 Good evening everybody. The topic tonight is genocide and Gaza carnage in Israel prospects for peace. I don't think I have to talk too much about the news everybody's been seeing and I'm very glad to see so many people have come for this discussion tonight. We have three really good speakers to look at this really difficult situation, challenging situation and a human situation. So I'd like to just say who they are. The first speaker this evening will be is Samar Sabawi. She's a prolific playwright, a Palestinian and she's a poet and I'm looking forward very much to seeing her take and her message. She's been in Gaza quite recently herself. The second speaker is Mr Shamit Batra. He was also born in Gaza and came to Australia as a refugee. It's got a lot of experience going back a long time with this struggle. And the third speaker is Professor Emeritus Stuart Rees from the University of Sydney who's a stalwart of politics in the past and who helped organize this program tonight. So I'll just hand it over. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for being here and for your willingness to ruin your beer this night with our stories that are pretty sad, I would say, but hopefully inspiring somewhat as well. I like to always begin with my own personal acknowledgement to country. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land I live upon and the traditional custodians of the land I come from. The Gadigal peoples of this nation and the Palestinian people under occupation and I pay my respect to our elders past and present who safeguard our history. The Hikawatis and weavers of green time stories forever embedded in our memory. And I stand in outrage for black children in incarceration and Palestinian children in arbitrary detention and the children of Mecca and stolen generation. I acknowledge the women who carved life from the sacred earth and breathed into its indigenous pride and the women who give birth in the rubble at checkpoints and under Gaza's deadly skies. I acknowledge the men who still stand dignified, filled with courage and pride, heads held high, unbent by oppression. I acknowledge those who resist the horrors of settler colonies and those who march with us for freedom and equality beyond the rhetorical apology and the meaningless sorry. And the dazzling facade of Western civility. I come from colonized land and I live on colonized land and I pay my respect to all freedom fighters past and present. Palestine will be free and this land will always be original. I am originally from Gaza City and I am a writer. My voice is part of the growing community of writers from indigenous and marginalized backgrounds who recognize the inseparable links between Western art, literature, academia and knowledge production and the ideologies of colonialism. I write to decolonize, to honor and to validate our Palestinian traditional ways of knowing and remembering through poetry and through storytelling. And while I learned growing up that embracing my Palestinian identity is a duty and a minimum gesture of solidarity with loved ones who are still trapped in the grip of Israel's occupation. I also learned that at the heart of being Palestinian is an unwavering commitment to the struggle for justice, freedom and equality in a land that can only find peace in a shared coexistence and a shared resistance to oppression. This is neither a nationalist nor an exclusivist discourse and there is room for everyone in this movement for freedom, justice and equality and that is precisely what we mean when we say from the river to the sea, we will all be free and Palestine will be free. As I give this talk today in Palestinians including my own family in Gaza who were forced out of their homes and into a crowded strip of earth in the south are facing one of two horrendous choices, death or expulsion. Both choices mean no return to their previous lives. Their beloved city is almost entirely demolished. The school year is cancelled, universities erased, places of worship no longer exist and hospitals bombed and shut down. If you ever wonder how you can erase an entire city, how you can steal a country, how you can blind a whole world, look more further than Gaza today. Some might wonder what drives this madness and destruction and if you think it's October 7 or the Hamas terror attacks or China's unslow that Israel has a right to defend itself then you haven't really been paying attention. You haven't been paying attention to the story so let me recap this tragedy for you. Let's go back to a time before Palestine was wiped off the map. Back when Palestinians lived on that land that stretched from the river to the sea. Before 1948 when the Zionist movement wanted to establish a state for the Jewish people in Palestine, they knew that they had to deal with two challenges. The first, they had to establish a Jewish majority on a land that was already populated by a vibrant existing indigenous population. And then once that majority was established, well they had to maintain it. They had to keep the numbers that way, forever. So they set out to increase the number of Jews, first by way of encouraging Jewish immigration under the protection and watchful gaze of British imperialism. Palestine was under the British bandit during that period. But even with this increased immigration there still wasn't enough of a Jewish population. Even in 1947 when the UN suggested that Palestine be partitioned, and it was just a suggestion by the way, it wasn't more than a recommendation. But even during that time, the only district in all of Palestine that had a Jewish majority was Tel Aviv. The rest of it had a predominantly non-Jewish population. So to establish that majority, they started of course the terror attacks. Jewish gangs started to terrorizing Palestinians out of their homes, out of their villages. And the end result was that between 1947 and 1948, the Zionist fenders of the sale of Israel deliberately and systematically decreased the number of Palestinians. But the point I want to make is that the use of terror tactics to force the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, it's really important to understand that this is not something that happened in the past. This is something that did not stop happening with time. And the only reason that sometimes we would pay attention, and sometimes we wouldn't out here in the Western world, depended on whether or not Israelis were being killed. For as long as Palestinians were dying a slow death every day by the tens, even by the hundreds, it wouldn't make the news. The pogos in the West Bank, for example, prior talks over seven, did not make the news. The burning of Palestinian homes, the arrests of Palestinian children. We've all seen, and rightly so have been very, very shocked by the fact that Hamas had kidnapped Palestinian children. Horrible, horrible stuff. You don't kidnap children, right? But how many of you knew that they were being exchanged for twice or three times the number of children that Israel had kidnapped? Except we're not calling it kidnap children, we're not calling it hostages. We're calling nine-year-olds prisoners. That is really at the heart of the problem. And so what we're seeing in Gaza, the point I wanted to make is that it's an extension of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. And what is really dangerous about what we're seeing is that every time Israel has launched a war on Gaza, it has gone a little bit further than the time before and got away with it. In 2014, when it started bombing high-rises in Gaza City, there were no condemnations. When the UN Secretary General at the time was crying on television about how you don't kill sleeping babies. I don't know if any of you remember that heart-wrenching video, but there was no accountability. And so Israel comes back into something even worse and worse and worse. And to think that now we've been watching for all this time, day in, day out, a genocide taking place, a city being erased, and we still can't get the government, this government in this country, to condemn these acts that are clearly, clearly war crimes. They wouldn't even sit with the human rights rapporteurs when she came here. They wouldn't even sit with her because they don't want to know, because they don't want to be accountable and they do not want to call Israel accountable. This poem is called The Song of the Visaged, and it's about trying to make Gaza unlivable. The UN said Gaza was unlivable, but life beyond livability in Gaza is inevitable, like the rainfall and the winter storms. Life inside the walls is ferocious, like dandelion, it grows, it powers through like inexorable love, like an irresistible kiss. Like the burning of new life beyond the statistics of death. Life beyond livability in Gaza is