:43

like what 2006 2008 they haven't been in there so they're

1:24:47

not occupying Gaza okay

1:24:49

when we say occupation we mean fucking

1:24:52

Israel is occupying Palestine okay

1:24:55

it's not about literal Israeli soldiers walking

1:24:57

the streets of Gaza that equals occupation

1:25:00

when we're saying this is an occupation we're saying it

1:25:02

is a it is a European settler

1:25:05

colonial occupation of Palestine it

1:25:07

is a taking over of their land and a squatting

1:25:09

on it and then you get the genocide the ethnic

1:25:11

cleansing the apartheid etc that's

1:25:13

what we mean by occupied so when somebody says

1:25:16

will you do they left Gaza and such-and-such there

1:25:18

they have to be being disingenuous they

1:25:21

cannot be serious this is absurd

1:25:23

so yes it's an occupation yes it's

1:25:25

a genocide yes it's an apartheid

1:25:28

regime yes there's ethnic cleansing

1:25:31

and then the last word that you hear is ethno

1:25:33

state this one is maybe

1:25:36

a little blurrier but I'm wondering Allison

1:25:38

if you have any thoughts on the use of the term ethno

1:25:40

state yeah so real

1:25:42

quick I want to touch on the occupation thing real quick

1:25:44

before I move over to that so

1:25:46

I actually think you occupation

1:25:48

you're correct there's multiple sentences in which

1:25:50

we mean it settler colonialism is inherently

1:25:53

an occupation right but also

1:25:55

again if we want to get into kind of the legal international

1:25:58

law side of things the with The

1:26:00

withdrawal of Israel and the settlements

1:26:03

in 2005 just does not mean the occupation ended. And

1:26:05

here I'm actually just going to directly

1:26:07

quote the United Nations Office for Coordination

1:26:10

of Human Affairs because I think this is very useful.

1:26:12

And they say, quote, Israel has been occupying

1:26:14

the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza,

1:26:17

which collectively constitutes the occupied Palestinian

1:26:19

territories since 1967. Contrary

1:26:22

to what the Israeli government claims, Israel's withdrawal

1:26:25

of ground forces from Gaza in 2005 did

1:26:27

not end the occupation of Gaza. That

1:26:29

is because ever since Israel has maintained

1:26:32

effective control over Gaza, including

1:26:34

its territorial waters and airspace, the

1:26:36

movement of peoples and goods except at Gaza's border with

1:26:39

Egypt and the infrastructure upon

1:26:41

which Gaza relies, rendering the strip

1:26:43

an open-air prison, end quote. So

1:26:45

this is not coming from Palestinian resistance groups.

1:26:47

This is coming from the fucking United Nations. Literally,

1:26:50

the withdrawal of troops is not the same thing legally,

1:26:53

internationally as the end of occupation. So

1:26:55

I think that's important to point out. Again,

1:26:57

even under Faktou Bourgeois international norms,

1:27:00

this shit is still blatantly

1:27:02

an occupation and blatantly genocide. But

1:27:05

on the question of ethno-states, I think ethno-state

1:27:08

is a complicated term. I use it in this

1:27:10

episode myself to refer to what I think

1:27:12

the project of Zionism is. And I think

1:27:14

it is fair to say that the Zionist project is an

1:27:16

ethno-nationalist project, right? Which

1:27:19

is what that term is getting at because,

1:27:21

again, of the idea that there is a

1:27:23

specific ethnic group with a sole

1:27:25

and unique claim to this particular

1:27:27

land. And ethno-state gets

1:27:29

thrown at the various Palestinian groups as well

1:27:32

to try to argue that they're Arab-nationalist

1:27:34

in some way and want to set up an ethno-state. And

1:27:36

when it gets thrown that way, I would just say that's completely

1:27:38

inaccurate. The various resistance groups,

1:27:41

including Hamas as of their 2017 charter,

1:27:43

do not want to set up an ethnically nationalist

1:27:46

state. They have talked about a

1:27:48

state that is multi-ethnic in its

1:27:50

reality. And so when that term gets applied

1:27:52

the other way to the resistance groups, I think

1:27:54

it is not accurate to their self-reported

1:27:57

politics, right? And that, I

1:27:59

think, is very ne- to point out, but I do think

1:28:01

the term is fair to discuss in

1:28:04

the context of describing what Zionism

1:28:06

is and what a Zionist state would be.

