 In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. And may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon his family, his companions and his companions. Thank you everybody for coming. We really appreciate it. You know, I'm sure that the idea of the event is to start briefly with some sort of historical context and some education around, you know, what's happening right now with our brothers and sisters in Al-Azza. That's not the main goal of the talk. The main goal is to help us to figure out, you know, in all of our different contexts that we exist, at work, in the different public spaces that we occupy, you know, how can we, you know, speak up for justice and speak up for our brothers and sisters in Palestine. And then also to discuss a little bit about, you know, the spiritual dimension of this because it's related to all of those. Our ability to speak up in those spaces is related to our spiritual state and is related to, you know, our relationship with the law subhanahu ta'ala. So that's going to be a critical aspect of it as well. And I would also, you know, just remind everyone, we have Dr. Hatim Bazian who's coming on Monday, this Monday at 7 p.m. And he's a, you know, worldwide expert on this topic who's been researching it and writing and speaking on this topic for a very long time. So I feel really honored to have him come to the, to this message. And I'm really looking forward to attending that event as well. I hope to see as many of you there as possible. I should say I'm joined by Siri Shahryar, who's been, you know, kind enough to support as well. And to give us some of his experience also working in the professional environment and in tech and give us, you know, some advice about how we can all sort of do our best to advocate for justice. And Brother Usama Ahmed is a board member of American Muslims for Palestine. He has a lot of experience with Palestine activism and it's Palestinian himself. So I'll turn it over to him for the historical context aspect. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullah. Jazakallah Khair brother Asad and for the MCC for putting on this event. I'm originally Palestinian, born and raised in Santa Clara. So I always love to actually come up here in this area and pleasant to message it. And I like to see the beautiful community and the amazing work that everyone does here. So may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless you all and give you all success. You know, there's a lot of ways to start, you know, talking about this. And when the recent events happened in October 7th, I think the first approach by a lot of Palestinians, where to highlight a lot of the injustices that are happening to our brothers and sisters in Gaza. And rightfully so, people took to the streets. People wrote to their members of Congress. People were outspoken in their companies and places that they work. And then naturally as humans, you always question why is this happening? And you feel depressed is probably the best way to explain it. There's anger as well, which is justified. So in the past couple of days, I started to think about what are the best ways to relate my experiences as a Palestinian, what my parents went through, what especially my grandparents went through, because they actually experienced the Yenakiba in 1948, which will be explained in this video. And I started to just be a little bit overwhelmed in the past couple of days emotionally. And I started to realize that maybe the best thing to do is to just actually share what it means to be a Palestinian. And there's nothing better than sharing your personal narrative so that people can be empathetic and understand what Palestinians go through and what Palestinians do in order to resist this illegal occupation and what it actually means to be ethnically cleansed. So my parents were, my grandparents from my father's side, they're from a village called Annaba, which is near Alid, which is present-day Tel Aviv. They were the biggest ethnic cleansing that happened was actually in my grandparents' village. They were the first people to be kicked out in 1948. My grandfather and my grandmother lived in the West Bank, which is about 20 miles to the east of where they grew up and where they were born for two years. And then they were told that you have to then transport again and migrate to Jordan. So in 1952, they were in Jordan and then my grandfather was born a couple of years after that. He was raised in a refugee camp, which is actually one of the largest refugee camps in Jordan, which houses around 60,000 Palestinians present-day. So I think for people to just understand where we kind of come from, the lack of opportunities in that refugee camp and how a lot of Palestinians, their main goal was to just survive. They went from owning a lot of land, farmers, merchants, just working day-to-day jobs to now owning nothing and now trying to just figure out how to get by with UN subsidies with families of, let's say, like 15 people living in a room that's 15 by 15 feet with just barely anything to just get by going to UN schools and just trying to make a couple of dollars here and there. My mother's family, similar story. My mother was born in Jerusalem. Her family's been there for hundreds of years and they were kicked out in 1967. And she was about five, six years old and she grew up in a southern city called Al-Qarak, which is famous for the castle of Salah-e-Din al-Ayubi. And she grew up there, high school, then she went to University of Jordan and then my parents met and they moved here in the late 70s, early 80s. The reason why I say this story is because if you meet any Palestinian, they will tell you, you know, if you meet any Palestinian that's my age, they will tell you where their father's from, what their mother's from, who's married to who, how are these two people related, you know, like Arabs, the Anzab, the lineage is very important to us. But for Palestinians, because we've been kicked out, it's more important because it's the only way for us to maintain connection. My grandparents were never allowed back. My father was not, it has never been back to his village. My mother only visited once. I have a lot of relatives in Jordan who are not allowed to visit and growing up, I was always told that the two things that are important are your dean and Palestine. And there's no question of whether or not we're going to go back one day to the villages, to the cities that we were once kicked out from. So I just want to give, you know, a kind of a personal story to that. In 2017, that was the first time I was able to visit Palestine. And it was probably one of the most emotional moments in my life where I got to see children who were brutally tortured. I met mothers who lost their sons. I met fathers who lost their kids, their daughters. And I met a lot of older people and visited a lot of villages that are just ruins right now due to the ethnic cleansing. And as I said, we actually met in college and, you know, we became very close in college and then after that we maintained communication. You know, he asked me to come here and to speak about kind of this Palestine 101. So as I was preparing, I actually stumbled on this video from Vox. And at first I was kind of skeptical because there's obviously a narrative out there that wants to talk about how, you know, there was no ethnic cleansing. But when I watched the video, I was actually very impressed. So I felt that the best way to actually share a Palestine 101 or just give a primer to what's happening. Because I know a lot of people have questions like, and what's happening