inevitable, like the sunrise. Predictable, like the movement of the tides. Invincible, like flowers in the desert. Unassailable, like a smile on the lips of the beloved. Unequivocal, like a word that splits bullets in half. Indomitable, like a revolutionary march. Unstoppable, like the Earth's rotation. Formidable, like a fist in the face of occupation. Undeniable, like destiny, like freedom from tyranny. Like justice for the refugees. So listen carefully, two million captive hearts are beating off rhythm. There is no harmony beyond livability, only the inevitable. Beware, the inevitable. Till this day, Israel has not provided any evidence for any of its claims about the hospitals, the Hamas underground tunnels, which, by the way, turns out Israel built the tunnels. You've all seen Christina Mahmour, a man of force, head exploding in that CNN interview when she was told that. But after all of this, our government is still quite silent and unable to say that it's wrong and to condemn what happened in Gaza. And so this poem is called Your Science. I am exiled into the margins of your main everything. Estranged in big theater spaces, radio talkshops, TV faces, political discourse and panels that delineate my expansive otherness. I am exiled in relentless daily press. In ignorant headlines and stereotypes that reduce me to less. In privileged, depoliticized art, blind to my right to exist. I am exiled in your list of forbidden words. Palestine. Inaccessible truths. Justice. The right to resist. BDS. The right to protest. Fake, multi-faith love vests. I am exiled in diversity, theatrics and multicultural themes that patronize my dreams of belonging here. I am exiled into a hyphen wedged between two worlds, walled in yearning for impossible return, aching for acceptance. Imprisoned within a skin I did not choose. A faith I inherited. A prayer mat and a headdress and all the familiar foreignness and fear I am exiled in your fear. Imprisoned within a sphere of rights dispossessed, brief, named collateral. A binary of moderate and fanatical narrating endless wars on terror. I am exiled in footnotes of imperial conquests and colonized academic research and theories of the West versus the East, the clashing civilizations in your everyday hate speech. I am exiled outside your hall and into invisibility and silence. I am exiled in your silence. Thank you. I'd just like to quickly hand the microphone to Shamil Badra, who is a convener of the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine. So here he is with us. Thank you so much. And I appreciate your support, the human rights in Palestine and in the world. Regarding the question of this meeting about prospects for peace, yes, many politicians and historians have focused on the reasons of the failure of the so-called peace process between the Israeli colonial state and Arab states, especially in Palestine. I argue the so-called peace process is simply a colonial strategy to strengthen the structural imperialism in the Middle East. The US sought to expand its control over the Middle East by strengthening alliance with Israel and elite leaders and the Arab regimes from the mid-1970s to 2023 under the pretext of the US efforts to attain peace in the region. I am trying to talk about that in order to understand the situation exactly in Palestine, because we can't achieve peace with occupation. No way to achieve peace with genocide. No peace can be achieved with ethnic cleansing. And for that, if we want to achieve peace, it is important to end the violation of human rights in the occupation. After that, we start to talk about peace. Even in South Africa, reconciliation has been achieved after ending the apartheid regime. So it is important to understand the situation and don't think so much why Palestine didn't accept peace. We will not accept any peace, our negative peace, without ending the occupation and achieve our political goals. This is the first one. It is important to confirm no balance between the colonial state that carrying out genocide supported by colonial states around the world and the people defending themselves. So this is the fact. And we are defending ourselves and we resist the colonialism and we have the right to resist the occupation by all means. This is important to confirm and appoint this point in order not to discuss and to think so much about the propaganda. They change all the facts. And we are alarmed that Australian government has taken such an extreme position in support of Israel. The 7th of October wasn't the starting point of the conflict. The media and Western governments ignored the rules of Israeli crimes against the Palestinians for 75 years. And I will talk about the experience of my family regarding the akba. Dear friends and comrades, the folk of war should not cover the truth of the dangerous colonial objectives regarding the elimination of Palestinians in Gaza via carrying out ethnic cleansing and forced them to leave to go to Egypt. People know, people in Gaza know about the dangerous colonial project. So the situation, yes, is bad, terrible, but it will be more terrible. Especially they are trying to push people to leave Gaza, to leave to go to the south, to Khaniyumis, after Khaniyumis, to push them to go to Rafah, after that to go to Egypt. This is ethnic cleansing. It is important. So it is important to understand why Palestinians should stay in their homes. And I will talk about my experience about that. For example, last week I watched the news that I saw the Israeli tanks were in front of my family house in Gaza. I was so worried about my family, especially since I hadn't been in contact with them for three weeks. I didn't know anything about them. Just I saw my neighbour's loot destroyed and the tanks close to my parents' house. When I succeeded to call them my parents two days ago, they told me the Israeli tanks and bulldozers destroyed the whole of the door of our house and my parents were inside while destroying the whole and they were rescued. But when I told my parents what I called them, I have good news. You have visa now to come to Australia and I was happy. But unfortunately my father told me I don't want to leave my home. I was surprised. I know he didn't want to leave. But I told him, just you can come for one month. But he told me, let me think. And he told me, in May 1948, Zenith's troops attacked the Aqir village. Aqir is a village in historical Palestine and he told the guy that the civilians, old man, he's talking about his experience when he was a child. And it's a long story, but I will summarize this story. And then they forced his family and all the people in the village to leave this village. And he told me, during we are leaving and walking, no cars, no anything. And he told me my mom was sick and she passed away and my sister passed away. And then my life became terrible. And for that, I was thinking no way after that to leave my home. Because now if I left my home and I want to go to Hanionis, I should walk at least like 10 kilometers from there. And I don't have ability. I don't have energy. And he told me no way to repeat this problem. I have two options. Or to be alive or I will die in my home. I worked for all my life to build this home. And then I leave and then some of criminals come to take this house. Why? Why? Where is the world? I don't understand. I am not convinced to leave. Now I am trying to convince him to come just for 30 days. I haven't seen him for... And my parents, I haven't seen them for 10 years. I hope I can succeed to convince to come at least one month. I hope he can accept that. Okay, this is... I am talking about this story because in the media, Israeli soldiers, they said we ask people to leave because this is war. And some people think it's easy to leave. That's not accurate. Evaluation is easy. It's terrible. If you left, you will not come back. It's so hard. And for that, people understand why they want people to leave. And I am saying here what the people are saying in Palestine. Despite the tragedy, I am one of them. The family, my people in Palestine, we thank the colonials for them to leave their homes in 1948 after carrying out massacres against civilians. Just I want to confirm we will continue to struggle again with the occupation and injustice and have done so from generation to generation. And the Zionist movement failed to defeat the spirit of Palestinian resistance and the Palestinians will continue their struggle and we will win. I am sure about that. I am confident about it. Perhaps some people think that it's not accurate what I am saying. It is accurate. Israel failed until now to achieve any goals of its aggression in Gaza. They wanted resistance to stop. They failed. They wanted people to leave Gaza to go to the south. Also, they failed. They said