1:28:09

Very well said. Yeah, like I said,

1:28:11

every accusation is an admission and what you just

1:28:13

said a couple seconds ago is exactly that. And

1:28:15

also I think it's kind of funny that I'm just like this fucking

1:28:17

shit talker coming up with arguments and Allison is

1:28:19

like this fucking lawyer pointing to international law.

1:28:23

That's why we make such a good team. Thank

1:28:27

God for you. All right. So, I think

1:28:29

we're wrapping this up. I just wanted to end this with a

1:28:31

couple thoughts on what has been accomplished so far.

1:28:34

So if we do see this as a national liberation

1:28:36

struggle,

1:28:37

what has this historic rebellion

1:28:39

by Hamas accomplished so far?

1:28:42

Maybe some of these things were intended, maybe some of them weren't.

1:28:44

And here's just a list I came up with at the top of my head.

1:28:47

Allison, feel free to add anything to this. They

1:28:50

brought the issue of Palestine back

1:28:52

into the forefront, not just of regional

1:28:55

politics, but of global politics. Every

1:28:57

person on every corner of the earth that's

1:28:59

at all tapped into what's happening in the world around

1:29:01

them is thinking right now about this

1:29:03

conflict. So they've managed to do that.

1:29:06

They have sabotaged

1:29:09

the attempt to move past them, to

1:29:11

put their issues on the back burner, specifically

1:29:14

in the form of the Saudi normalization

1:29:16

campaign with Israel. They were just about

1:29:18

to sort of try to normalize

1:29:20

relations and sort of put this whole

1:29:22

issue behind them and let Israel

1:29:24

move forward as a respected state

1:29:27

in the region. And having normalization

1:29:29

with Saudi Arabia is one of those major steps.

1:29:31

They ended that. They revealed

1:29:33

the hypocrisy of the West. All the

1:29:35

arguments we've heard about Ukraine, self-determination,

1:29:39

this is a country being invaded, people

1:29:41

have every right to fight for their freedom, everybody

1:29:44

should have democracy

1:29:44

and human rights, all

1:29:46

of that goes

1:29:47

out the window when it comes to Israel. Now they have

1:29:49

to reverse the arguments. Maybe

1:29:51

none of those things matter at all. Israel

1:29:53

has a right to exist and defend itself, end of discussion.

1:29:56

So that's the revealing of the hypocrisy of the

1:29:58

West. They're pushing the conflict.

1:29:59

to a peak. They

1:30:02

are not letting it die down, they're not letting

1:30:04

it go out with the whimper, they are forcing

1:30:07

some sort of resolution. Israel,

1:30:09

you're gonna have to fucking kill us all,

1:30:12

or you're going to have to do something. But the

1:30:14

status quo is unacceptable,

1:30:16

it's unbearable, we can't live like

1:30:18

this anymore. And they've successfully

1:30:21

pushed this to a sort of culminating

1:30:24

event, and we'll see what happens. The war is going

1:30:26

to determine what that resolution

1:30:28

ultimately is, or if we get to a

1:30:29

full resolution or a partial resolution, but

1:30:32

in any case the conflict is no

1:30:34

longer on the back burner. Now another

1:30:36

thing they've accomplished

1:30:38

is they have, and

1:30:40

you know, I want to be thoughtful

1:30:42

about this because

1:30:44

you know why I don't think that settlers are civilians,

1:30:46

and I certainly don't shed any tears over the IDF.

1:30:49

You know, a kid born in Israel is an innocent person.

1:30:52

You know, somebody who's just born in a kibbutz and

1:30:54

is raised in a kibbutz, and they don't

1:30:56

know anything else, they don't have citizenship

1:30:58

in any other country. You know, that sucks,

1:31:01

that's brutal. I ultimately laid

1:31:03

the blame at the feet of Israel, they started

1:31:05

this conflict. You know, it's like

1:31:07

my analogy is that of a

1:31:09

slave and a slave master. If the

1:31:11

slaves revolt and they burn down the master's

1:31:13

house and his family dies, do

1:31:16

we not care that the little baby died?

1:31:18

No, we care. A baby died, that's

1:31:20

terrible. A baby is fundamentally by definition

1:31:22

innocent. But the parents brought that

1:31:24

baby into a slave master dynamic.

