 Joe Biden has called for a significant de-escalation by both Israel and Hamas and has urged both parties to pursue a ceasefire. Now this is an incredibly weak stance. It ignores that this is not a mere conflict, but an ongoing occupation, and it ignores how casualties have fallen overwhelmingly on one side. Just to call for a ceasefire, to call for both sides, to stop exerting violence. As Ash Sagar said in a recent show, it flattens the whole history, the whole context of what's going on here. However, whilst this is an incredibly weak statement from Joe Biden, it is still an improvement because up to this point, he has actually been resisting any call for a ceasefire whatsoever. So even the most tepid stance, he has been resisting, not just resisting, he's been blocking it at the UN. So some improvement. Meanwhile, in Palestine, a 24-hour strike has come to a close. Now this is really significant. The strike across the whole of historic Palestine, all Palestinians taking part of the vast majority taking part, shutting down businesses for 24 hours at protest, at apartheid at occupation, at the airstrikes in Gaza. Now during that strike, peaceful protesters were subject to intense repression by Israeli security forces, and that included this incident at the Damascus gates in East Jerusalem. So what you saw there was a peaceful protest, and then the Israeli police throwing stun grenades at protesters. Now a stun grenade, if you live in Britain like me, you probably never experienced one. What that means is the police throw something at you that bangs so loudly, that flashes so brightly, that you're completely disorientated for a few seconds, you struggle to see and struggle to hear, completely disorientating, which is why everyone runs away because they're horrible to be around. That's the purpose. As well as those stun grenades, we've also seen over the last two days, which is not new by the way, but it's come to light, been raised, become more prominent over the last two days, is Israeli police have been spraying rancid water on Palestinians. This is so appalling, really created a lot of shock on social media quite rightly. We're going to show you a clip that sort of explains what's going on in this respect. Mark Stone, and this is a clip from Sky News. And here in Sheikh Jarrah, about an hour ago, we saw something which happens a lot too at the moment. That is a water cannon, but it's not of the type that you might see in Europe or America because it's got skunk water in, which has a rancid smell, takes days to get off your skin. And what it does is they spray it ostensibly for crowd control. But I can tell you, because I was here and I saw it with my eyes, they were not controlling a crowd that needed to be controlled. They were controlling a small group of youngsters who posed no threat to them, and yet they fired the water cannon into a Palestinian community and all over Palestinian houses. The Palestinians and human rights groups say this is effectively a form of collective punishment. And lastly, down at the Damascus Gate a little bit earlier on, as part of this mass movement of Palestinians expressing their views, a group of Palestinians were walking out of the Damascus Gate of the old city and up the steps there, and then without any warning the Israeli police through stun grenades and everyone fleed again, unnecessary crowd control. We've put this to the Israeli police, we've asked them why they're doing this sort of thing, and they say where they make mistakes they investigate. But you know, I've worked here for quite some time, and I can tell you that when you ask the Israelis for investigation, they say they're doing one, but you never actually get the results. Those are the facts. That's what's happening here on the ground. We do ask the Israelis for a response. They say they'll give it, often it doesn't come. So lots to talk about over the past 48 hours, that general striker form of resistance, appalling grotesque repression you saw there in those two clips, and also a changing stance from the United States, from Joe Biden, to talk about all three things. I'm delighted to be joined by Nasser al-Masri, a Palestinian American PhD candidate in political science at MIT, and a member of the Palestinian youth movement. You know, most of our audience will be familiar with the purpose of a strike usually, you know, to cause losses to your boss so that they have to listen to their workers. In this context, as a decolonial context or a context where you're fighting a state, what does a strike do? What's the strategy? What leverage is being used there? There are a number of different parts that we can focus on here. So first, this strike has beyond just having the economic consequences that it will have, which I'll discuss in a moment. I think it was important because it brought together Palestinian youth across all areas where Palestinians are living and beyond Palestinian youth as well. Of course, there's a bunch of civil society groups that were sort of signed on to the strike as well. But historically, Palestinians have been very fragmented and it's not just related to sort of internal struggles or ideology or location, et cetera. But it's just the fact that they live in different places and under different circumstances in refugee camps and other parts of the West Bank as Palestinian citizens of Israel and historic Palestine and Gaza and Lebanon, et cetera. So I think that's one of the key components here. But more directly to the point