we are fighting against Hamas. They didn't kill anyone of Hamas. Just killing civilians. And it's a shame to kill civilians. Okay, regarding another point. Regarding the Australian position in terms of Israel has the right to defend itself. The global state loses the claim of right of defend itself while denying the Palestinian rights and continues its crime against civilians and its legal occupation. You can't attack people and then say I am defending ourselves. That's not accurate. That's not correct. And if they want to defend themselves, they should not kill 20,000 of civilians. Because they are carrying out a genocide against Palestinian people in Gaza. Israel dropped more than 25 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip since the start of aggression against Palestinians. The destructive power of explosives dropped on Gaza exceeds that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and which is a shame. And still we find the international community is still silent. And there is a minister in Israeli government said dropping nuclear bomb on Gaza is an option. That means the government discussed this option. So it's genocide. And when the media trying to say all the time and you see what the media is terrible and a pressure on journalists and they wanted stories according to the propaganda and they wanted to justify the Israeli crimes and I think we should focus and we should target and we should pressure this media at least to be like neutral, not biased and just show and cover the truth. Not just repeat what Israel is saying, what Israel is claiming. And by the way we had protest against ABC last week. It was good and we will continue. Yes, we said about Israel killed 20,000, 70% of civilians. Another important point. Palestinian people in Gaza are not only resisting the Israeli occupation but also colonial power around the world for that we should take action and boycott the Israeli colonial state and businesses that are complicit with its apartheid regime. So it's important to think how to activate BDS and start to boycott all the businesses that support Israel. And I want to confirm again, under the international law the Palestinians have the right to use resistance against and occupying power, occupying power. This according to United Nations resolutions especially the resolutions 3, 2, 4, 6 which is about the legitimate right of civil determination this was confirmed in 1974 the legitimacy of people struggling for liberation from colonial powers. Because all the time people trying to describe resistance as a terrorist action and we don't accept anyone to accuse our resistance as we are defending ourselves, this is the truth. And by the way, perhaps some people asking okay, you are talking about international law yes, we respect international law we should resist according to international law we should avoid civilians, I confirm that but when the violence like that from 75 years do you think people will think in a wise way? This is a problem, people, violence will create another violence so this is in a realistic way perhaps you could ask me, you accepted, no, I don't accept that but how to break the circle of violence by ending the occupation and Palestinians should take their rights this is the only solution and Israel should not think that Palestinians will be accepting to use power and then we will say give up we will not continue to struggle occupation no way, Palestinians are struggling from generation to generation to generation and they said Hamas is the main reason of the conflict now in 1948, there is no Hamas there were civilians just coming and they expelled Palestinians I want to, because, okay, okay I will end, so finally I want to confirm Israel doesn't defend itself Israel is carrying out genocide against Palestinian people and the civilians in Gaza they are Israeli colonial settlers not citizens or civilians don't say they have, they are just wearing like civilian clothes in West Bank and they are soldiers and criminals it's settler colonialism in Gaza and Palestine not dispute it's Palestine not Palestinian territories resistance is not terrorism Palestinians are freedom fighters thank you okay, thank you very much Shamik particularly for your identification with your parents who are, I remember in a picnic on the Gaza Strip tried to persuade me to go for a swim and then your mother with enormous generosity complained if you remember that I didn't eat enough that was part of the generosity I tell you what I want to do I'm supposed to be talking only about the prospects of peace I think it would be completely arrogant of me to say, to come to some sort of specific plan I want to talk about essentially about a way of thinking about a peace with justice a way of thinking for all of us a way of thinking that really has to infect the people in Canberra and in other state capitals here and around the globe and I want to think about it in terms of a composition which you are all part of imagine we had the task of composing a symphony for peace that goes through several movements and I've got to talk about those movements we have to start with what I would call an overture and we need to have a theory can you hear me back, is that okay? we need to have a theory about peace what intervention there's nothing so practical as a good theory we have to borrow from the peace theorists who exist because the peace theorists identify the causes of the cruelty that Samar and Shemek have just identified starting off with the famous Norwegian mathematician the greatest peace theorist Johann Gullton talked about structural violence which applies very directly to the situation of the Palestinian people for 75 years structural violence for those reference to those structures they denied lifetime opportunities for half of the people of a population of a country so that's a particular relevance if you look at the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that promised a whole land for the Jews but not to the expense of the indigenous people of Palestine and then as my wonderful friend Peters reminded me almost immediately the British Balfour and Co published correspondence saying they didn't care at all about the 700,000 Arabs they called them at that time so going into peace negotiations without the idea of rectifying the massive inequalities determined by structural violence would be like going on to a stage without knowing your script the second theorist is actually to arrive from a wonderful but often easily forgotten Australian a man called John Burton there was a diplomat a practitioner of conflict resolution a prolific author of books about how to resolve national and international conflicts his essential theory applied to peace was about the need to meet people's universal human needs what he showed was that if there was a misfit between universal human needs and the means of meeting them then that was a guarantee of violence for people, anybody would go to enormous lengths to meet those needs by hunger strikes, by suicide bombing and so on and if you think of the way in which forbidding water, food, fuel, medical supplies to go to the people of Gaza you'll see the relevance of his theory about the need to meet universal human needs the third theorist I want to refer to is the Israeli-American anthropologist Jeff Harper who talks about the inclusiveness please remind everybody about the inclusiveness of universal human rights without that you are lost so those are the theories that's the language you need to arm yourself before you move to what I would call the second movement now in symphonies usually you get somewhat dual, second movements a kind of rumble, what a double base lot of timpani and the first, that movement for me it's about this recitation of the great panacea that everybody's been told about everybody's an authority on it it's called the state the state, every day one state, two states dominion of states, any old state nobody raises the question who is to be included in that state and who is to be excluded because would you be including the right of return of all refugees would you be ensuring that women under resolution 1325 of the United Nations are the major leaders in the construction of a new state and who in this state will be representing the thousands and thousands of traumatized children in the Gaza Strip so in a way in these negotiations, in this movement the only state that exists is called humanity the issue for the next six months at least, minimum, is the state of humanity and on those grounds you would have to argue and from my point of view under a principle called the responsibility to protect which if the young Australian government discovered a slight bit of courage could be insist they could insist on the construction of a peace force