1:31:27

They put them in harm's way, and that

1:31:30

is disgusting. But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't

1:31:32

feel empathy and have some spiritual

1:31:35

and moral consistency that we care

1:31:37

about truly, truly innocent people,

1:31:39

and we can talk about what that means. But what

1:31:41

my main point here is what they did do is

1:31:44

they scattered the settlers. So if

1:31:46

you're a settler that wants to immigrate,

1:31:48

right, to Israel, because they give you dual

1:31:50

citizenship, if you have one grandparent who

1:31:52

is Jewish, you know, these

1:31:54

people that are born in America that fly

1:31:56

over and become settlers, those

1:31:59

people are going to think twice.

1:31:59

three times before they come back.

1:32:02

And so they have fundamentally scattered

1:32:04

settlers and made settlers feel not

1:32:07

at home because it's not their home. And

1:32:09

the last thing

1:32:10

is, and that I can think of, and I'm sure there's many more, is

1:32:13

that they have successfully lured

1:32:15

Israel into overplaying its hand.

1:32:18

They have lured Israel into

1:32:20

this insane

1:32:21

psychopathic, fascistic

1:32:23

response that maybe people

1:32:25

around the world had some sympathy on

1:32:27

October 8th, but by October

1:32:29

9th you're having to watch baby after

1:32:32

baby be pulled out of the fucking rubble

1:32:34

and you lose, and that

1:32:36

now takes over your moral universe.

1:32:39

And people are disgusted by that because

1:32:41

they have functioning fucking hearts and

1:32:43

they should be disgusted by that. But the thing

1:32:46

is,

1:32:47

when it's just every day, when

1:32:50

it's just 15 Palestinian kids

1:32:52

killed, it doesn't even make the headlines, right?

1:32:55

And that's a disgusting, disgusting, tragic

1:32:57

fact about this.

1:32:58

Palestinians are dying the entire time. Every

1:33:01

day, you could go a year without hearing about Israel

1:33:04

and Palestine in the conflict. Babies

1:33:06

are still dying. Innocent families are still being

1:33:08

slaughtered. People are still being brutalized. How

1:33:10

many Palestinians are rotting away in Israeli

1:33:12

jails? Those are political prisoners as far

1:33:15

as I'm concerned, right? And so what

1:33:17

they've done is they've highlighted all of that.

1:33:19

They refuse to let the low-level

1:33:21

annihilation and genocide continue.

1:33:23

If you're gonna kill us, you're gonna have to fucking

1:33:26

show the whole world that you're killing us. Because

1:33:28

you're gonna kill us anyway. Whether the world is

1:33:30

looking or not, you're gonna fucking kill us.

1:33:32

So we might as well make the motherfucking world

1:33:34

look at what you're doing, and then their

1:33:37

hearts have to determine what side they're on.

1:33:40

And so these are what the

1:33:43

uprising

1:33:44

has accomplished. And it's hard

1:33:46

to talk about accomplishments in such a tragic,

1:33:49

disgusting, violent conflict. My

1:33:51

heart fucking aches. I've wept every

1:33:54

fucking day since this conflict has

1:33:56

started,

1:33:57

but it's bringing it into

1:33:59

the foreground. and not allowing Palestinians

1:34:02

to be slaughtered and suffocated in silence.

1:34:05

And that in and of itself is something like

1:34:07

an accomplishment. So things are

1:34:09

happening. Things are moving. And

1:34:11

the Palestinian resistance,

1:34:14

you know,

1:34:14

they have, they've done something.

1:34:17

They are fighting back and they're making the

1:34:19

world look. And that's something. And

1:34:21

we're going to see what happens from here on out. But

1:34:24

I think that is worthy of being called something

1:34:26

like an accomplishment. And I'm wondering, Alison, if you have any

1:34:28

other thoughts?

1:34:29

Yeah, I think that's a very comprehensive list

1:34:31

that you gave. But you know, on the 7th

1:34:34

kind of when everything kicked off,

1:34:36

my first question was kind of like, what is the

1:34:39

thought process here? Right? What

1:34:41

is motivating this? What caused this to happen now on this

1:34:43

day at this scale? Right? And

1:34:45

we still totally know that there have been interviews

1:34:48

with the political leadership of Hamas

1:34:50

and the other resistance groups where they've given some explanation.