here, the strike had significant consequences, I think, on the Israeli economy and sort of showed sort of the power that Palestinians have. I think one of the biggest sectors that sort of uses Palestinian labor inside of Israel is construction. And so there are something like 65,000 construction workers that come from the occupied West Bank and come into Israel to work. Reportedly, 110 of them showed up out of 65,000. And so you can imagine the consequences. I saw some numbers that were in the ballpark of $40 million were basically lost yesterday, which I think translates to something like 30 million British pounds. So I think if we're talking about numbers, this is just in one day. And you can imagine that the delays in the backups would become extremely costly. And even beyond sort of the construction industry, 50 percent or so of pharmacists inside of historic Palestine inside of Israel, Palestinian citizens of Israel, excuse me. 50 percent of the pharmacists, they make up 25 percent of doctors and nurses, more than half the construction workers. So we're talking about almost a fifth or around a fifth of the labor force didn't show up to work yesterday. And so that you can imagine the consequences it had. You can imagine the pressure it puts on the Netanyahu government or well, on Benjamin Netanyahu and sort of this this process they're going through an attempt to form a government. You can imagine the consequences it has, as you say, for their bosses, right? Sort of the end goal here was to to leverage that power across all the places where Palestinians are living in order to sort of make their voices heard in a more direct material way, if you will. Let's talk about the other form of pressure being exerted on Israel right now, which is international. I mean, calling it pressure might be being too kind to what Joe Biden is currently doing. But he has moved from, I suppose, a completely morally abject position, which is to say Israel has an absolute right to self-defense and therefore essentially condoning the airstrikes in Gaza to saying what I want to see is a ceasefire. Is that a significant shift? Does that exert pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu? And, you know, do you think that means a ceasefire will essentially happen quite, quite soon now? Yeah, it's hard to say when it will happen. I think there's something to think about here. I think on the US side, right? Biden has, you know, obviously the US has blocked security council resolutions multiple times this week. But Biden is feeling the pressure and he has, you know, this is the same thing with his immigration policy recently that he backtracked on, you know, that we were talking about COVID a little bit earlier and related to the patents, right? He's backtracked on a significant number of issues. And this is now, you know, the pressure is breaking through to him. What does it mean for an actual ceasefire? You know, I couldn't say for certain, but it looks like, you know, that the negotiations that I've been, you know, ongoing sort of behind the scenes, it appears to be at a point where Israel has a desire to continue pummeling Gaza, you know, using this sort of collective punishment. And so the fact that Biden is finally leveraging pressure on Netanyahu, I would imagine in the next week, you're going to hear, if not a ceasefire, you're going to hear an outcome of rejected ceasefire by Israel, which I think could potentially bring the United States and Israel at sort of longer heads about where they're going. I don't know for certain if Netanyahu can withstand sort of Biden's pressure, we're going to find out what he thinks he can do. He's already taken sort of actions that he wouldn't have taken under sort of, you know, Obama's presidency. And so it's unclear exactly what's what is going to develop. But I have a sense that in the next week or so, you're going to see some some conclusions coming out regarding whether they're going to stop or not. Obviously, a ceasefire is urgently needed. At the same time, there is a danger that as soon as the ceasefire is announced, the world's media, you know, say, oh, problem solved. Quiet has happened again. Quiet has returned. The pressure goes off Joe Biden and the scenes I showed at the start of this section of of Israeli police firing skunk water at people, rancid water at Palestinians, the kind of thing, you know, it just seems so degrading, so dehumanizing and throwing stun grenades at peaceful protesters. Obviously, the expulsion of citizens of Sheikh Jarrah. The list can go on of the various oppressions, which are separate from airstrikes in Gaza. Are you concerned that once a ceasefire happens, you know, Israel will essentially once again be off the hook? Yeah, so I mean, this is, you know, this is not the first time that there's been an extensive bombardment of Gaza. There's been, you know, coverage of it. And then it sort of went back to the status quo afterwards happened in 2014, 2008 and nine, you know, I keep going back in time. And so I I'm absolutely with you that that is a potential danger. I think there's a couple things that are different this time. So for the first time, at least, you know, in history, I say the first time in history, really, the US Congress, US Congress, people have made their voices heard regarding their concerns about not only Israeli actions, right? Concerns is a very like word. They're they're a complete opposition to sort of Israeli violence. But they've also called on the president