to go almost immediately to the West Bank to start the slaughter that's going on that's the first, if you say that the state the only state that matters is the state of humanity you'd have to say that the priority in the next few weeks is to send the peace force to the West Bank okay, that's the that's the next movement the next movement is called the inequality of power if you don't address the inequality of power even if you intervene in disputes of domestic violence which are directly analogous to what's going on in Gaza it's a million times worse Israel has been allowed by the connivance of Western governments to have all the military power, the economic power the diplomatic power they've also been allowed to dominate the narrative the kind of story that Somar just called is not allowed to be heard that Shalik has just told so the domination of the narrative by our Western media that's a cue for my colleague Jake to pop up and down in a minute the notion that you can see it in a way and I'm not taking any risk here by the advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald today you think that the only issue is about anti-Semitism what about anti-Palestinianism what about the fascists in the government of Netanyahu who are who are asking for the Palestinian for the people of Gaza to be eliminated it would be some of those ministers have said it would be a moral duty now if anybody said that slightly about any one Jewish citizen there would be help about so the dealing with the imbalance of power is crucial I want to talk a little bit here about what my colleagues and friends Richard Faulk and Sari Matisse called soft power Faulk who was the for years was the the special raconteur for the occupied territories under the authority of the United Nations says don't hesitate to pick up the telephone don't forget the power of dialogue don't forget the power of informality don't eliminate those ideas from your political thought I'm just reminding myself I'm trying to talk about a way of thinking about this not all the eyes and the tees the eyes dotted in the tees across to that of a plan Mac DC says that the Palestinians often underestimate the amount of power they could generate and in that respect if you look at the millions around the world demonstrating to free Palestine you'd have to wonder how can that be harnessed subsequently it would be a terrible shame if we heard no more from those protesters once the so-called war ends so that soft power is crucial and soft power in a way was expressed in Samar's beautiful poetry Mac DC argues look don't be preoccupied with the negotiation in the conference room in the battlefield don't forget the power of the ideals and ideas of curiosity and imagination and he refers as I often do to the national poet of Palestine who wrote that we travel like other people that we return to nowhere our traveling is the way of the clouds we have a country of words speak, speak so we may know the end of this travel so that brings me to the last but one movement in this composition and it's about who are the players in this orchestra who is going to be allowed to speak because if we only invite the same old men the same old diplomats and politicians who've caused all the problems for the past 75 years and the international relations boys they're mostly boys call it real politic they think that it used to be called forget now some sort of very positive conservative theory about the nation state if they're invited the people whose format for living has failed because it has given the Israelis a blank check to do what they'd like then they will get nowhere I just want to mention some of the people who should be invited to play in the orchestra in all sorts of worlds if you have a huge diversity of people you multiply the number of the imagination and the number of ideas, the number of opportunities why wouldn't we include the grass roots Israeli women called women wage peace it matches the resolution 1325 and the equivalent Palestinian women called women of the sun a grass roots group or the Jewish Palestinian group called living together, working together who incidentally are concerned not only about peace and justice and equality but about justice for a precious environment they argue and look at the amazing damage not only to the complete destruction of the cities in Gaza but what we've done look at what has happened to the environment so you have to enclose those people in the deliberations about peace now as with any symphony you need to have a crescendo at the end that makes people go away feeling happy or at least slightly optimistic in this case and for me that's what we have to move towards is what I would call some crescendo for humanity we have to talk about that constantly otherwise all we're talking about is how many tanks how many guns, how many people have been killed it's always this fascination with violence dominates the agenda and thinking so here's the crescendo for humanity and some of it's already been mentioned in a way it has to do with the interpretation of words because the Israelis are totally preoccupied with revenge it's all about revenge and we have to replace revenge with the notion of justice the wonderful German playwright and poet Berthold Braxton said try to teach us justice is the bread of the people just as daily bread is necessary so is daily justice and then he said it is even necessary several times a day why aren't we hearing that in Canberra instead of ducking behind their sofas to avoid voting for a ceasefire when 139 when 139 nations are voted for to support the state of Palestine why are we still ducking for cover last two points in the crescendo for humanity in a way we don't have to invent anything we just have to say please we have to play by the rules of international law international law says you can't attack hospitals it says you can't murder children you can't deny them the means of a livelihood so adherence to international law is crucial the third final point this is the final drum roll which I play with a tuba I think would be about the phrase that Samayus that this phrase when we go on the marches people say people are chanting from the river to the sea Palestine will be free the media and the Israeli lobby immediately says that's a statement about the elimination of Israel my colleague Gershon Baskin who is quite a conservative columnist for the Jerusalem Post writes no from the river to the sea from the same right to the same rights so you can see how the community turned around and what I want to say is I'm a member of the media alliance and I signed on a letter two days ago maybe three journalists asking that the editorial management of their publications be more rigorous in the coverage of this conflict for instance don't accept the IDF your statements as fact you must fact check them before you use them and don't say it started on October 7 tell the real context so the management of age and Sydney morning herald banned all the journalists who signed from reporting on this conflict so we supported resistors here and we have to build on it and the second one was just in the paper this morning and the second one was at the seagull came out and the management of the Sydney Peter company is treating this as a human resources issue that's code for we're going to sack them so I don't know how that's going to play out but it's really fantastic that people are standing up and expressing themselves for the human values we hear about tonight so questions I don't know how to go with a big crowd here and moving the microphone around we've only got this microphone so I'm going to give the first question to Jake Lynch and Steven Langford wherever he is he's going to carry the microphone around if it gets too difficult we'll ask people to queue up okay thank you Peter so my question is this there is not a single federal electorate where Labour either holds the seat or depends on the seat for its majority in the House of Representatives or is a credible contender to take the seat where the votes of pro-Israel supporters would swing the contest either way all those votes are now concentrated in areas such as the eastern suburbs and the north shore which are either safe liberal constituencies or contested with the teams on the other hand there is at least one seat in greater Sydney that of Watson just at the west of here and probably several others too where Labour depends on the votes of Palestinians people of Palestinian heritage people from Arabic communities and communities of colour isn't it time did you see what I did there to say to the Australian Labour Party you can either have your support for Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity seats and keep the majority in the House of Representatives but not both if you