1:34:52

But again, the context around it remains

1:34:55

murky and will remain murky for quite some time

1:34:57

probably. And one of the things that

1:34:59

I came back to on the 7th when I was trying

1:35:01

to understand why is this happening now is

1:35:04

to a certain degree, like this has to just

1:35:06

be a what other option is there

1:35:08

kind of thing, right? That has to

1:35:10

be a part of what's at play. And I think that that

1:35:13

very much has been what we've seen play out.

1:35:16

And I think you're correct that when you are

1:35:18

in that situation of desperation, where everything

1:35:20

has failed, where you've tried to go through the international

1:35:22

courts, where you tried to go through

1:35:25

the Oslo Accords, where you've tried to go through

1:35:27

so many different attempts to reach

1:35:29

a solution and none of them have worked, you

1:35:31

fall back on what is available to you. And

1:35:34

I think you're correct to say that in this context,

1:35:36

in the wake of all of this, the

1:35:38

issue has been pushed globally, right?

1:35:42

Everyone has to see this now. Everyone

1:35:44

has to watch this happen. It has to confront

1:35:47

the immoral evil of settler

1:35:49

colonialism. End of occupation and

1:35:51

of genocide. And we'll never

1:35:53

know intense at the end of the day, we will never know

1:35:55

the decisions and the individual people who

1:35:57

made individual military strategies leading

1:35:59

and But what we do know is that we have reached

1:36:02

a point where in LA there were 50,000

1:36:04

people on the street marching against

1:36:07

colonialism, marching against Zionism,

1:36:10

marching against occupation and apartheid

1:36:12

and genocide. And that is meaningful

1:36:14

and that is important. And if nothing

1:36:16

else, in the wake of this, we can – we spend all time trying

1:36:19

to speculate. But what we know

1:36:21

we need to do is be vocal in our condemnation

1:36:24

of the system of Zionism

1:36:27

that produced all of this violence in the first place. So

1:36:29

I don't really have more to add to your list of accomplishments,

1:36:32

but I want to underline that

1:36:34

the issue has been forced and that's the most important thing of all.

1:36:37

And now it is time for everyone to respond.

1:36:40

Absolutely. All right. Well, I think we're going to end

1:36:42

it there. Allison, do you have any other things to say

1:36:44

or are you good? I'm good. Okay. Yeah,

1:36:47

we're going to end it there. We're going to see how things

1:36:49

play out. Again, this is an evolving situation. We're

1:36:51

recording on October 30th.

1:36:53

Things are going to change in the next day, two days, three days.

1:36:56

But Allison and I are going to continue to monitor events

1:36:59

and we're going to continue to try to put out episodes

1:37:02

like this, helping people understand what's going

1:37:04

on as it goes on and as it escalates and as

1:37:06

it evolves. So with

1:37:08

that said, we're going to wrap this episode up. Thank you to everybody

1:37:11

who listens to the show, who supports the show. We deeply

1:37:13

appreciate it. And as always, Free Palestine.

1:37:18

This is for Palestine, of course. The capital

1:37:20

Jerusalem, unarmed people marching to

1:37:22

the wall. And that you and the

1:37:24

question, we can see the hearts of the

1:37:27

lonely of Palestine, lonely of Gaza,

1:37:29

Palestine, of course, the capital Jerusalem,

1:37:32

unarmed people marching to the wall. And that

1:37:34

you and the suppression of the question, because this

1:37:36

is also lonely of Palestine, lonely of Gaza.

1:37:41

All you see is four

1:37:43

every time you heard your head and

1:37:45

hands. On the

1:37:47

floor for the cries of life

1:37:50

for this time to

1:37:52

the queen. These were

1:37:54

the lights between the lights they

1:37:56

had with

1:37:57

the woman.

1:38:30

If you take away your home where's the house supposed to live?

1:38:32

Told

1:38:36

you no love, not to be blind, not

1:38:38

to not care, tell me what's me, borderline spill and

1:38:40

hair is a spell. How to resist if there's no right

1:38:42

to be human is there? And

1:38:44

if you take away your home where's the house supposed

1:38:47

to live?

1:39:00

Told you no love, not to not be

1:39:02

a human is

1:39:04

a spell. How to resist if there's no right

1:39:06