 So what I wanted to focus on today is really narrating Palestine in order for us to have both a grounding and understanding the history of Palestine and why centering Palestinian narrative and cause will have an impact on how we speak and deal with the current circumstances. Now Palestine is one of the oldest places on earth. If we think about the development civilizations, we speak of Mesopotamia, we speak of the fertile crescent, speak of the Nile Valley. So the history of this region is very extensive. There is the oldest olive trees, olive tree in the world is located in the area of Palestine. Some estimate the tree is to be 5,000 years, some put the tree at 6,500 years. Still there, the Japanese actually did research at a much earlier period and the tree still produces about 600 pounds of olives a year. It's a national heritage and still its owner spends most of his day attending to this tree. And I say this because there are often this mistake that people begin narrating the history of Palestine or dealing with Palestine by pointing to the Zionist narrative and Israel says we came to Palestine a thousand BC, the time of David and Solomon. And even if you want to take it a little bit earlier to the time of Abraham, still what it does, it erases much of Palestine history where you have actually evidence of Neanderthal period, you have discoveries much, much earlier and we know that there is at least recorded history from 12,000 BC. When we are responding or beginning to say 1,000 BC, this is centering and actually giving credence to Zionist history and we begin to narrate and argue about the history that they built and you forget much of the history that was there. So we need to insist that the history of Palestine predates anyone that makes claim on today, especially from Israel and the Zionist and we know that recorded history documented the earliest people to have lived in this area are the Canaanites, right? So there's been so much work on the Canaanites to discover archaeologically every time there is a dig somewhere that looks at any artifacts, it's overwhelmingly the Canaanites is the earliest inhabitants and the Canaanites are one tree of the Arab people, right? In Arabic we say Al-Kan'aniyun, the Canaanites. So in this sense we need to insist that when we're dealing with the history of Palestine, the earliest people lived in there are the Canaanites, they're the ones that have developed cultivation, they domesticated animals, created canals for water and then we could point to some of the earliest recorded city in history is the city of Jericho or in Arabic Ariha. It is still as the first city in human history. Not in some history, it's the oldest city in human history. Now Damascus is the oldest continuously inhabited city, Jericho is the oldest city to have been put together by human beings, right? And as such we could speak of the history of that area. Now many people begin to engage only with the biblical narrative because history tend to privilege written text, right? So the biblical narrative actually, even if you take it as a historical text, setting aside the theology and so on, it says that Abraham migrated to Palestine. So Abraham is a native of Mesopotamia, the city of Orr, migrated and when he arrived in the area that is the land of the Canaanites, it was already inhabited. There were people in there. How do we know this? Because the biblical texts speak about Abraham, he lived as an alien among the Canaanites. He spoke the language of the Canaanites. He met the king of the Canaanites. So Abraham came in migration to Palestine, right, and the area was inhabited. Then we are informed that Abraham was given a promise of the land. Now people try to understand this promise in ways that basically becomes identified through bloodline, rather understanding this as a covenant of belief. Now Abraham himself did not think of the promise as usurping or taking the rights of people. Why? Because he wanted to bury his family, he bought a property in the city of Al-Khalil. People named in English they say Hebron, the name of the city is Al-Khalil, right, which is one of the attributes of the Prophet Ibrahim, alaihi salam, Khalilullah, the companion of Allah. So if Abraham understood the promise to take over, take the land of people, he would not purchase something that is already belongs to him. I know sometimes logic is very difficult to come by these days, but that's the logical understanding in relations to the history of Palestine. And if we think about the successive engagement with Palestine, almost every civilization or every power have came to Palestine at one point or the other. Now if we accumulatively look at the history of Palestine, actually the Egyptians had the longest history of Palestine in terms of ruling and governing Palestine. So you know if we accumulate the different periods, so much so again when we read the religious text, the Prophet Yusuf alaihi salam, he went to Egypt, he brought his family to Egypt. So the narrative about Egypt is well established, right, both in the Quranic text, the biblical text. The interesting part is that those who narrate the history of Israel, they try of the ancient period as they came as a conquerors of the land, they try to exaggerate the state to make it a major power. It wasn't. We have at least the archeological work, especially I think the work of Keith Whitelam who wrote a number of books, very good in terms of his archeology, is there isn't mentioning about Israel in the region. So the Egyptians were a major power, the Byzantine was a major power, the Persians were a major power, in those three powers there is nothing written about this major power that comes out. It's as if you have the United States and Russia for 70 years, major power, 200 years, 300 years from now, where still people will look at evidence and they will see something written about their libraries and will have evidence. So you can say that there is a major power and yet the three major centers of power have nothing written, very only one reference in Egyptian texts, right. And more importantly it was a state, again in the classical sense, that came as an occupying force at the time, right, and mainly in the hills where still the canonites were present, the Hittites were present, and other tribal configurations were there. So it's very important you discuss, talk about Palestine with centering a longer history of the canonites and how it was a crossroads of civilization from the earliest period. The second point to make, Zionism was not born in the Muslim world, Zionism as, because Zionism is an ideology that is the foundation of the modern state of Israel. Zionism was born in the Western world and in reaction to European anti-Semitism. So if we trace the history of Europe, Europe consistently been anti-Semitic. You could go from the earliest history, you could pass through the Crusades, you could pass through the Inquisition, you could pass through the expulsion from Europe, you could pass through the 18th century, 19th century, and the 20th century. European anti-Semitism was and continued to be a feature in relations to how they treat or relate to the Jewish population. So Zionism is a Western emerging movement as a reaction and in response to European anti-Semitism. Why is this important? Because Jewish populations lived among the Muslims. All the Jewish populations actually lived in the Muslim world. We still have some of the oldest Jewish populations in Palestine, right around the city of Nablus or the old Jewish community in Jerusalem. They're not Zionists, right? Zionism was not born among the Jews in Iraq