 It's great to see so many people tonight and we're going to go ahead and get started. First thing, I just want to check on the camera. The panel will be filmed on CCTV. I'll repeat this. The question is whether the discussion will not be taped, but is there anyone in the audience who doesn't want to be panned or be on the video at all? Okay, Charlie, there is someone, so yeah, okay. Seems like there was only one objection and she won't be able to shot. Okay, just don't get the corner, but you can pan the rest. Yeah. Okay, welcome everyone to our panel tonight, Israel Gaza and the struggle for Palestine. Thanks to CCTV, Town Meeting Television for filming tonight, Charlie Giannoni. We also have some folks on Zoom who are out there somewhere. Probably about 20. About 20. Okay, that's great. The meeting will run for about an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes. We'll have discussion from the front with the panelists and then we'll open it up for participation from you all and we'll come back and have some announcements and kind of think about next steps at that point. I'm Paul Fleckenstein from the Tempest Collective and I'll be chairing the meeting tonight. And I want to start first off with an acknowledgement of the land that we're on tonight. We are on the historical homeland of the Western Abenaki people. We honor the Abenakis indigenous history as the traditional and ongoing stewards of these lands. We know that this land is unseated. European colonialism unleashed massive violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide to steal their lands. The U.S. has a colonial and imperial power continues this. We honor both the historical and ongoing resistance of the Abenaki and other indigenous peoples to settler colonialism. We support their struggles for justice and self determination. We must commit ourselves to active solidarity with all struggles for indigenous rights. And I have to say every time I hear that or read it, it has new meaning and I think it's especially important tonight. So again our panel is Israel Gaza and the struggle for Palestine. A week ago, Palestinian resistance fighters broke through Israel's siege of Gaza. Israel declared total war, total siege against the people of Gaza completely cutting off access to food, water, electricity while bombing the strip and killing entire families. The process of ethnic cleansing and routine violence at the hands of Israeli settler colonialism has turned into an utterly horrifying genocidal attack on Gaza with full U.S. backing. In the last days hundreds of thousands of people have joined mass protests in solidarity with Palestine around the world with many thousands in cities across the U.S. Israel bombed a hospital today as reported killing many hundreds. There is obviously an extreme urgency to these as millions of people in Gaza face death, injury and forced removal from their homes. There is also an opportunity for us to build a type of movement and struggle that can bring justice to Palestine. Our panel tonight will address how to understand the current situation in Palestine, the 17-year siege of Gaza, questions of resistance, colonialism and the role of Biden and U.S. imperialism, mass struggle and next steps for organizing. And I'd like to thank our sponsoring organizations Tempest Collective, Vermonters for Justice in Palestine, Central Vermont Jews in Solidarity with Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Vermont, New Hampshire and Veterans for Peace. So thank you all for helping to advertise. Our three panelists tonight and I'll introduce them I think in the order of I don't know which order you guys are taking but first would be Deborah Soleroff from Central Vermont Jews in Solidarity with Palestine, in the middle Wafiq Fawor from Vermonters for Justice in Palestine and Nolan Rampe from the Tempest Collective. So you guys have 10 to 12 minutes I think as we had talked about and I'll give you a warning when we get to 10 minutes and kind of think about wrapping up at that point. So Deb are you ready to go? Sure. Okay let's move the microphone closer to you. Okay I was going to stand I think is it better to stand? Yeah okay. I should just say that I don't usually do this. Okay so I'm a Jewish Vermonter, a member of the Vermonters for Justice in Palestine and Central Vermont Jews for Solidarity with Palestine. My co-members of my groups have co-authored my words so I want to give acknowledgement to them. I speak to you today on colonized Abnecki land. As a Jew I am devastated by the deaths in Israel. I'm also devastated by the deaths and pervasive suffering of Palestinians. Though I rejected religion at an early age I grew up in a religious family. I learned to mumble prayers which, because I never learned their meaning, are sometimes like the sounds of ocean waves. The melodies can bring comfort. The Mornish Kaddash is one of those prayers. I'd like to offer it for every mother and father who has lost a child, for every child who has lost a parent, for all Palestinians and Israelis lost in this horrendous