 From the conversation, this is Don't Call Me Resilient. I'm Vanita Srivastava. This is not about narrative. This is about historical facts. And the other issue is whenever we say, oh, this is too complicated, this is too intractable. No it isn't. It is not more complex than any other settling colonial situation around the world. And somehow when it comes to Israel-Palestine, people are unable to speak about it or unable to get their facts right. And when they do get their facts right, they get silenced. Maybe you're like me. I can't stop watching the news coming out of the Middle East. I can't stop looking at the feed on my phone. And at the same time, it's so excruciating to take it all in. Next came the horrific October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel. 1,400 people were viciously attacked and murdered. And at least 200 more were kidnapped and taken hostage. Then came the retaliation by the State of Israel. Almost immediately, those living in Gaza under the leadership of Hamas were faced with an evacuation order for more than a million people. They had their food and water supplies cut off. And 6,000 bombs were dropped on them in one week. So far, more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli's assault against Hamas. Many of us have been left with a feeling of helplessness as we watch in horror. And for others, this witnessing has brought personal anguish, especially for those with ties to the region. For all of us, though, it's raised intense challenges about how to talk about what is currently happening. There is so much polarization. There are those that feel their pain, loss, and histories as Jewish people have been diminished. On the other hand, those attempting to apply an anti-colonial lens to the issue are being shut down and labeled as anti-Semitic. Our two guests today both say that our institutions need to make room for true dialogue, where decolonization is not a bad word. They say contextual, historical analysis is crucial to moving forward, both at home and abroad. Natalie Rothman is a professor of history at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. She grew up in Israel. She has friends and relatives in the region, including family members who have been taken hostage by Hamas. Norma Wentisi is a professor of geography and urban planning at Concordia University. She has done work in the region and has family in the West Bank. She is a member of both the Academics for Palestine Concordia and the Palestinian Canadian Academics and Artist Network. Right now, as people residing in Canada, we have witnessed horrific and excruciating pain and loss of life in the Middle East. We're also witnessing some extreme polarization, much of it on social media, but some of it in our own neighborhoods and families. You're both scholars, obviously, you're here today to speak about this issue. But before we get started, I wanted to check in with you on a personal level and just ask you both, how are you feeling as these conversations are going by? Can I start with you, Natalie? I think it's fair to say I'm feeling immense grief. The sites we're seeing from Israel-Palestine are horrific. The loss of life, the loss of civilian life is devastating. And at the same time, as I experience grief, I'm also very mindful of the ways in which this grief is constantly being weaponized. And the ways in which the polarization means that it's becoming either or. And from my perspective, you can be for policy and liberation and at the same time denounce the killing or the kidnapping of civilians. You can grieve the deaths of Israeli civilians and not support the genocide that is unfolding in Gaza right now. But unfortunately, my grief and the grief of other Jews who support policy and liberation is constantly being turned into a weapon in the hands of the Israeli government that presents these assaults, these genocidal assaults on civilians in Gaza as somehow Israel's right to defend itself, which to me makes it even more painful to think about the ways in which we're being silenced, we're being told that any criticism of Israel right now is anti-submitting, that any concern about respecting international law and respecting the rights of Palestinians for liberation, this is somehow anti-submitting. I find it deeply offensive and deeply painful to live through. I'm sorry. And you have family right now who are living through some of these issues. So I was born and raised in Israel. Most of my family, my birth family is there. One of my father's cousins and her husband are held hostage in Gaza or at least were taken hostage. I don't know at this point with all the aerial bombardments, whether they're even alive still. Yeah, so there is definitely a deep connection in terms of family, but I should also say that I have close policy and friends who are grieving the loss of direct family members and close friends in Gaza who are fearful for their own safety, whether it is in Israel, in the West Bank, certainly in Gaza. So these issues are deeply connected for me and I refuse to choose sides in this context or prioritizing only the well-being of my immediate biological family over the well-being of the millions who are besieged in Gaza, and I should say have been besieged in Gaza not just since October. This part of the missing piece of this is that the siege has been ongoing since 2007 and that the Nakba has been ongoing since 1948, the catastrophe and the dispossession of the ways in which Israel has instituted an apartheid regime, the ways in which occupation and ethnic cleansing have been an ongoing aspect of life in Israel-Palestine for many, many decades now. This is all part of the narrative