or the Jews in Yemen or in Syria or in Iran, right? We did not have the same problems both racially and theologically that Christian Europe have. One is they insist on whiteness, which is again that continues to be white supremacy, is a foundational within European society. They cannot live with the other racial others. That's been the main feature. And the second is that they have always projected theologically on the Jewish population by claiming that they were responsible for the death of Jesus. But this was translated constantly of anything that takes place in Europe. Immediately explained is because we are allowing the Jews to live among us, which resulted in concept. If there is a plague, they go and attack the Jewish communities and have programs against the Jews. If there is any type of economic difficulty, they blame the Jewish individuals. If there's a failure in war, likewise constantly blaming the Jewish person, because again, they have interpreted theologically that way. The Muslims, like in Ahl al-Kitab, they're protected. We have differences in religious discourse, but we have, we say, some of them are good and some of them have what you call bad. So in essence, we give that a fair balance. And we never actually said that we can't live with those who are not Muslims. And again, the history is very important because when they speak to us, they project European history on the Muslim world. That's their history. That's not our history. All right. The inquisition is European history is not our history. The programs in Russia and Poland in Hungary is their history, not our history. The Crusades are their history, not our history, even though that it came to us. Every time the Crusaders passed through a village, a town, an area that they found Jewish population, they massacred them. Then when they arrived in Palestine, they killed Muslims, Jews, and Eastern Christians, because they were the wrong type of Christians because they lived with the Saracens, lived with the Muslims. Yeah. So it's very important for us to understand that Zionism is born out of European history, not Jewish Arab history. All right. There were Jews that are Arabs, meaning the language is Arabic. Culture is Arabic. Their engagement were Arabs. All right. They did not have the same experience. That's very important. Third, Zionism undertook the project as a colonial project. All right. So as Herzl began his campaign, he writes a letter to Cecil Rhodes. Cecil Rhodes was the minister of colony in Great Britain. And we always have to say, Alhamdulillah, Great Britain is no longer great, because only Allah is great. All right. So again, they claim something that doesn't belong to them, and God have shrunk them as a result of it. So Herzl writes a letter. He says, why do I turn to you in such a matter? Because it is something colonial. Herzl understood that the project cannot happen or cannot be undertaken unless it is a colonial project. So he adopts a colonial project and becomes a junior partner in Great Britain. Now, at the time of the birth of Zionism, this also was the high point of colonization of Africa and other parts of Asia. So the general discourse, basically all the global South people had no status, they're subhuman. 1884, 1885, the Paris Conference, which was called the Scramble for Africa, where they sat around a round table to divvy up parts of Africa. So Zionism is a colonial project, and the colonial project did not have the rights of the indigenous people in their mind, they're just impediment that needs to be swept away. Great Britain has its own interest, and I'll get to that in relation to why Great Britain wanted to adopt this project. So Zionism is a settler colonial project. Herzl in his diaries, literally begins the process saying we need to throw away the Palestinian out to spirit the penniless population across the boundaries or across the borders. That was from the early periods of Zionism, meaning transferring ethnically cleansing Palestine. So from the get go Zionism thought about removing the population, that is also not unique. I know people, when you talk to them about Palestine, they make it complicated. Like making a dish of food is complicated, so you have to get all the ingredients, especially if you're going to put all the spices together, that's complicated. There is nothing complicated about understanding colonization. There's two varieties. There is a colony with a motherland like what Great Britain was, India, Egypt, Kenya, different places where extract resources and have the labor to work for the motherland. France with Algeria, Senegal, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire extract resources have the population work for you. The other type is settler colonization. Where a settler population comes, they commit genocide or transfer. In America we did both, right? In this region, genocide of the indigenous population and the remaining were transferred into reservation. Just that's the clear process that undertake, undertaken by colonial powers. So Zionism was thinking in the same way because they emerged out of European thought. European thought again that the indigenous population has no value, you could shift them and during that period was the height of death and destruction for much of the world. India, 15 million with the British being wiped out. King Leopold of Belgium, half of the population of the Congo completely massacred. France in Algeria, a total of 8 million Algerians in the 332 years. So again that was the process of colonization. So Zionism was born as a colonial state or as a colonial project linking up with Great Britain and participating in thinking that they will get a country. Now Palestine was not the first place they wanted or at least it was not the first place they considered. They considered Ethiopia. There were discussions of possibly Argentina. So the notion that Palestine because we're going back to our home that was a convenient post-creation of the state that was the logic. Most of the writing early on was speaking about colonization and how to colonize Palestine and how to bring settlers and build settlers and build a state on the basis of colonial discourse. So it's very, very important to understand this. Fourth, the Western world which we saw today and these days they're Masha'Allah their human rights record is so bright that you just want to sit and eat it with your next time hummus and human rights of Western world. So the Western world was looking for its own interests. Great Britain wanted to think about how to secure all the pillaging that they were getting from India. The British took from India about 45 trillion dollar worth of wealth because when they came to India it was 23, 24 percent of the world GDP. When they left after stole everything including all the diamonds that the queen was wearing and all the scepter all that is just from India and Africa. They reduced it to 3 percent. So they wanted to secure the trade from India through the red seat and the Swiss Canal when they opened it in 1869 how to secure it so thinking of a buffer state. All right a buffer state meaning to try that will be holding to Great Britain and at the same time dismantling the Ottomans because that was also one of the major project Europe at the time was thinking of the Jewish question anti-Semitic question and the Eastern question which is the Ottoman question also racist question. So in their plans of how to secure the area that came to be known as Palestine so they were engaging in machination for their own best interest to secure the trade from India through the Red Sea, Suez Canal to the