moment. Feel free to join me. He's my rabah, bim barach, olam olamay olamaya. Yes, barach, yes tabach, yes baram, yes ramam, yes nasi, yes adab, yes aleh, yes alal, shemmei de kurisha bryahu. Le'olam min kal birashko, bishir koso, tush be kosa, d'nechem mosa, d'amin birlo, yinru amin. The heish sholamo, rabah min shomaya, b'chayim aleinu, v'kal yisrael, v'imru amin. Ose sholam v'imruv, hul yase sholam aleinu, v'al kal yisrael, v'imru amin. I am here today to stand with the Palestinian people, strengthened and resolved by the memories of my ancestors who died in the Russian pogroms and the Holocaust. It is my duty to speak up when Israel is called the Jewish state instead of a settler colony. When opposition to the apartheid is called anti-Semitism instead of solidarity. It is my duty to my ancestors to say that never again to genocide needs never again for anyone. Those who have been oppressed, those who are victims of violence will oppress and traumatize others. As Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Safar stated, the biggest challenge in the face of inhumanity, of being victim of inhumanity, is to retain your own humanity. It is us to up to us to adhere to the moral principles humanity has adopted and stop the cycle of violence. Unity is our greatest asset. Empathy, love and hope are the foundation of support. Humanity's golden rule says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, not do unto others as they have done unto you. As Peter Beinhart wrote in the New York Times, Palestinians are not fundamentally different from others facing oppression. When moral resistance doesn't work, they try something else. I mourn all the lives lost in the massacres of the past week, Israeli and Palestinian. The massacre of children can never be justified. The horror of what has taken place shakes me to the core. I grieve with those who have lost loved ones. The horror of what is happening as I speak is unimaginable. None of this was inevitable, but it was not unpredictable. The horror we are witnessing is the direct result of the agenda pursued by far-right Zionists extremists in Israel and the U.S. For decades, these groups have worked to undermine all possibilities for peace and reconciliation in Israel-Palestine. They have actively fostered conditions that disempowered the progressive Palestinian liberation movement, blacklisted supporters of boycott, divestment, and sanctions, and tried to ensure that ethical, nonviolent resistance would be futile. All humans deserve to live safely with dignity and the necessities of life. However, the actions of Israeli governments, in particular Netanyahu's government, have treated Gazans as less than human and empowered the very group they seek to annihilate. The Israeli government has always sought the expulsion of all Palestinians from Gazan, the West Bank, and the re-annexation of these regions. Nothing short of ethnic cleansing. They have never been closer to achieving it. We know the roots of this situation are in Israel's 75-year occupation and colonization of Palestine and the billions of dollars in annual U.S. military aid to Israel. And we know those roots stretch all the way back to the late 1800s Europe. During the heat of the workers' struggle against Europe's elite, anti-Semitism was used as a scapegoat to distract and divert attention from the real-class conflict. In response to state-sanctioned waves of violence against European Jews, our ancestors split into two camps, one that sought to create a Jewish ethno-state in historic Palestine and the other, bundist, socialist Jews who sought liberation in the land they lived through solidarity and struggling along with all working people. It is in the tradition of the bundist that I walk today. I also walk with my ancestors who were the resistance fighters in the Warsaw ghetto and throughout Europe during the Holocaust. Resistance is justified when people are occupied. Without the resistance of my ancestors, I would not be here today. In our name, U.S. tax dollars have continued to fund the deployment of U.S. warplanes and an aircraft carrier group to the Gazan Coast and the Israeli Defense Forces' unprecedented retaliatory bombing of the Gaza Strip. This is not a conflict between military equals. This is the Israeli state terrorizing and occupied people. Just like the U.S. government in coordination with settler colonial frontier violence terrorized and ultimately annexed the land of the indigenous people of this continent, so too as the Nazis terminated the lives of millions of Jews, Roma, LGBTQ plus and others they thought inferior. The U.S. government needs to stop the violence, not further it. The U.S. government needs to send humanitarian aid, water, food and shelter to Gazans. By perpetuating the message of retribution for corporations that profit from arming the world, the corporate media is also complicit in and guilty of supporting the cycle of violence. With different words, different nonviolent reports, they could prevent the escalation of hate crimes around the world. As events continue to unfold, we