would like any comments on this okay the next one is from John Frey of course I'm John Frey and I appreciate the pollution and zero grease and I'll follow up for that because I believe that Gaza has enormous economic opportunities that not many people are aware of they have access to the biathlon the biathlon mineral gas fields which can easily eliminate poverty there have been plans to build a canal parallel to the Suez which will perform even better in the Suez and there are plans of an India Middle East European economic corridor where everyone including the West Bank will benefit with proper infrastructure and proper fiscal and monetary policies and so I would say this that if you were to pursue a peace plan there has to be money behind it and I'd say the opportunities that I mentioned will be more than enough for everyone Palestinians and Israelis to share and I think this should be put on the table this should be there should be an account there should be citizens in which the benefits of such plans will be shared just between the people of the holy land thank you Ali look I don't just agree with you except that one of the big conundrums in every piece of foreign policy is where trade pitches itself against human rights and usually the advocates of trade and the economic benefits ride roughshod over the respect for human rights so there's got to be massive intervention from western governments have got to stop their hypocrisy and to let alone support the economic development of a new rebuilding Gaza but must insist on university rights also I think we have to really not disappear the agency and the voice of the Palestinians in this whole story when we're talking about the sharing of the land for example this is something I strongly believe and I believe one state solution from the river to the sea but currently what's happening is the separation of Gaza as a single entity almost like a country that being being warred on by Israel and to talk about sharing the resources in Gaza with who the occupier who sucked its water dry for decades who starved its children with electricity I think it's a great idea for the long term discussions for sure but before we get there we need first of all to end the apartheid to end the system that gives full privilege to people just because they're Jewish on that land and strips the basic human rights from non-Jews so we have to collapse that system we have to end the occupation and then we have to come to some kind of a reconciliation process and it's through that process that we can talk about the sharing of the land and the moving forward and that brings me to something that Stuart said before we took the break when he was talking about the wonderful cars for peace building and then you were mentioning having all these groups being part of the process the Jewish Palestinian peace groups and my question here it's just a question because we're really far from that point but I'd like to think that I'm putting this question that we need to think about it it's again it's about Palestinian agency the Jews are not currently in Palestine struggling for their liberation and their rights it's the Palestinians who are in the struggle for rights and liberation and the Jewish people who are walking with them are walking in solidarity and I think it's important to have that central to our minds when we when we try to imagine that's something that Jeff Halper doesn't do and I think he's an incredible personality and he's done great work but sometimes you can have a blind spot and that blind spot is just that you've got to let the Palestinians take the lead in the liberation movement you're not the one who's being liberated although you will be liberated through that process yourself I think oppressor and oppress become liberated at the end of this process but to be absolutely mindful of that Hi, I'm William Porjot I'd like to take the opportunity to welcome in Ludovico Fabiano here tonight now Ludovico with his colleague Dominic Weichenach bravely stood up bravely stood up for the right for principle for humanity against a very vicious campaign and still you've had almost all your role stripped from you both of you and we're sorry for that but we applaud your courage and integrity My name is Padid, I'm from Palestine Action Group who are doing the rallies every weekend in Sydney and thank you very much for I want to say something when Palestine just needs human rights, do you think Palestinians are just like poor people looking for food and water and fuel I can't tell you now Palestinian people built all the Middle East all the Gulf area was built by Palestinians, we are educated we are rich people we need political solution we need to get our political solution and this is a human part to get our political solution is a human right and we can do this by negotiation if not we have the right to resist against occupation even if it's arbitrary and all our Jewish community supporting us in this because this government and Israel and this Zionist movement are extremely against the Palestinian and the Jewish for peace Thank you very much or to comment about what Khalid said when Israel and started to cut off electricity and medicine and food and water the question why they wanted to start negotiation with Palestinians on food and also they wanted to make Gaza unliveable and people trying to push people to leave Gaza so when we see the situation in the media how they enter the food medicine the situation is terrible because Palestinians are not struggling for good food and medicine we are struggling to end occupation so this is what I am trying to say that that food and medicine are important for human rights so this is the responsibility about the international community to provide food, medicine and should prevent Israel to cut this food and to cut electricity and also communication and internet ambulances can't go to rescue people because there is no internet no communication and this is important because it is not humanitarian it is political but the situation is terrible in Gaza and I agree about Khaled this is what we are seeing is not the only demands of Palestinians we want to end this genocide and stop this aggression against Palestinians and we want as Palestinians to have the right to resist occupation and self-determination and we should not accept anyone the solution by saying we want international forces to come we want Palestinians who decide not anyone can decide not America, not Britain we have the right to decide about our fate this is what I am saying and I am confirming yes we want to end the occupation we want to end the genocide we want to stop colonial objectives against Palestinians we want to protect the human rights this is our arguments, thank you I am Joel Loria, the editor I am from New York city and I just heard that it is I disagree with what you said you said it is not up to America not to Britain not up to America I am here to say it is up to America my country absolutely it is the only way this genocide in the United States Biden has enough no more money, no more weapons tomorrow it ends what is the only way Biden would say that what is the only way the US Congress would cut off those funds at 14 billion dollars is if they realize they have a political cost Biden has an election next year Congress knows that without the support of the American people without the American people he cannot continue this and guess what, to their credit America people aren't as dumb and as out of touch as a lot of people think, including me they have been marching and demonstrating in the streets every weekend like everywhere else in the world and a group of Jews, American Jews took over Grand Central Station in New York you don't think Joe Biden, Tony Blinken see this guess who else sees this so Netanyahu who grew up who went to high school in Philadelphia who went to university in Massachusetts who is the Israeli ambassador to the UN and lived in New York who speaks English with an American accent unlike Mark Regev who speaks with a Melbourne accent he's American he is an American he understands the American mentality that's why this four day pause happened to coincide with the holiday in the United States called Thanksgiving which is the most important holiday, you think that's a coincidence of course you don't understand that outside the US but Netanyahu understands the American psychology American culture he knows how important that holiday is it's a holiday in which American people visit their families and usually argue over politics and watch the news critically, they've stopped working for a few days and begin to relax and think this was the time for Netanyahu to tell the Americans come on your side and guess what he put out a video about Thanksgiving a message to the American