Mediterranean. Even the term Middle East gets to be introduced by the British from their India office. There was no such thing if you went to people in 1902, 1904, 1910, 1915 till now I'm going to the Middle East they had no idea what you're talking about. Even up to the 1970 if you tell people I am from the Middle East nobody in the Middle East says I'm from the Middle East. I'm from Egypt I'm from Palestine I'm from Syria so the British from their India office came up with the plan for the Middle East because they had the policy Far East China Japan Korea and so on Far East then Middle East which is the road between their India colony and Britain and then the Near East which is at the coast of the Mediterranean that include Egypt and the coast of Palestine right. So their plan again Far East Middle East Near East were all framed around this colonial discourse and the United States picked it up later on but still in the US foreign policy if you the State Department does not have a Middle East desk it has Near East desk even though they go testify now in the Congress they speak about the Middle East but their apparatus is actually speaks of Near East both are designation from outside not from from the people themselves and so very important that the British were thinking of their own interest economic interest political interest strategic interest as a way of making sure whatever they stole from India can pass and go through the Swiss Canal which is still the most one of the most strategic spots on the world there's two or three strategic spots in the world the Swiss Canal Babel Mandib which is at the gate of the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz those are called the choke points of the world because trade especially in energy passes through this through these choke points as well as over all trade so it can has about 14 percent of the world trade passes through the Swiss Canal right I know that people like to go to Panama and take pictures of the Panama Canal it's actually tangential to global trade because the amount of ships that passes through is very narrow very small compared to these super big ships that have to navigate they know they can't cross the the the Panama Canal so so the British were designing from their own colonial interest of maintaining some hold for their own trade and facilitating both acquiring territory and also from Great Britain heavily anti-semitic to get rid of the Jewish population Belfort was heavily anti-semitic he issued the Belfort Declaration heavily anti-semitic and also were thinking of issues that comes into millenarianism into thinking in a crusader serum so when the British entered Palestine on December 10th 1917 the newspapers in England said this is the end of the crusades we came back after 672 years that's the front page in the British press and the movies or the movies at the time in the military they were actually speaking of how they're re-enacting or participating in the crusades remembering the crusaders that came it is not us who don't what you call try to recall the crusades is they have not forgotten and came back with that crusader mentality so there is a deep sense of this resentment this constant antagonism toward Muslim and Islam in that way so we see it that in Great Britain number five item the Zionist movement itself is a reform movement toward orthodox Judaism orthodox Judaism was based on the scripture the old the Torah following the guidance and waiting for the Messiah to arrive and to take the Jewish population back into Palestine and into as a religious arrival Zionism is a modern movement adopting nationalism and using power right as a way to birth to give birth to the state and they rationalize it is preparing the ground for the arrival of the Messiah so in essence they said that Zion is going to rise not by means of the book but by means of the sword so Zionism itself is a nationalist modern reformist movement that set aside traditional Judaism right in order to arrive at a state as the object or the focal point of birthing a new Jewish person and a new Jewish society up to 1940s just before World War II most of the Jewish populations around the world were anti-Zionist so if you really want to read some some strong materials and critique of Zionism just go to some of the earlier writings of Jewish thinkers prior to the World War II right at the entry of World War II there were some of the strongest critics of Zionism because in essence it set aside all of the Jewish tradition that have survived for 3000 plus years and adopted modernity and adopted power all right so again and there where we get revisionist Zionism especially with Jovi Tenski who basically says that you need to build an iron wall and you need to have a benefactor that will bring you or provide the support for you and he says that there is no way to have a reconciliation with the Arabs it's not possible he said it's impossible and therefore he did not want he literally said that if you want to play a colonization you have to dispense with the idea of reconciling with the indigenous population meaning the Palestinians why why Jovi Tenski is important because Netanyahu's father is the editor and the person who collected the papers and one of the major followers of Jovi Tenski so Netanyahu is committed to that line and committed to not actually have any reconciliation with the Arabs and continues to be that form in terms of his discourse so that's item five item six when we speak about the history of Palestinians right in the modern period and so on Palestine was a very diverse society very well developed even at the time of the late Ottomans very well developed and had political consciousness political organizing very vibrant society educational institutions right from early on and we see this again in the late 19th century early 20th century that the Palestinian society was really very well situated right in all aspects all all all indications they had they faced overwhelming challenge but that challenge again as a result of a multi-factors that led to their dispossession 1948 is an important juncture for the Palestinians because that is the dismantling of Palestinian society built or emerges after a period of rebellion that took place from 1936 to 1939 there was a massive revolt where both the Zionists and the British confronted and literally targeted the Palestinians as a result of that period the Zionists began to develop what's called village files to identify who are the leaders or the people that were actually organized or who are the people committed to political advocacy and organizing and those files were developed so immediately as the war of 1947-48 they systematically targeted the Palestinians in the villages the leadership through a whole host of structured violence including assassination bombings massacres right during that period about 110 massacres that were that are documented the largest of it is in the hundreds and the smaller of it is in the tens to 20s so 120 massacres systematically that were predominantly with the Palestinians it's a village structures and led to the flight and the escape of Palestinians which is normal every civilian population confronted with massacres usually they flee at the time of war to return so in 1948 47-48 it begins in December 1947 and culminates at the end of 48 750,000 Palestinians get to be ethnically cleansed systematically based on village files but also based on massacre structured violence emptying whole cities especially in the coastal area up north up south so when you speak about Gaza today 90% of Gaza population are refugees from 1948 90% so meaning that