ask all and especially Jewish Americans to boldly decry Israel's regime of occupation and apartheid and then U.S.'s role in funding it. No one, Jewish or Palestinian, will be safe while U.S. dollars continue to fund an apartheid state while the media continues to blame. Many of us have been hearing from non-Jewish friends asking if it is okay to criticize the Israeli state. Although critiques of Israel are sometimes made in anti-Semitic ways or by people with anti-Semitic views, criticizing the politicians and the political state of Israel is not the same as anti-Semitism. I'm here to say, not only is it okay to criticize apartheid and genocide, it is ethically necessary to close, oh, no, sorry. I cut that part. As journalist Dave Ziren wrote in The Nation, being a Jew for a free Palestine is not easy. It's also never been more necessary to stand in solidarity. I thank you for being here, for staying rooted in love, faith that one day Palestine will be free, and the belief that Jewish people can find safety and solidarity and belonging. Thank you for working together to create a world where all people, from the U.S. to Palestine, live in freedom, justice, equality, and dignity. Thank you, Deborah. Our next speaker is Wafiq Fahour from Vermonters for Justice in Palestine. My name is Wafiq Fahour. I'm a member of Vermonter for Justice in Palestine. I'm Palestinian, born refugee in Lebanon. I was, for a moment, not going to show off. I was afraid that I will miss a call or a text from relatives. I was talking to my brother earlier, which is I have family from both sides of the borders, occupied Palestine, refugee camps in Lebanon. I don't want to let go because I'm afraid something will happen. Put this aside, let's talk about what's happening in general. Definitely you're interested to talk about what happened in October 7th and on, and what's happening on Gaza. Actually, what's happening for the last 75 years. We have been living it as part of our life. Some of us, they're born and they feel dead. By the certificate of birth, when you born refugee, 70% almost of Gazan people are refugees from 1948. Israel, trying to separate as if Hamas is something and the Gazan are something else. They don't know that those fighters, this resistance, who went back to villages, their parents, Indigenous villages and towns in October 7th are protecting their families and parents in Gaza. There is no separation in the Palestinian community or society, wherever you find them, between their resistance and the people, between the people and the resistance. If you tell me in 2007, are you happy that Hamas got elected? I am one of the people, I wasn't happy to tell you the truth. But they won. My opinion was, let them govern and fail because in my opinion, any party based on any religion, regardless, okay, they will not to govern. United States and Israel together dictated into the authority that Hamas will not be part of the government and they divided the Palestinian again. It wasn't the first time, but again with the help of Arab regimes again. So they started playing, we don't have representative of the Palestinian to talk to. So the Palestinian authority, if you don't know, Mayor Miro of Burlington has more authority in Burlington than Mahmoud Abbas and Ramallah. At least Miro, he has authority over collecting taxes. Mahmoud Abbas doesn't. Over water, sewage, electricity, service for the public. Mahmoud Abbas doesn't. Miro can show up and talk about his political opinion about what's happening over there opposing boycott divestment sanction and telling me personally he's against our petition, which is apartheid free campaign, apartheid community free campaign. Mahmoud Abbas cannot do that. They will dictate to him what to say. Mahmoud Abbas didn't meet with his administration to agree or to condemn what Israel is doing. So if today there is election in Palestine, guess who will win? Hamas. Why? Because the Palestinian in every community inside outside with the resistance. October 7th it changed everything for us. I'll tell you the truth. Did it bring me hope? Yes. Did it bring me back to Galilee? Yes. Did it give the right for my family the right of return? Yes. Yes. At the same times it's sadden us and we should not condone except civilian death. But let's talk about it here. These Israeli drawing the picture of what happened in October 7th was very murky with the American news and American administration and the president. But there is a reason for it. United States cannot criticize Israel for many reasons. One, it is a carbon copy of the United States. The United States is a colonialist. Israel is a colonialist. The American whites came as pilgrims and religious promised land. The Israeli and the Jews use the same excuse. United States build on ethnically cleansing. Israel do that. The American are genocidal. Israel that American are racist against people of colors and different ethnicity. Israel is the same. That's why they are together to the hip. One of them can be defeated. Both will be defeated. Otherwise, why the American ships