that is often left out of these conversations that only talk about the immediate quote-unquote cycle of violence, only talk about it in terms of an immediate conflict between supposedly two sides rather than think about, as you said in your opening remarks, that this is an anti-colonial struggle. This is a struggle against dispossession and dehumanization that has been unleashed for decades now. I want to talk more about the narrative of the two sides and before we get there I want to make sure we check in with Norma as well. How are you doing Norma right now and watching all of this unfold and I know participating in chats? Thanks, I just wanted to echo a lot of what Natalie has already said. It is a time of grief, there's a lot of loss of life, lamenting all loss of life. I'm just quite anxious clearly about what's unfolding. At the moment my own family is in the West Bank and I have quite a few Palestinian friends with connections to Gaza with loss of family as well and so these connections are real and difficult. I imagine there's a lot of just anxiety every day as you're watching from so far. I'm sorry that both of you have these personal connections and are going through this immense grief and I do thank you so much for taking the time to come and speak with us with me about it and I know that people are anxiously listening because there are people I think who are very confused by some of the messages that they're getting. One of the things we were talking about when we spoke last week is this extreme kind of polarization that's happening on social media and Natalie mentioned the idea of these two narratives and the complexity of the situation. I'm wondering if you can explain a little bit about the issue with describing this as a conflict between two competing narratives. I think there are several reasons to reject the two competing narratives framing of this at the most basic level because we're not just talking about narratives, we're talking about historical facts and the historical facts are incontrovertible. In 1948 hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were dispossessed and never allowed to return against all international law. Since 1967 Israel has held legally occupied territories without extending civil rights to the people living there and while applying martial law and the judicial system that is a classical case of apartheid where Palestinians are subject to a different set of laws and rules that govern their lives than Jews living in the same territory, this possessing and taking away land, applying a system of checkpoints, etc, etc. This is all well documented, this has all been established by major international human rights organizations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the UN Special Rapporteur of Human Rights in the occupied territories, Biceline, etc, etc. So this is not about narratives, this is about historical facts and the other issue is whenever we say oh this is too complicated, this is too intractable, no it isn't, it is not more complex than any other settling colonial situation around the world and somehow when it comes to Israel-Palestine people are unable to speak about it or unable to get their facts right and when they do get their facts right they get silenced, there is a tremendous repression of the ability to speak about Palestine, we're witnessing it all around the globe whether it's in Europe where a rally in support of Palestine has been outright banned, whether it's here in Ontario where a member of Provincial Parliament has been censured and kicked out of caucus, whether it's in the universities where faculty and students are being doxxed as we speak, being named and shamed for calling for freedom and liberation where there is this constant demand that every Palestinian and every pro-Palestinian activist before they say the first thing about Palestine denounces Hamas is that we all are Hamas supporters by definition. So this is a climate where to talk about competing narratives just produces this inability to talk about the history, to talk about the context, to talk about what's happening right now about this immense genocide, 6,000 bombs dropped on Gaza in one week, just think about it, think about the immense loss of life and devastation and complete disregard for civilian lives and this has been going on with impunity for decades, this did not start in October. So that's why the two narratives is just such a problematic way of talking about this. Many experts have called what is happening to the Palestinian people an ethnic cleansing or a genocide. In the context of current day that we're talking about, why do you think we cannot speak freely about this if we're witnessing such a genocide? Norma, I'm going to turn to you to ask you to why do you think this is so challenging if we have international experts calling this out? What is the issue for us in Canada? One of the ways in which there is a silencing that operates is there is a long standing kind of racist and Islamophobic tropes that have been continuously put forward by institutions, major institutions which include the mainstream media and educational institutions and government officials and all of these institutions and the kind of racism that's embedded within it I think have a long standing history. The history is both I think one of a racist nature but also of a geopolitical nature. It's of a geopolitical nature because of wanting to maintain Western friendly dominance in the region. A lot of this is being bankrolled and propped up by US funding, provision of arms as well as the Canadian support, the support of backing of multiple Western governments. Just concrete manifestations