the children's of the refugees 48 are the ones that are being killed right now or the grandchildren that's because there were ethnic clans and all their properties were taken over so Israel actually when they when some of these individuals say that Israel made the desert bloom no no they took Palestine fully furnished it's like renting an apartment or a house fully furnished with the gardens that are flowering with all types of vegetables Palestine was never a desert there's a desert in the south but Palestine was one of the most intensely cultivated areas in the world and we have the evidence from designers themselves because they sent somebody in the early part of the 20th century to visit a document and he says he actually used an analogy he said the bride is beautiful but is already betrothed meaning that Palestine is a beautiful country and it's already have its people right you he said there isn't a spot except that there is already people are cultivating is the land of milk and honey in the biblical text so what makes the land of milk and honey all of a sudden 1948 or 1950 as the Zionist propaganda and many of their sports people we made the desert bloom no you took it fully furnished you took houses that fully furnished you took vineyards that fully cultivatable lemon groves apricot groves olive groves completely right so the 750 000 were expelled ethnically cleansed living in refugee camps and in their place all their properties were taken over even i know that there's a movie about guldame here coming she's a thief she actually took the house of a prominent Palestinian family in Jerusalem and lived in it right and they're trying to make her into a hero in Hollywood that's why again Malcolm X is correct if you don't pay attention the media will make actually flip the history so they make the victim right be the the uh villain and make the villain being the victim and you actually will identify him so guldame here is a thief took the property of a of a family lived in it right and without any remorse whatsoever and now they're trying to shove her down outward that she is this magnanimous figure uh at this particular time so 750 000 now that population their grandchildren it's about 5.2 5.5 million right those refugees in Israel itself there's a group of people that you don't find any designation equal to it in anywhere if supposedly during the war uh as the war ended you are not allowed to move to where you were at you have to stay where you were at the end of the war so supposing that there was a war in here i live in Berkeley and i came in here in Pleasanton right the war ended i can go back to my house in Berkeley i have to stay in here so i become an israeli citizen so i'm present in the state absent from my property and the state considered me an absentee so i can claim my my property is distributed there's about 200 000 in israel israeli palestinian citizens they're present absentee absentee i have not seen any categorization of such people anywhere in the world that you're a citizen you just got caught in the war took place so you stayed where you are and therefore you are not allowed to go back and take your property the property was taken and given to a newly arriving settlers and so that's very important in terms of the uh 1948 because that is the crux of the issue because most of the refugees in the west bank most of the refugees in uh uh ghaza most of the refugees in lebanon are from the 1948 there are some refugees from 1967 that moved jordan has a larger number of the 1967 uh refugee but the ghaza lebanon and in the west bank these were refugees that uh uh were ethnically cleansed in 1948 so what you find is that during the ethnic cleansing think of the city of san francisco equal number a little bit maybe less everything in the city is taken taken away by a new group of people from the sidewalk to the schools to the bank accounts to the cars to the furniture to the food everything was taken by a new group and the people were completely not allowed back in and so that's the 1948 uh eviction that takes place uh in in that way now the second uh or the seventh point that i wanted to make is that the basis of the two state solution is based on resolution 181 united nation resolution 181 united nation resolution 181 stipulated that will be uh two states uh to be to be formed one ab state they didn't say palestinian so again israel has often wanted to erase the term palestine and one uh jewish state in the one resolution 181 the jewish state was allocated 56 percent the ab state was given uh uh 43 percent or they're about and jerusalem is to be an international zone now that's the division 56 percent all right 43 percent and 1 percent of jerusalem give or take what is important is in 1948 just before the war palestinians have ownership of 96 percent of the land some put it at 93 percent so 93 percent of the land was owned by palestinians yet they were given by the united nation who they were not a member of uh 43 percent most of the coastal area of the mediterranean was not allocated to them all right so the palestinian rightly so somebody is taking their land given it to an external population that at the time was only for 35 percent of the population arriving and only in the last 10 years all right so when belfort issued the declaration in 1917 jewish population in palestinian is about 3 percent so all the population really after in the middle of uh world war two and after world war two that the population increases and so on so the allocation on resolution 181 was injurious to the palestinians because it took their land and the property away and allocated to the jewish state to be and the resolution itself was a general assembly resolution and without the united states pressuring states the resolution would not actually have passed because the united states mounted extensive pressure to make for the resolution to to to be voted upon and threatened the philippine government with withdrawing their uh foreign aid because the philippine ambassador actually the day before gave one gave one of the best like anti-colonial speeches they recalled him and send another ambassador to cast the vote in favor of the resolution so even the machination like we see today in terms of the country's gathering and so on and the united states is basically engaging in not only lobbying for Israel but representing israel so whenever you have a peace gathering you're actually not only speaking with israelis but the united states is basically their lawyer the united states says it's a honest poker it's a broker but honestly have nothing to do with it right so from the get go the resolution itself was injurious to the palestinians taking and removing considerable of part of their properties at the time and also machination with other Arab countries around to make sure that the palestinian state does not emerge which get me to my eighth point the Arab world that we deal with and the muslim world is a post-colonial world most of the political systems that are there are literally the ones that were either birthed or put in place by colonial powers at that time immediately after the 1948 war palestinians had a gathering in Gaza and declared independence the Jordanian at the time prince Abdullah gathered some of the dignitaries and had a meeting in Jericho and called on them to declare that they want to be unified with Jordan not known to people that prince Abdullah was coordinating with the Zionists because the Jordanians have signed an agreement with the Zionists as early as 1922 there's a book that you need to read collusion across the Jordan River which looks at the