on the Mediterranean? Why 2000 Americans are in the ground advising the Israelis of what they did in Iraq in Fallujah. So when they enter Gaza, they will do the same. The Palestinians in a condition that they are fighting. The Israeli, the American, the British, the French, the German, the whole civilized western world. Unfortunately. For us, we believe on death like life. If I want to pray, I will pray for the living. The dead are dead. For you as American, as a community here in Burlington, what can we do? You have to change the mentality and how you look at the Palestinians. It's enough. We lived it for so long to look at us and you think Palestinian equal terrorists. Blacks, thugs, indigenous savages, you know, who put us the way it makes you comfortable and you are the civilized. Mainly the white American, definitely. If you want to help us, help us here in Burlington to sign the petition, to put it up for vote for the resident of Burlington, that Israel is an apartheid state. Israel is a racist state. If you don't put that to the American public and educate them about it, they will continue to do that in your name. For my Jewish siblings, the more we lose, you lose. Already the hijack your identity and your faith. Israel is speaking in your behalf. Israel is speaking in behalf of your history of what happened to the Jews, you know, and making comparison. If we lose, you're going to lose your identity. If you work for justice, for all of us, don't be selective. There is no time to be selective. And the Palestinian equation is local equation, very local equation. Your money is killing us. Your taxes killing us. And you are part of the crime when you stay silent. Thank you. Thank you very much, Wafiq. Our next speaker is Nolan Rampe from the Tempest Collective. So Paul spoke about this in the beginning of the meeting, but I want to go back over it before I jump into my talk, because I think it bears repeating. After the Palestinian fighters attacked on October 7th, since then, Israel has cut off food, water, and electricity to 2.2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, half of which are children. They have engaged in indiscriminate bombing campaigns throughout Gaza, including convoys of people trying to flee northern Gaza. There are currently aid trucks, supply trucks, lined up along the Rafa border crossing with Egypt that are not being allowed in, because Israel will not guarantee that they will not bomb those trucks. Just today, as Paul mentioned, a hospital was bombed, killing possibly 500 people. A school was bombed that was known to be offering refuge to Palestinian families. This is what's happening in Gaza right now. And it is being done with the explicit support of our government. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Anthony Blinken have all come out and bent over backwards to offer their unwavering support for the war crimes that Israel is committing right now. I don't know if you all saw this, but it's normal to see US officials do that. What I saw that was shocking was a leaked memo from the government that was telling US officials and diplomats to avoid using words like de-escalation and ceasefire. Because the US knows exactly what is about to happen, and they are fully on board with it. And that is why it is our responsibility as US citizens to stand up and fight tooth and nail against what is being done in our name. A lot of you probably know the history of how we got here with the US, but for anyone who doesn't, I want to just take a second to step back and provide a framework for understanding how we got here and the origins of this relationship because it is crucial to understanding the relationship between Zionism and US imperialism. Coming out of World War II, the US immediately realized that the Middle East was going to be the focal point of its new imperial power because of the centrality of oil. They immediately went about setting up client states all throughout the Middle East. Usually brutal dictatorships in Arab countries, initially such as Iran and also Egypt, but none was more important than Israel. And the reason for that is because of its Zionist character. What the US understood was that any Arab nation, no matter how solid they get the support from the Arab leadership, it always runs the risk of a popular uprising that can overthrow that government and remove that state from US orbit. We saw it in the middle of the 20th century with the rise of Arab nationalism, particularly in Egypt and in Iran. We saw it again in 2012 with the popular uprising with the Arab Spring. There is always the danger of that popular revolt from below. Israel is fundamentally different. Because of its nature as being an ethno-state, as being a Jewish state in the middle of the Middle East, it has always required that it have the backing of an imperial power in order to maintain and carry out its project of the creation of an ethno-state. That has been the lynchpin that has allowed Israel to do what it has done. In fact, the US identified it as a watchdog of US imperialism in the