people this is very cynical he knows without the American people this war is lost for Israel and the only force in the world to stop it is the American people thank you I just want to make a comment about how the people of Australia should respond and I want to use and respond to that excellent contribution from the floor from New York by talking by talking quickly about the brave conduct of school children who left their classrooms to rep to say no to the occupation, no to genocide free Palestine and the establishment interest of Australia said no, you should be back in your classrooms you should be ignoring ignoring the genocide you should not be learning about human rights so you have this complete mismatch between elderly official opinion which has gone on for 75 years you had it writ large in the response to the kids who came out to protest who said we know something about the future the young people knew something about the future we ain't going to put up with this anymore and what did the politicians say get back to your classroom it's nothing to do with you that's the mismatch that we have to address we have to tell the politicians and the public and the people who run the media that the mass murder the genocide of over 13,000 people is what the issue is about the mass murder of the crescendo after the 75 years of other slaughter Yes, my name is Fabio Bordini just a question a clarification I'm finding it strange that we're talking about a ceasefire and is this a ceasefire only for the Gaza or is it a ceasefire for the rest of the country because the war is still going on they're still killing people in the West Bank but that is something that is not very clear or a missed point but the media doesn't talk about this thing we're talking about all these people being freed we're freeing people they're resting more it doesn't make sense Could you give your opinion on Qatar's role in this process? I've met with the Hamas leadership on a couple of occasions both of them in Qatar in Doha they've been patrons of Hamas they are clearly incredibly significant in the conversations with Hamas I mean, Mahatma Gandhi tried to teach all of us that it's easy to have a conversation with your friends the real test is whether you have a conversation with your enemies but in the wisdom of the Western governments you're a terrorist you're going to speak to them you committed an offence for speaking to them in other words, we believe in democracy but we only talk to certain people so I don't know have I missed a point? Yeah, it's about the Qatar's role Look, the Qatar's facilitated the conversation you'd have to say so far the protection of the hostages has been somewhat impressive in a small piece of land that has been bombed into oblivion they're still managing to keep the deal because basically we've said they're terrorists they're the only terrorists in the last 75 years so Qatar has given them a kind of legitimacy by saying yes, they're here, we trust them they keep their word and frequently if you look at the previous ceasefires in 2008-9 2012-13 where the deals were not kept by the Israelis you'd have the question about who keeps their word but the Qatar's are significant My name is Tony Leonard I actually train rebels and terrorists as well as vice presidents as well as generals to put themselves in the shoes of others to see things from other people's perspective so they can actually end the wars and we've had some pretty amazing success with that so when I look at the situation with Israel and Palestine it does appear that there's a lot more support now for Palestine than in the past that social media etc is giving the chance to bypass the mainstream media and the sort of oppression that has been talked about so first of all I'd be interested in how much that has increased in your mind and then the second thing is is there a way maybe that we can somehow shift the conversation so it's not so much pro-Palestine which is terrific and wonderful but it sounds too many Jewish people if you say I'm pro-England's footy that you're saying you're against Aussie, the Aussie team the Wallabies so is there a way that we can kind of make it more a peace march a peace protest such that the politicians feel a bit safer to really support it such that more Jewish people come up to support it and such that maybe the Jewish people themselves who alongside Palestinians are highly traumatized and are operating from a place of reaction from the amygdala such that they might maybe see it as oh we have partners rather than increasing opposition I just want to first answer to the Qatar question the Qatar comment which I just want to say that Qatar also plays a major role in the information about this war because it funds and maintains and hasn't shut down yet Al Jazeera and if it wasn't if it wasn't for Al Jazeera we wouldn't know how as much if not even less as we do now and I know that in those dark days when we completely lost contact with our family it was Al Jazeera reporters on the ground that were telling us where the bombing was blow by blow in which street and which families and so that wall is heroic and is impressive and I just wanted to point to it because whenever we speak about Qatar that's the first thing that comes to my mind I know how much pressure there's been under to shut it down as for the pro-Palestine pro-Israel, pro-peace pro-justice I think it's all fine and it's an interesting theory and an interesting way to look at things but I am 75 years of erasure I tend to kind of feel bad when somebody says when somebody tries to raise the word Palestine the fact is Palestine is being erased and we as Palestinians are constantly have to fight for our Palestinian identity and it's something that a lot of people may not understand but it's a difficult daily struggle even when we do simple things I will play right and I wrote a play about my family's experience during Qaslet in Gaza and it was a love story with the happenings in the background it was not political at all, maybe some of you here have seen that play but the fact that I wrote a play about a Palestinian love story meant that I had to put up leading up to opening night literally to have the play removed from the VCE playlist to have the play shut down to be called anti-Semitic and then to be told exactly what I just heard although I know you didn't mean that why not write about something that represents both sides it's not my job, I'm sorry I don't need to include a Jewish voice in my play about a Palestinian love story and when I'm being erased and there are people marching in the streets saying free Palestine that's actually called solidarity and it is a really important thing and I would hate to see that go away or being obscured by anything else we can do the peace thing and we've done it for a very long time but we cannot stop calling this for what it is it is a solidarity with the Palestinian people's struggle for liberation that's what this movement is about my response is I want to make a healthcare analogy if I am suspicious of a cancer and I go to a cancer specialist and he said well that's the secondary there I need to know where the primary site is and the primary site of the cancer in international relations has been the failure to solve to address justice for the Palestinian people and to exercise massive conflict around the world for years and years and years that apart from anything else is another reason why that has to stay the issue I mean when people like Peter and myself used to write about justice for the Palestinians we'd be taught why are you selecting Israel why are you being punitive or critical with Israel I used to say well yeah but we're writing we're in Sri Lanka as well as Papua as well dealing with that those people being taken over there we're in Myanmar as well but we shouldn't have to do that the issue is about universal human rights the issue is about justice for the Palestinians one last comment there's one big leveler in all of this that's going to have to be introduced in these negotiations it's the violence associated with climate change it's not about to grow Palestinians it's important to say international law should be respected this is the main issue here we should not just talk about and to find or to think about excuse of genocide or ethnic cleansing of occupation we should stop thinking in this way we should say occupation should be ended genocide should be stopped if they wanted to live in Palestine they should integrate with Palestinians the problem is that about Jewish or about anything like that from the beginning they didn't accept it they didn't accept to integrate with Palestinians this colonial project established to replace Palestinians so we should understand the context so integration is big different