collusion of the world's Zionist organization with the Jordanian because the Jordanian state is literally was formed by the British and appointed the prince by the British similarly as the kingdom in Iraq appointing Faisal so there was coordination and signing that they were recognized as Zionist state as early as 1922 all right so again to understand so a prevention of emergence of a Palestinian state occurred as a result of this King Farouk likewise was heavily in debt in Egypt and was not interested actually the Egyptians had a revolution after the war specifically because they send the Egyptian army to the front with faulty weapons like some of the weapons actually were shooting backward all right so all of the free officers with Nasser emerged as a result of failure and being double crossed on the Egyptian front they came back and had the revolution of 1953 against King Farouk at the time so the Arab world is a post-colonial world it all is cutting its deal sometimes on top of the table sometimes inside under the table and sometimes in the Sheraton hotel right so literally any time that the Palestine cause you have many of these players that are looking for their own interests and we see the discussions today I believe that Biden visit he was supposed to be in Jordan right for a meeting with the Egyptians Jordanians Mahmoud Abbas and the Americans I think the deal was already being cooked that there's possibly a forgiving of the Egyptians debt the Jordanian debt and they will divvy up a number of Palestinians with them and basically try to resolve Israel problem by taking part of the problem of Israel's hands the fact that the bombing of the hospital took place sculled everything so again they were not planning on it and Abbas all indication he's ready to continue because as an employee of the Israelis and the Americans just there's no two ways about it he his salaries are guaranteed his securities guaranteed by the Americans and the Israelis and he does not see that anything other than his priority to maintain his own seed of power so the Arab world is a post-colonial world its interest is vested with maintaining its relationship with US and European powers most of their economies are connected to US and European powers and Palestine is a problem that they would like to see go away not by bringing just to the Palestinians is if we can get rid of it we could move to more important things and literally you could see when MBS had the interview with Fox he's basically it's not a major issue all right there are far more important things especially you know catching up and playing video games were far more important right in the interview and all indications that they were moving in a normalization direction the hiccup was on what type of security arrangements for Saudi Arabia indication that Saudis were asking for nuclear power and the Israelis don't want to have a nuclear power in terms of Israel in terms of Saudi Arabia but the agreement was there for them to have an alternative canal that will connect part of the Red Sea to the Mediterranean which will kill the Suez Canal for Egypt and then Saudi Arabia will redirect much of its energy transport through this new canal just maybe it will be less costly for them but in general that was the move taken place from Arab countries so Arab countries and Muslim countries were literally engaging in their own best interest in a post-colonial way and if Saudi Arabia was normalizing there are a number of other countries that would have come and they will put it under the panel at Islam One Piece right even though it's a piece of your land but they don't tell you that but that's the framing that Saudi Arabia would sign and they will bring possibly Bangladesh there was a heavy pressure on Pakistan to possibly indicate engage in normalization and there are some small circle in Pakistan that is what you call desiring to do so so number of countries would have been brought in into this into this discussion so to understand what is taking place is literally about the machinations in the region about positioning Israel as the important state where everybody would be in essence under Israel's protection but Israel as the hegemonic power in the region where the Palestinians will be again sidesteps or dispensed with in this planning so the last part I want to say is centering Palestinian narrative you cannot engage in discussions about Palestine without actually asking the Palestinians themselves what they have been through was their history what is their suffering what do they want right because everybody is ready to offer what they want right but without asking what do the Palestinian want again people are welcome to speak about the religious significance of Palestine alhamdulillah that's that's important but when it deals about the specificity of Palestine we don't want amateur hours and amateur hours people actually put their own desires of their own thinking about what they think is good for them rather than thinking of what the Palestinians want so again for those who don't know Palestine wants freedom wants justice one dignity want to go back to their homes and lands it's not very complicated we still have people still have the keys to their houses today because they left and they thought there would be few weeks and they're coming back to their homes they still have the keys to their homes right from 1948 and the people are being bombed today they know where their houses is right or their houses are so they're just across across the valley all these villages that are emptied right so again Palestinian want freedom one justice one dignity I want to return to their homes it's not complicated actually international lies on their side there's a resolution 194 in the United Nations says that people have the right to go to their homes international law correctly says that this is the right of the people to return to their homes and their lands we don't hold civilians responsible for whatever conflict takes place civilians escape at a time when they go back to their homes so that's a very very important to understand what the Palestinians want and how to begin if you want to help these are the issues that Palestinian ask you to help and advocate for as we're seeing Gaza to conclude with this these are acts of genocide there is no other ways this is genocide take a place you don't need to kill everyone in the society for genocide right genocide has many layers to it again I just want to read maybe in here the genocide convention I have it handy right because people just these days right so the convention on genocide the crime of genocide article article two of the convention one second hopefully we'll get so article two this is convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide article two killing members of the group causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group forcefully transferring children of the group to another group the following acts shall be punishable genocide conspiracy to commit genocide direct and public incitement commit genocide I charge the media in this country and the western world of incitement to commit genocide right it makes a 70-year-old man who three weeks before builds a tree house for the child to go up and get a knife and stab the child 26 times wadiya the human in Chicago that's incitement right where the day before they inciting there is a global day of jihad nobody told anybody's a global day of jihad they translated and translated the speech from someone and put it that is a call internationally so everybody was fbi in alert right that's incitement and I would say