of the United States and other of their of their, you know, counterparts in Congress to to bring about an end of US support to Israel, especially the blank check that they provide to Israel every year. And so I think I don't think we should watch that away as nothing. I think this is a meaningful move in the right direction. You know, the the sort of Congress has has moved to the left, I think to the surprise of some folks in the United States. And I think a lot of younger folks increasingly are aware of what is going on in Palestine and elsewhere and are starting to support supporting sort of changes in US policy. And that relates to the second point, which is a lot of this was broadcast on social media, the traditional news media, you know, you're not included, right? The work being done here is fantastic. But the traditional news media, we're talking CNN, Reuters, right, etc. A lot of these news media are not they're not giving fair coverage to Palestinians. And you know, I could I could share tons of statistics on how much they cover Palestinian deaths versus Israeli deaths, for example. So I think there's a significant shift in the way people are understanding what's going on in Palestine, the views that people have. And I think it's going to come to a tipping point at some point in the near future, if it's not immediately after this sort of episode of Israeli violence, then it will be in the near future, because I think folks really are now understanding what is going on in Palestine. And they're now no longer under the delusions that the media has for so long sort of presented, you know, particularly the largest corporations in the media, I should say. And so I think that's a significant shift. But that being said, I think you're absolutely right. When things quiet down, people will, you know, the status quo, returning the status quo is not ideal. Gaza's still under siege. People still can't access health care. People are, you know, the the families in shift are are still awaiting a court ruling on whether they're allowed to live in their homes that they came to after they were forced out, you know, in the 1940s and 1950s. And so, you know, this is, I think, definitely a great concern of Palestinians. I think this momentum is starting to push Palestinians to talk across, you know, sort of these, quote, unquote, borders that that exist between them. And so there's there's a strong hope that further organization will will continue to occur among especially the sort of re-energized youth in Palestine. But let's be honest, it's hard to overturn the press of regime policies. And so this is going to be a difficult uphill fight. And so there needs to be a continuing spotlight on what is going on. But yes, it's a concern. Yes, I think there's a lot of things different. And I am actually I think for the first time more hopeful than I am worried that the future will hold much of the same. Finally, I've got a very difficult question for you, because it sort of looks into the future. It could be some guesswork, I suppose. But, you know, just just taking the general strike as an inspiration. If, you know, we've had lots of lots of Palestinians on in the last two weeks who have sort of said there does seem to be a level of unity among Palestinians, both within historic Palestine and in the diaspora to an extent that hasn't been seen recently. So, you know, with a speculative hat on, what kind of, you know, movements of resistance do you see going forward? What do you think will be most most prominent? You know, we've got this general strike as an example now. What should people be watching out for? Do you think sort of a continuance of strikes? I think you'll see. I think this has been immensely effective and, you know, sort of. It's a type of it's a type of activity that can sort of focus folks on the same on the same target, which is, you know, in this case, the economy. One of the hardest things is that to, you know, to mobilize around the fact that there are so much divisions among Palestinians. And like I said, I'm talking about borders, limitations for Palestinians to get inside of Israel for the people in Gaza to connect with those in the West Bank. So, you know, if I'm if I'm thinking forward, I think actions like the strike will be at least the starting point. I imagine that coordination across, you know, across time and place is going to be difficult, made more difficult by Israel. There's been this attempt to sort of localize the various struggles of Palestinians. Groups here are going to be folks in the West, you know, sort of leveraging their, you know, political power to pressure their governments to sort of continue pushing change in Palestine. It's a difficult question. It really is. It's, you know, the Palestinians, you know, people that I've spoken to who have very close family on the ground and myself and others, they're saying that, you know, people are not sure what's going to come next, but people are energized and looking for the sort of the next thing. And so I imagine they'll start with, you know, a continuance of strikes. I imagine you'll see some new organizations or the combination of multiple existing organizations coming together. And I think, yeah, I think there's a lot of question marks to be completely blunt, but this is more hope than I think we've seen in a long time, including from the older generation. I think that's something that really really has inspired me, is they are excited for the first time in a long time.