Middle East because of its ability to carry out the US bidding, maintain order, and we have seen it time and time again since the creation of the state in 1948. The laundry list of things that it has done in the name of US imperialism is too long to go in through here. We can get into it into the discussion if we need to. But it is fundamental. We have to understand that if you are anti-Zionist, you must also be anti-imperialist. The two are inextricably linked. And similarly, if you cannot be an anti-imperialist without being an anti-Zionist, the two go hand in hand. The projects are inextricably linked. And so it is for that reason that we have to, if we are genuine anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist, we must have unconditional support for the Palestinian liberation movement. I want to sit on this point for just one moment about what unconditional support means. Unconditional support, when we are talking about an oppressed versus the oppressor, when we talk about unconditional support for the oppressed, what that means is that we do not have a checklist of criteria that the oppressed people need to meet in order to get our support. There is no litmus test. There is nothing of like, well, let me see you do this. Let me see you do this. Let me see you do that. Let me check off everything on my list. And then I will give you my support. No, when there is, if we are going to be principled leftists, when we see a battle between oppressed and oppressor, our solidarity and our support is with the oppressed, period, full stop. Now, that does not mean uncritical support. We can have criticisms. We can have critiques. We can have those conversations. But we can, you know, I am still trying to figure out exactly what my perspective is on Hamas and what happened on October 7th. I'm still working that through. And it's okay if you are too. But while I'm working that through, I have never questioned my unconditional support for the Palestinian liberation movement and their right to resist including through violence and their right to self-determination and freedom and basic human dignity. And I think that's the line that we all need to go for understanding the difference between unconditional and uncritical. And our support is unconditional. So I want to wrap up with a little bit of time that I've got to talk about what we can do here. I think in terms of what's happening here in the U.S., one of the most important things we can do is we need a revitalization of the boycott divestment and sanctions campaign here in the U.S. I think we, you know, many of you are probably aware of the wave of anti-BDS legislation that has happened over the past several years of attempts to criminalize or prevent people who work in state jobs or corporations who are participating in BDS to get locked out of contracts. It is a way of essentially attempting to criminalize our right to peacefully organize to defend our beliefs and carry out the types of political change that we want to see. So we need a revitalization of the boycott divestment and sanctions campaign and we need it happening across the country. We also need to be, you know, showing up at rallies, speaking out, and again being unwavering in that support for Palestinians because I think we've all seen the disgusting media coverage that makes it sound as though October 7th happened out of nowhere, right, that there was just this attack that happened and now Israel has to decide if, you know, what it's going to do in its own self-defense. You cannot occupy people, brutalize them, take away their freedoms, cut off access to the outside world, rule over them with a military fist, and then call it self-defense when they fight back. Call it whatever you want, it's not self-defense and we need to be upfront in making that point. The last thing I'll say that we can do is we need to also be declaring our absolute solidarity with the Arab working class throughout the Middle East because I think what we saw, so BDS is important, we have to do it, it is our role here, it is not in and of itself going to bring an end to the occupation. It is an act of solidarity and it's an important one. What we saw in the Arab Spring in 2012 was the real way forward for how this conflict can get drawn to a close. What we saw was a popular uprising of Arabs in countries across the Middle East and North Africa and what you saw was in the span of a few weeks, the entire network of dictatorships that the US and Israel had built that seemed impenetrable all of a sudden started to crumble. You actually saw the way forward in a movement that could actually simultaneously challenge US imperialism and Zionism. 2012 was ultimately unsuccessful. Revolutions are hard, they come in fits and starts, but all of the ingredients that created the Arab uprising, the Arab Spring, are still there and they will be back and it will be up to us to throw our full support and solidarity behind the Arab working class standing shoulder to shoulder with them in the fight against Zionism and against US imperialism. Thanks.