also the president is inciting as well for committing genocide right so direct and public incitement commit genocide Israel has a right to defend itself bombing apartment building that's defending yourself bombing a hospital defending yourself bombing churches defending yourself the second oldest Roman Catholic church in the world is there been under muslim living within muslim for 13-14 hundred years not a stone is touched right it's bombed what what type of target is this right so again incitement direct and public incitement attempt attempt to commit genocide and complicity in genocide yes this is complicit in genocide Germany is complicit in genocide Canada is complicit in genocide Italy is complicit in genocide Britain and France are complicit in genocide they just met yesterday and issues a despicable atrocious type of statement right in relations to supporting Israel's action bombing building and bombing people in their houses right guess it about 536 individuals killed they still have 1500 under the rebels civilians right I have no problem if you're gonna fight a military a military person a guerrilla force go go and fight them but you have no right to actually bomb uh almost half of the buildings half of the houses in Gaza today have been damaged over 51 percent of all the houses damaged most all almost 1.6 million out are living out in the open we're already about 2300 kids that have been killed just to give you a comparison if it's the same percentage ratio to the united states it would be equal to 270 000 kids being killed in a matter of two weeks just to understand the ratio 2300 relative to the population 2.3 percent or 2.3 million if you project it to the united states population you're talking about almost 270 275 000 kids killed between october 7th and now and yet people are not asking for a ceasefire or whatsoever and more so the united states is sending true by but on twitter can somebody ask answer the question why is israel war on gaza now is an american war on gaza why is israel war on gaza is an american war on gaza what is the strategic again from a real politic what is u.s interest in the war in gaza you already have the oil you already have all the monarchies pumping oil as much as you want they're buying all the things the junks and bringing shakira next week to have a concert in riyadh you already have your cake and eating it so what is it in gaza that you make it as part of the strategic need for everyone and you're going to deploy u.s troops that's why american you're again you're an american border what is what is the strategic interest why is it our war why is it that we have to ship billions we're already shipping billions to israel why is it that we have to ship some more again those are questions that we have to ask so again the united states is committing it being complicit in acts of genocide while sending they're asking for 15 billion possibly more and biden wants us to be happy that he's sending 100 million so you bomb them with 15 billion and you send band aid or 100 million it's like an insult to intelligence rather for him not to send anything rather than in say an arabic hamil like all of a sudden they say i gave you 100 million mashallah really we have to be people that's just you know we have to have self-respect keep your money we understand where you are and i'm telling people if you're gonna vote next time i'm not voting biden biden you could go take a suntan you are not getting a vote from the muslims i just follow him because i'm gonna go and campaign against him in michigan in georgia in in new jersey in ohio in pennsylvania and good luck are you gonna say trump is worse well again uh as far as i could see is too it's uh same face on the coin in terms of how you'd lack of respect for muslims and unless you respect the muslims both in here and our issues we're not interested in just coming with distorted arabic it says salamu aleykum i like falafel and chicken tikka masala that day is over there is a pre-genocide and post-genocide we are in right now in a genocide and we have to actually act and deal with circumstances accordingly so chazakum Allah khayr for listening okay go ahead salam aleykum wa aleykum salam alhamdulillah baraka so i know the last part you said that you know we all muslims have ran to uh biden and and what what options do we have now to vote for well i think locally you still have to engage locally because you need to still do the local but on the national level i do think that we need to send a clear message that you cannot take our vote our donations our engagement for granted and no matter who the community and more so that he incited against the muslims uh in a way that resulted in the massive islamophobia that just blew up all over the place so i put that responsibility of wadiya on him and his messaging that basically inflamed the passion rather than again hugging israel is like a pastime sport in america right so everybody says i'm towards it you could whatever if you want to do that do that okay i'm standing with israel you know they're fighting whatever but the way that they messaged it made the passions in here against muslims and translated into uh the crimes that unleashed and killed uh the little six years old yeah yeah islamphobia is on the right so are are we organizing in a way that we can identify who the candidates we're we're working we have we do have the the muslim organization the large 14 national organizations we just had a couple of meetings we're still trying to strategize in terms of what our responses would be but definitely we're sending a message that we're not for biden 2024 thank you thank you very much for being here oh you're welcome appreciate that the question that i have is it's more general why the academic me loved intellectual the people that they used to to come and talk about the correctness of these things i why they're not there why they're not talking why they're so well the university have been transformed into almost a corporate entity so there is the university is heavily dependent on donors there is less and less public funding going to education so responds more to big donors that's one part of this equation the second is the university have become the site of cultural wars and people don't want to be in the middle of these cultural wars because you speak immediately you're going to be doxxed you're going to find your fox all over you cnn so people are hesitant to engage in this and the third there is a systematic campaign by pro-israel organization by legal warfare by stand with us to target every faculty member with all kinds of harassment you know calling for freedom of information to collect all their emails responded so people begin to be very careful in doing so and that's narrowing the arena for the ability of scholars to come out and speak and i may add also the the phenomena of the social media makes influencers are far more important than intellectuals right and that's the calamity because influencers what is that category what have they what research is there other than having a cat that jumps faster and you have a video for one and a half minute and garners a million views and they throw a statement about Palestine so that's a calamity that we are in if you could leave us with three action items three things we can do to support our brothers and sisters in Gaza we would really appreciate that one i would uh ask people to every day call the white house just as you get up to get your coffee tea or cereal call the white house and you could i think is the number is let me see i have it on my phone i dial it in the morning all right