of this racist tropes are the ways in which for instance in the current war, one of the things that we've been seeing playing out are things like reference to decapitation of babies when it didn't really occur. We saw that first put out on CNN which took its point directly from the Israeli defense forces and then only having later to retract claims about rapes which were then later retracted but all of those play on those kind of Islamophobic tropes playing on war of terror and so I think that's a big part of it. We're talking about this kind of large powerful infrastructure that exists which includes governments, includes media and if we could just bring it closer to home for you on the university campus. I spoke to somebody last week who said overnight I went from being an expert on Palestine to an activist on Palestine and so I'm just wondering about some of the forms or the types of silencing that happens if you've experienced it firsthand, if you've witnessed it in the university context, in your personal context. Yes, I also want to include one other dimension which I think is critical to the previous mention of the silencing the fact that any criticism of Israel is considered anti-Semitic and I think this becomes really the root of a lot of that silencing and of course there is the horrific history that many Jewish people experienced with the Holocaust and with fascism. What we're finding now is this manipulation of an attack on a government, one of the most highly militarized governments in the world ranked fourth. Definitely by far the most powerful in the Middle East, a government that has not only a history of apartheid, settler, colonialism throughout the territories but has placed the entire population of Gaza under siege, caged for the last 17 years. So beyond the Nakba starting in 1947, the occupation is 67, we have this siege where we're already lacking in terms of access to food, medicine, health care and a collapsing economy prior to the attack. Anyways, with all of these kind of injustices that we witness that are unfolding, any criticism becomes labeled anti-Semitic. So can I just want to clarify because I went back to read the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and their definition of anti-Semitism. In the actual definition, it doesn't say that criticism of the State of Israel is anti-Semitic, but the examples they give are a lot about the State of Israel. It's a definition of anti-Semitism has been adapted by the Canadian government and including many universities, the province of Ontario, but many provinces in Canada, other countries as well. So I think it's important we just take a moment to really explain this. What impact does this definition have? Well, I think you touched on it, Vanita, in the sense of because a fair number of the examples explicitly mention the State of Israel, there's a lot of room for interpretation, whereby criticism of Israel is equated with some form of anti-Semitism, which of course puts everyone on kind of heightened or self-censorship, right? Because of an anticipation of what recriminations might come. So the kind of adoption of this and the embrace of this, particularly among political officials, has an impact for the university setting. A number of unions have sought to pass motions that directly challenge or contest the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. And that was done in an effort to protect the freedom for discussion and for debate and critical analysis of Israel as a Southern colonial and apartheid state. I'm just wondering, Natalie, too, because you are also in the university context, do you feel like you got shut down as well? I think that I personally have not been shut down, but I am positioned in a way that allows me to speak precisely because I'm Jewish and Israeli, and I'm deeply aware of the privilege and responsibility that comes with that kind of position. But many of my colleagues have been silenced. I want to go back to a very important point, which has to do with the broader climate of silencing. And I think the organized Jewish community bears some responsibility for that as well in the constant constellation of being Jewish and being pro-Israeli. And we see this in the current messaging coming from Hillel coming from the Center for Israeli and Jewish Affairs, which is an organization that has partnered with school boards to write their anti-Semitism and Jewish education curriculum, and that issues public statements like anti-Zionism is just a disguise for anti-Semitism, and it has no place in Canada nor anywhere, full stop. Those are the kinds of statements that people like me have to deal with being told time and again that if you are not with Israel, you are somehow not Jewish. To me, that is anti-Semitic and it is outrageous, but it also really prevents all kinds of coalitions from forming because people are truly afraid and horrified of the notion that they would be labeled anti-Semitic. People who have very strong commitments to social justice, there are a few things that are more important to people who are committed to universal principles of social justice than to be labeled anti-Semitic. It's a very powerful label when university administrators call out by name and denounce and start disciplinary proceedings against student unions for daring to speak for Palestine and telling them that they are being anti-Semitic for doing so, that has a tremendous chilling effect and I'm seeing it all around me right now. So I just want to pause because I think this is very important that we do acknowledge that anti-Semitism itself is on the rise and this act that happened on October 7th, this heinous act on October 