from coming and invade and like expel Palestinians so if we want to achieve peace we should live together in a democratic state this is important and by the way PLO in 1969 they accepted one state solution unfortunately the war didn't support and the pressure PLO until we now in this situation about Palestinian authority even two states they refused they didn't want to achieve peace they are not coming to achieve peace and also regarding Qatar for me personally I don't trust any Arab regimes I don't ask them they are a part of colonialism in the Middle East everyone has a rule and task all of them if Qatar is good with Palestinians I am sure they will not support Qatar or cooperate with Qatar directly I am not sure what is the rule of Qatar sometimes is good I feel but sometimes I am suspicious so I am not sure because according to the colonialism they wanted to make alliance with the elite leaders everywhere they have a strong relation with Saudi Arabia and at the same time they said we don't support a dictatorial regime we support democracy and they support they support when they were bombing Yemen they support Israel when they are bombing which was peaceful so the idea is the structure of colonialism it's not Israel there is no religion for this colonialism this colonialism was formed by alliance with Israeli leaders, Americans and colonial powers around the world and Arab regimes so this is a situation so we are not talking about conflict between Jewish and Muslims not to do this is fake we should understand this context thank you George, I too signed a petition for many delays the details were signed we talked about the last few weeks and all the violence and distress that we see on TV I guess I want to know from my Palestinian friends I stumbled across a clip on YouTube the other day from I think his name is Ghassan Kanafani he's a liberator and he made a point he'd never seen a conversation between a colonial I'm getting there a colonialist power and liberation movement and as you said he likened it to the sword in the neck we've seen this conflict on the 75 years 75 years of oppression of Palestinian people how do we move past that to get peace Palestinian sovereignty and is it as simple as removing Netanyahu and Hamas from the picture thank you that's my easiest place let me solve that one for you I think your name was George when he spoke about the US and the importance of that role that the Biden administration and other US administrations have played before in helping up the Israeli military system I think there is there's a lot of power there and I don't think any form of direct resistance on the ground is going to do anything I do believe that change is going to come from the outside I do believe that people power is going to increase and that the movement for Palestinian human rights will continue to grow and I do believe that this will translate to political capital and then we will see countries one after the other holding as well to account we're already seeing a lot of legal cases being put out against governments everywhere we also talking about the legal cases in the US holding leaders to account for supporting war crimes and genocide we know that there are cases happening in this country and I think it will take time but all these grassroots movements and this massive people power that we're seeing on the streets it will translate to political capital and that day will come I would like to remind you when Yasser Arafat is the president of PLO accepted the peaceful solution and he accepted 22% of the size of the historical of Palestine after that the Israeli extremist groups killed it's Haqrabin the former Israeli Prime Minister and they killed Yasser Arafat the idea we're talking about structure it's not about people like Netanyahu groups we're talking about the structure of colonialism this structure should be ended this is the idea not continue colonialism of Palestine we want to achieve democratic state as what happened in South Africa when the apartheid regime was ended everything became okay and there was a situation this is the most important point and we should focus about how to end the structure of imperialism central I like the point about the political capital and I want to pick up on that but it seems to me in Australia we've just experienced the referendum and probably a lot of us were shocked by that outcome and at the same time then we're dealing with an Australian public who often are prepared to accept anything they're told about Palestine and watch the news through what the Israeli government is saying so my question to the three of you is what hope to educate the Australian population about this because if your result is me you got taught Australia was an empty land and you had to relearn your history after you went to school and I think many people have the wrong impression about Palestine and they need to relearn that history and they're not in school long term we might make sure our education curriculums deal with a more balanced view but what do we do with the people who have left school who go we need to put pressure we need to understand we need to relearn and so my question to the three of you where do we go with the Australian public because this cause will always be led by Palestinians but if we're going to change the way Australia reacts we need to educate and understand I don't think there's any chance with people of my age group I think they are because in this age group of course all the problem the best thing we ever did when we created the Sydney Peace Foundation 25 years ago was to make alliances with high schools in particular a high school in the western suburbs a high school that had about 1,200 kids denominations, ethnic groups many of whom were graduates of Dillwood after we because with part of our greeting to welcome to Australia we stuck them in the detention centre so it's that generation it's those young people and their hopes for the future the sort of kids who are demonstrating in the streets they'll prove to us the big danger at the moment at least the mostly old men who I have coffee with 6.30 in the morning they say look I can't stand this anymore I can't face it anymore and the real dilemma for me is whether or not to get an electric car and that so you have to overcome the overcome the fatalism that you can't do anything so my hope is with that younger generation that at least one of those are here tonight that's so optimistic so I'm a mother of a Gen Z and two millennials so I think I can speak with some authority on young people and educating them look things are different for the new generation for sure they're getting their information not from mainstream anymore you know I I look at newspapers that have the articles behind the hay wall that just basically means for 50 plus year olds anybody who's under that age group is not going to be able to for that article so how do we educate them I think we need to parent and parent as well as we can we need to because at the end of the day they're not getting their education from the old ways they were like textbooks no they're on social media and we need to know how they can think critically on social media with their Israeli army videos with the curtain saying that's where they shoot the videos for the hostages so yeah I'm rambling but there's no one who thinks for it that we just have to educate look I think response to Sandra I think she's much too pessimistic now in polls that have been taken the general populace in Australia has favoured Palestine over Israel the issue is to activate that I think what we're seeing in the streets now there's so much activism the school kids on strike of Palestine I mean that is extraordinary everywhere all over the place you know like people putting their cafes on it, ceremonies and so on there's a huge change going on and I think we've got to really surf that wave really hope Peter and Duncan continues to tell kids in schools not to be broadcasting the wrong way out it might go out of the process okay be patient we've got two more only I'm going to stop the questions then and really congratulate everybody for sticking with it it's been a really wonderful discussion tonight already so let's just keep going oh hi my name is Maggie I just wanted to ask you about the from the river to the sea Palestine will be free whenever I've heard that I've always assumed it to be free of occupation but I have heard this lecture by an American woman and her main point is that make no mistake when they say from the river to the sea Palestine will be free they mean free of Jews so thank you very quickly in under a minute I will explain this one from the river to the sea is a chant that originated in the end of the 1960s when the Palestine declaration organization was formed