just give them you know a minute of your time our opposition does it and they get the response so uh 202 456 1414 so if you could commit in the morning just call the white house so that's one to do second i want you to actually call your mayor and your council member because they have immediate influence and link to the democratic central committee or the republican central committee that's very very very important because all politics is local their statement about supporting israel is a right to defend itself is contingent on your local engagement here with them in a systematic way the third i do think that they proactively begin to think about how to educate yourself about the specifics by maybe having a reading group or reading a book and discussing the specifics of palestine because it's information heavy uh cause this cannot be done with what you call a watching the videos on twitter instagram and so on so those three items will be very important so i like them so i know for a lot of folks um what we're seeing over the last couple of weeks um it's similar stuff that we've seen before as well and repeatedly in such as well and that can be very demoralizing as well um do you mind sharing maybe some things that give you hope um when it comes to uh seeing a future yeah well i always trust in Allah that's right if you trust in the world the world is always going to be changed Allah is al-adl i believe that Allah is all the all just right even if you're alone you're not alone because Allah is with you wherever you are we take with the asbab but our trust is Allah is the dispossessor of all the affairs so you always have to put in your mind that we are in the realm of the divine and no matter what happened we believe that we are in a better place no matter what the circumstances whether alive or we hope that if we die we are at least in the divine presence so for me that's for us to as a grounding the second you should have a habit of turning off the news feed that you have right and i do think that people begin to be addicted because they think that the more news you consume of what's taking place that the more you are aware i don't think so especially with the social media just people begin to be over over what you call saturated and you're not actually getting more sound information and as you notice they just continue to repeat repeat so you begin to be part of a loop so get the news what is it 10 15 minutes time and then separate yourself go and read drink tea right just do something that you are not effecting the world by watching more news it becomes a way what you call almost a form of entertainment on the news even though it is sad news and so on so i recommend for people not to spend the hours right in in doing so and the third just do a routine of moving right walking and so on so you'd not get sad or absorbed in the circumstances that are taken which are you know overwhelming but this is the world we are in the world is a world of tribulation and we are just experiencing the period of tribulations in not only in Palestine but the muslim world the duke university institute said since 9 11 upon 4.7 million muslims have been killed in the wars of terrorism what are talking about afghanistan iraq syria libya sudan yemen sumalia you're talking about 4.7 in a 22 year period so yeah we ask Allah to transform our condition and bring ease to to the umma inshallah that's okay that's my son so i'm like how old are you aslan okay mashallah he's a very strong supporter of you know um with this issue first started in my chat group there was um a little bit of a discussion and the discussion was around a california state senator who and i don't recall specifically what they said but they didn't oppose um i think they kind of stood with israel well not necessarily i think they may have said something around like they condemn any killing of all people um and this was like the very start of this this issue so the debate was around whether or not we should continue to support her or not um part of the debate was look we can't put pressure on our muslims follow muslims who you know go into politics and they're just starting out let's get much stronger and get a little bit more involved um versus you know what we need to we need to put pressure on them as well just to make a to be our voice which in turn may cause them to lose their position later on so it was that type of debate and i wonder where you would uh we have the same discussions with the faculty right in terms of the university my feeling is that if you are not courageous starting you're not going to be courageous later on because you become more comfortable where you are and you take people for granted we don't want people just to better represent identity you want courageous people because this is the moment or the period for courage not only on palestine a number of issues right you need to be courageous in confronting the pharmaceutical companies that pushed opioid on people and resulted in the massive opioid uh crisis you know wall green is indicted for pushing opioid san francisco they have to pay 500 million dollar fine uh for pushing opioid walmart uh do do pharmaceuticals uh the sackler family 26 million dollars they pushed opiate from 1999 till now almost a million american died and they came to you if you go to san francisco people just dying every day on the street needs courage for you to actually stand to say i'm not going to take any money from the pharmaceutical companies and i want you to come and testify about how you allowed a doctor in a small town with 5000 people to prescribe 80 000 pills a month how is that possible all right so what we want is courageous people winning and losing is part of the reality of politics if you are running and you're only worried about losing you should not run because there is a set of principles that you have to actually stand by and people respect people who stand on principle as long as you explain where you are and what you're doing and here's here's my principles unfortunately we have again muslims we're happy for identity just somebody is muslim but we don't take them to task for the courageous positions that they have to take so for me i fall on that i would rather for you to be principled rather than to be what you call uh not courageous your opposition is basically in your face and they take no prisoner so the more that they know in general for me the more they know that you bite the more they stay away from you the more that they know that you are vacillating they know that you are an easy lunch for me that's what i feel i have a follow-up question is that okay you okay last question for me um right now the i mean you're starting to see i don't know if everybody sees this but there's a fair amount of shift where a greater amount of the american population is learning more and more about palestine really what's going on there yeah is there a coordinated effort to kind of educate the american population more because the way i think is that the lack of knowledge is really driving a lot of the support for israel i think the american public are instinctively aware like 66 percent of them are saying calling for a ceasefire uh in terms of the various data it's only the older people that are still firmly in behind israel the younger population are actually the opposite 56 percent are standing with palestinians uh and they no longer trust the mainstream media so the more the stream media is actually speaking and taunting and bullying palestinians the more people are actually are not following nor are taking their story and most of the social media uh