7th, has been felt by Jews especially in the region and around the world. So the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel was the largest number of Jewish people murdered since the Holocaust and this happened after the world had promised never again. What I'm trying to get at here, the question that I have is how can we have this conversation while also taking into account the very real fears felt by Jews in the region and around the world? I don't know that I have a simple answer but I will say that here I follow Black liberation activists in saying that we're not safe until everyone is safe, until everyone is liberated and that to me the rise in anti-Semitism is directly connected to the rise in white supremacist nationalism and authoritarian and fascist regimes around the world and that the only way we can protect ourselves is by being in solidarity, committing ourselves to fighting against injustice wherever it is, committing to never again for anyone, not just never again for Jews. I find the actions of pro-Israel activists deeply irresponsible in perpetuating really pernicious ideas about all Jews supporting Israel because actually that makes me unsafe, that makes a lot of people in the Aspera feel that their identity is called into question and that their own right to exist is being called into question and ultimately as Israel continues to implement apartheid and genocide with impunity that makes everyone unsafe and especially the people who are under the boot of these regimes so to me these are not separate issues but I think that the threat to Jewish life comes from right-wing supremacists first and foremost and that that's the struggle that we need to unite against rather than calling to question our ability to be in solidarity with the Palestinians and call for freedom in Palestine. I should say that Islamophobia is also on the rise in Canada. Given these challenges that we've been talking about and that we've just we've been discussing what do you see as a path forward for fostering productive conversations and understanding regarding this Israel-Palestine conflict. The opening has to be opening the space for a discussion of the history of contextualizing the conflict which we rarely see. We rarely see this in the media. We also need to open the space for thinking about how our key institutions whether it be the government and the media close out some of those possibilities and I would just like to offer up a couple examples in relation to that that I think we need to address head-on. Firstly taking into account the media you know there's not just the tropes that I had previously mentioned are examples of some of the problematic formulations but also there's the case where the BBC and the Sky News for example talk about Israelis were killed, Palestinians died. I saw that in the Washington Post newsletter as well. These kind of framings there's much work that needs to be done to kind of reconstruct deconstruct and reconstruct these framings. I thought we were there I have to be honest like I used to teach journalism and we had these conversations 20 years ago 30 years ago and I mean 10 years it was just I thought we were there. They're feeding into reproducing and propping up a whole vilification and dehumanization of Palestinians. Priming the public for an acceptance of an unfolding genocide is what we're seeing happening. So on the one hand there's an ideological battle that has to occur but more immediately and as well as long term there is an anti-colonial battle which means when we're making calls today for an immediate ceasefire when we're making calls today for the provision of a humanitarian corridor for the provision of food and water of which 2.3 million Gazans caged in Gaza so desperately need. When we're making the arguments for those things we need to go beyond that. We need to make the argument to end apartheid. We need to stop giving a blank check and arms and munitions and we need to start the discussion there. When we're discussing how to move forward the discussion needs to be how do we start to enact anti-colonialism and practice and how even us that are outside of that immediate setting of the immediate region at the moment work to hold our own governments accountable in that project. Can I ask you Natalie the same question in terms of you know as a historian how would you you know you're looking back but how would you suggest we look forward in this in this way. Sure first of all I would agree with absolutely everything that Norma just said. I do think it's an enormous ideological battle. I think young people especially in Canada today are learning to think about anti-colonial struggles through an intersectional lens that is very very valuable and very important and with the ongoing conversations about truth and reconciliation here in Canada and around the globe. I think it's I want to hope that people can draw these connections and understand how these struggles are both historically connected and connected in what kind of future we want to imagine for ourselves and for our children and I think that educational institutions have an enormous responsibility here. You cannot preach truth and reconciliation at home and support a colonial regime abroad. You cannot talk about indigenous rights and sovereignty and well-being here and accept an apartheid regime happening in Israel Palestine. So in that sense I do think that young people are starting to see these connections make these connections and hold our politicians and public media accountable for perpetuating these divergent frameworks but I also do think that we need to ensure that freedom of speech is enshrined that