at the time in the PLO charter was the vision of what we see our future Palestinian state would look like and that vision was one secular democratic state for all three religions Jews, Muslims and Christians can live in peace and in equality I grew up with that I could recite it my father would have me recited that's the kind of discourse that we grew up with that chant disappeared because we have to now shift from believing that we can share the land with Muslims, Christians and Jews the one state from the river to the sea and that we had to contend with the 1967 border which is a small portion of historic Palestine so that chant disappeared and we started chanting and the occupation now you would not hear from the river to the sea for almost 20 years during the whole Oslo thing the chant came back I think around the beginning of the siege of Gaza and it came back because people started to believe that there is no two states Israel made that impossible and that the only thing left for us to believe in now is again secular democratic state for all three religions, for Jews Muslims and Christians can live together in peace and in equality check it out, look it up it is in the PLO's original charter from the 1960s my name is Malfa Harami I'm in Israel Quarta I'm about to take the map of the peace journalists being targeted lately very badly and then give like over 60 journalists with beds and have time so some of us here even of Saudi Arabia as well they don't want us to publish the truth the way it is it has to be always somehow manipulate how can we get protected other than send a complaint to the MEW for example myself I'm missing my job lately for this how can we protect it to save my spot well you know in your case when I tried to protest on your behalf that was one thing the other key issue is that the most seen word that's used by journalists by the people who run newspapers it's called balance they always want balance there is no balance there is massive inequality and massive injustice so the most seen word to use about the Palestinian Israeli colonization is balance and you've suffered from that by saying by courageously saying there's no balance I want to talk about imbalance that's why you were penalized you know I'm happy to jump up a balance and make a noise on your behalf but that's only many of us weren't immediately through Richard Carvales and the ABC after the appalling behavior on the Q&A program when our friend Nasser Mashni was basically prosecuted and Francesca Albanese the United Nations representative was seriously ignored and there was a massive groveling to the only Israeli representative that's what happened so we have to be outraged if you don't express outrage at injustice you lose touch with your own humanity that refers to all of us I think this is not a personal problem this is our duty to pressure the media to give good media coverage according to peace journalism gives the voices for victims for the people, for the children they should not execute crimes they should not execute the genocide they should not pressure journalists they are human beings they wanted to show how the people are suffering we should start campaigning to pressure the media to accept to exchange the facts and I think still we have weaknesses about targeting or pressuring the media I think it is important to think how to support Palestine by pressuring the media and for me I will start to think and I will work and I will continue media should not be biased in this way the journalists should be human beings the journalists should support the human rights we are talking we are pro-human rights before to be supporting Palestine excuse me you are going to finish it because you stay fast soon have you finished yet? are you busy? I stopped I stopped because the war of Gaza I said this I stopped because there are problems I said we were finishing here there is one more person who wants to ask a question is that okay? yes I'm going to do it I'm Michael Patrick my question relates to the presence of a hypothetical presence of the Israeli security emperors in the western countries maybe even Australia during the government of Jordan it was a Israeli agent of Mossad removed from this country at that time a friend of mine was undergoing quite a bit of surveillance by that particular fellow now I know that because this photo was on the front page of the Australian and I witnessed the harassment my friend was getting first hand my friend did a lot of activities like for instance taking a major talk back radio station in Sydney around about the time of that event that Jordan Gillett government spelling that particular Israeli agent from Australia he took my friend took the radio station I think it was to the administrative services tribunal on the grounds that they had tried to establish during one late night talk back program that various Muslim groups in Australia were involved in activities like hiding arms beneath the floorboards of mosques because the radio station turned up with a very supportive council he didn't have the funds to have his own council but my question is to your knowledge is that organization the Mossad or some other Israeli security organization established in Australia today I mean I don't know for sure but I'm certainly ASO and ASSIST would be in regular communication with them because they all think the same way and they've signed agreements they've signed those same agreements about the agreements that we have with them without us but underpinning this there's another big issue and in a way we all use the word structure academic word is the fascination with the arms industry that's what the Australia's collusion with the arms industry I mean people are only being wiped out because of the manufacture of missiles and bombs and tags and so on it's this fascination with violence as the way to go and our signing up to Alka's agreement because we desperately need to feel secure and I mean that's it's that completely destructive way of thinking that is also underpinning the spying apparatus I think that's good you know he's right we're here it's all right so do you think that politics is no no maybe but these agencies are in Australia and being Australian intelligences and talks to the US so I'd like to say please give a big round of applause to our panel someone has asked to perform one more poem for us and I think that'd be really really good we've got a lot of healing to do we've got a lot of energy to mobilise for the struggle so I wrote this a while back here in Sydney when we were doing the Meritville Council Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions action and there was a lady here, a Jewish lady here who was just petrified with the idea of equality and she just kept saying how and this poem came back to my mind recently because of all the talk about the two-state solution equality, how does it look like what is the day after look like and I think it's important for us to imagine what it looks like and I call this poem the Liberation Anthem it is dedicated to the people of Israel who fear our freedom don't be afraid we will liberate you too this is my rendition of an anthem to be sung that day you and I will stand side by side shoulder to shoulder watching a new dawn wipe away decades of hate and savagery the day that I rise from the ashes of your oppression I promise you I will not rise alone you too will rise with me you will be liberated from your tyranny and my freedom will bring you salvation this is my rendition of an anthem to be sung I'll craft new expressions outside of this suffocating language that has occupied me your words are like your walls they encroach on my humanity I am more than demography I am neither your collaborator nor your enemy I am not your moderate not your terrorist not your fundamentalist Islamist militant, radical I am more than adjectives, letters and syllables I will construct my own language I will defeat your words of power with the power of my words this is my rendition of an anthem to be sung I don't want to obliterate you I refuse to hate you don't care to demonize or theorize your intentions every breath you draw reminds me you are human the sound of your beating heart is rhythm familiar to my ears you and I are no different we are made of blood and tears this is my rendition of an anthem to be sung I will resist and soar above your matrix in 12 and with the strength of my will your walls will fall and this concrete that segregates us we can use it to rebuild homes your bulldozers and your tents will dissolve into the earth the sap will run in the olive trees the gates will open wide for the refugees we will be free we will be free and I will be your equal and only then you will be mine my other self my fellow human being thank you thank you