content that is coming from palestine sources are being taken and acted upon as far as an organized effort we've been just active throughout the country right all these protests demonstrations we're mobilizing people across this past saturday i was saturday i was in new jersey saturday in washington then flew down to la so people are mobilized in numbers that are unprecedented in terms of the last time we have such people out in numbers where the anti iraq war 2003 uh and it's at a global level like if you saw yesterday the saturday in london almost a hundred days about 150 possibly in london uh france the french government prohibited demonstrations so people went out to the court the court actually issued a rebuke of the president even with the president prohibiting protests thousands filled the uh the plaza really the republic you could not step a foot which is a huge huge turnout so that shows you that there is a different dynamics taking place and part of it i read it i think israel over reached in its violence uh honestly if israel not that they're following my recommendation this is free recommendation if they just waited for two weeks and milk the sympathies of people i think palestinians would be in a very very difficult position if they just went just waited two weeks three weeks came to disneyland did some hollywood cuts and so on i would say that there would not be possible to have a palestine protest anywhere in this country or in europe but because they acted with immediate revenge and overwhelming power it activated in people the sentiment that this is something wrong taking place and i have never seen a shift in public opinion as fast and rapidly taking place as this case in less than 48 hours from people having israeli flags on the ephel tower on big ben on all on the sports and so on in 48 hours after the bombing massive numbers out in the streets people protesting and so on and people beginning to step back right this past weekend the premier league were discussing whether to actually have the israeli colors being at the wembley stadium they actually worried that the people reaction would be so negative they decided not to do it right that shows you that the shift that occurred in such a rapid fashion is a result of israel failure to actually read the moment and to realize that this overwhelming power might appeal to the thugs literally thugs bingavir smoltridge and the rest of them in the israeli cabinet but the world public opinion is a completely different place and i think they misread the signals from people and that's what we're seeing the outcome of it more questions inshallah before so sure so we'll take one more question and then i have to teach tomorrow early morning okay so alaykum so i just to get you right there right now about the public change in the ideas and the small generation or the young generation already changed the behaviors or the mentality related to palestinian and israeli concerned so my question here is how this affects the the community here for the short and long term for your opinion so if we stay like this for three five years is this anything going to change in terms of the politics here how about 15 20 years from now or it's about the event that happened this year if i could answer your question about 20 to 30 years from now they might give me a hundred million dollars on the spot no but but you are more academic than us so yeah but no academic can tell you what's going to happen in 30 years especially in the social science i could tell you what accumulatively happened in the past and maybe some positive avenues to look at in order for us to understand the change in public opinion is cumulative right so it's a 30 year period that this change takes place as a lot of many different elements both palestine activists work but also missteps of israel and the united states but your opinion as it's between israeli and palestinian concern or in terms of humanity issues here like now the american people look to this war between muslims and jewish or between people they kill weak people like israeli have a power and america stand with them and europe stand with them and we have palestinian people they don't have anybody with them are they just have this emotional for this just now or in the future we will have my kids will have a friendly environment to say hey we are muslim and we stand with rights and we are supporting muslim country which is called palestine and they have rights for this i have two sons here i know but i'm talking i know but i can't answer to you about what's going to happen when they grow up and so on is how much work you do to effect change in order for you to create the environment and the country that you are in i do believe that the american public overall is anti-war they have to be stalked into war and usually they get stalked and they join the fever for war but as soon as it gets disastrous they completely go back to an anti-war position right we saw that in iraq and then it dragged on for 20 years we saw that in afghanistan same thing so entering war is very easy extracting yourself out of a war is very difficult the united states have a long history of that but the public has to be stalked and that's why the role of the media to incite and stalk people to support an illegitimate war and the united states every illegitimate war again ended up being disaster whether it's vietnam all the way to latin america's intervention and so on so i think what we need is to do the work that is needed to continue to build on a public opinion that is shifting and to try to influence it for good policy which i think it's possible the other element there is a large segment of jewish americans that are leaving and abandoning israel in their political work like jewish voice for peace the 500 that went to uh congress and got arrested just last three days ago okay that's a shift that has been in the making for quite a long time and jewish voice for peace initially started as a liberal pope's organization now it's an anti-zionist organization that shift took place over a period so beginning 2018 2019 they took a decision as a group to be anti-zionist so these are things that are cumulative and continue to invest in it will make change over time okay final question so obviously we've seen the momentum that we make up and then it dies down a suggestion and maybe also a question as well um are there any coordinated efforts i'm sure there are multiple platforms out there in which it's not just us muslims who obviously have a very strong uh sentiment to this out there protesting um is there any platform in where there are other like these you know guys who are going anti-zionist that we can align with and we are we are so again i i'm the chairman of american muslims for palestine so we coordinate closely with the gvp jewish voice for peace another organization we coordinate with the sabir which is the voice of christians that work on palestine we have a group of uh that works on christian zionism and how to dissect it and look at what's developing so there is different groups that are coordinating and working together in a variety of ways to push and that result of it is these mass mobilizations yeah some will take the lead on one thing some will take the lead on another thing so today and tomorrow in dc we have advocacy day for palestine through uh americans americans for justice in palestine action so we have uh people visiting their senator congressmen offices giving them you know what are the points that they want to advocate for so this is taking place as we speak alhamdulillah jazakumullahu akhir salamu alaykum