academic freedom is protected that those who are talking and teaching making Palestine present in our own spaces here at the universities are not silent. Norma. To elaborate a little bit about the campus kind of setting and some of the challenges faced there's often pressure to you know cancel events or speakers that are speaking on Palestine on themes of federal colonialism or apartheid. There's often the harassment of speakers. We've had a direct experience with this with the organization I work with with the academics for Palestine Concordia and in some of the events we've hosted we had a situation where after the Israeli consulate contacted some members of the university trying to put pressure to cancel a talk for instance. We also have as Natalie had mentioned there's a naming and shaming and doxing of both students and faculty and there are outlets in which this occurs such as Canary Mission or something called honest reporting. I also think it's really critical to mention one other thing which I think both ties into some of the challenges on the campus setting but also pathways for the future is boycott divestment and sanctions movement BDS and I mention this because in 2019 when McGill University student groups passed a BDS resolution Justin Trudeau was giving a speech around the same time this was and said that the BDS movement was anti-semitic and was causing a hostile environment and harm and this too really works to narrow the prospects for challenging or contesting apartheid and when one looks back and reflects on the experiences of movements against South African apartheid boycott divestment and sanctions were a central pillar to that in 2020. The campus activism around that was very intense I think I mean I'd like to think it had something to do with what happened in South Africa there was such international pressure to end apartheid. But those channels become closed off and when you make nonviolent resistance impossible. Yes they do when major international human rights organizations as I had mentioned had already declared that apartheid was happening in 2020 and 2021. The international community failed. We have collectively failed. We at the university setting have often been reticent to be even using the word apartheid in relation to Israel or settler colonialism and so that needs in my mind to be the exact starting point for all future discussions. Start using the right language and more than that because in using the language of apartheid comes much else it comes to acknowledgement of where the oppression lies. It dispels this idea of equal parties in a conflict. Yes I think that I'd like to try to end this conversation with something hopeful with a little bit of hope and in all of this I'm going to ask you both what gives you a little bit of hope. It's incredibly heartening to see the protests that are happening around the world and I know for family it's incredibly heartening to know it's happening that the world is no longer remaining silent. I feel like there is worth seeing some kind of turning point. We saw this a bit in 2021 as well during the unity into father period and the protests that were happening but here this is even a more sustained kind of movement that we're seeing and a kind of reckoning I feel and so I'm hopeful about that. I'm hopeful that it's being ushered in primarily by youth and that's going to be critical to moving forward. What about you Natalie? Yeah I don't think I have much to add to Norma's point. I think the solidarity work is critical and I try to stay hopeful. I think young people are learning to be Yassavi and to get their news from a variety of sources and to be critical in questioning and I think that is beautiful. I've had personal conversations over the last two weeks with people who are starting to question a lot of what they've grown up learning or being told about Israel questioning their own automatic identification with Israel as Jews. I've heard from Muslim friends and colleagues who are choosing not to stay silent even at the risk of enormous personal costs and I have tremendous respect for everyone who's working in the space right now and putting themselves at harm's way to speak the truth and to insist that we cannot remain silent because this is on us. This is on us as citizens of a country that purports to be a democracy and a champion of human rights globally that is actively perpetuating and supporting genocide at the moment. So it is on us to stop this. Thank you both of you. I'm going to give that respect back to both of you. So much appreciation for the time and the courage that you're both showing to come and speak out and spend your time with me to have this conversation. It's great meeting you Norma. I know same Natalie. Thank you for listening to this episode of Don't Call Me Resilient. I hope this conversation with Natalie Rothman and Norma Rantisi was helpful and perhaps it can help you navigate some of your own conversations this week. For more information about this issue you can head to theconversation.com. Don't Call Me Resilient is a production of The Conversation Canada. It was made possible by a grant for journalism innovation from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The series is produced and hosted by me, Benitha Srivastava. The lead producer on this episode is Atika Kaki. Sound design and mixing for this episode was Krish Dinesh Kumar. Kika Chi Meme is a student producer. Our fabulous consulting producer is Jennifer Morose and Scott White is the CEO of The Conversation Canada. And if you're wondering who wrote and performed the music we use on the podcast, that's Zaki Ibrahim. The track is called Something in the Water.