and like, why is this here and West Bank's over there? And like, you know, what's going on? And so just to kind of sum up, sum that up and then we can move on to kind of more current. I felt that it would be really cool if we can watch this video. It is 16 minutes, so bear with me, but I think it's a really good, excellent video. My village is a very beautiful one. It has a mountain full of trees, of figs and grapes. And it faces the main road to Jerusalem. This is a story about what happened here in 1948. You are only 750 people and everybody knows each other. I came from a big family. We lived a good life. We never expected to be a massacre. It was a black spot in the history. That history has been carefully concealed, purposefully distorted, and in the West largely forgotten. We put our village as an example with what they can do. The massacre in this village was one of many in a series of catastrophic events that became known as the Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were violently displaced from their homeland in order to create the state of Israel. In 1948, a new Jewish state, Israel, was born in a glass of blood. The borders of Palestine have been changed forcefully over time, but historically this region has been home to Palestinians for centuries, with hundreds of villages and thriving cities, one of them being the central city of Jerusalem, with holy sites important to Jewish, Christian and Muslim people. By the late Ottoman Empire, Palestinians living here were overwhelmingly Muslim, with minority Christian and Jewish native populations, too. But regardless of religion, Palestinians were often referred to as Arabs, people of the Arabic-speaking world, despite their distinctive culture. Palestinians have long distinguished themselves as aphelistine, or the people of Palestine. They developed a distinctive Arabic accent. They developed regional food, regional dress, and family ties. But by the time world war one began, several key political forces were competing for control of these lands. First, there was a growing Arab political movement, looking for independence from the Ottoman Empire in hopes of a unified Arab state that would include Palestine. Then there were Zionists, a political group that had one main goal, the creation of a Jewish state. Zionism was a response to an increasingly brutal climate for Jewish people, particularly in Europe and Russia, where there was a massive wave of anti-Semitism, including large-scale attacks in the late 1800s and early 1900s. After briefly considering other areas for a new state, including Uganda and Argentina, Zionist leaders decided on Palestine, because of its connection to early religious history. But there was a third key group with political interests here. The British. Control of the region would allow them to expand their spheres of influence and protect trade routes to India. During World War I, since both the British and the Arab independence movement wanted Palestine, they decided to go after the Ottomans together with an important pledge. Through a series of letters in 1916, an Arab leader and a British official agreed that if Arabs would help the British fight the Ottomans and give the British economic and other foreign privileges in Arab lands, in return, the British would recognize and support an independent Arab state. Soon, the Arabs started doing their part in revolting against the Ottomans, making it easier for the British to move in. But the next year, the British issued a new declaration and betrayed the Arabs. In 1917, Lord Alanby conquered the Holy Land, and the Jews were promised a national home in Palestine. Without consulting the native Palestinian population, the British issued what's known as the Balfour Declaration, supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. So, instead of supporting the idea of Palestine as part of a unified and independent Arab state, the British pledged to help secure this land for Zionists. It was a strategic move. This declaration opened up a pathway for Britain to gain power in Palestine. Under the guise that it was supporting the self-determination of another people, of a people in Palestine who don't reside there yet. As for Palestine's majority Arab population, the Balfour Declaration referred to them as non-Jewish communities, who would be given civil and religious rights, but not political rights. A few years later, after World War I ended, Britain gained control of Palestine through a mandate that also required them to put the Balfour plans for Jewish settlement in motion. And they did. Between 1922 and 1931, the Jewish population more than doubled. The migration helped the Zionist movement gain steam, and a slogan took off. A land without people, for a people without land. And it sends a message to Western leaders that the people who had been living in Palestine for generations could just be easily moved elsewhere. The idea was that those inhabitants weren't a people with ties to that land. Palestine was, of course, a land with a people. In 1931, there were more than 850,000 Palestinian Arabs in the region, still the vast majority. But with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party in particular, hate became a rallying call. Jewish flight from Europe became even more urgent, and Palestine started to see the biggest wave of Jewish immigration yet. Violence broke out, rooted in tensions over land. Jewish settlers purchased swaths of fertile land and evicted tenant farmers, creating a crisis of hundreds of thousands of landless, dispossessed Palestinian Arabs. Although Palestinians fiercely rebelled against both British colonial forces and Jewish settlers, they were brutally crushed by the British. They put in Palestine more troops to repress that rebellion than they had stationed in India at that time, all of India. These troops killed thousands of Palestinians, including many of their leaders, and the British began training and arming Zionist militias to suppress the rebellion, too. But the rebellion continued, so in an attempt to prevent further Palestinian resistance, the troops began to limit Jewish immigration into Palestine. This ended up angering Zionist extremists, leading to more violence. So in 1947, after decades of trying to manipulate both Palestinian Arabs and Zionists to keep their control over Palestine, Britain gave up and handed the question of Palestine to someone else. Through the United Nations also came the problem of Palestine. In recent years, this small country had been the scene of disorder and bloodshed. They figured there is this new thing called the United Nations. Here, in your lap, Palestine, first gift. So the United Nations has now to figure out how do you disentangle this thing that the British helped create? A UN special committee proposed the land be divided into two states, a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem as a separate UN-controlled entity. It was called the Partition Plan of 1947. The plan shocked Palestinians. We could not accept the Partition Plan because at that time the population was almost two to one. But the plan proposed giving over half the land and often the most fertile areas to the Jewish state. From a purely pragmatic perspective, the Partition Plan didn't make much sense for Palestinian Arabs. That wasn't the only problem with the plan. Within this proposed area of the Jewish state were hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs, including both Muslims and Christians, who had lived there for generations. On a moral level, the idea of making hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs minorities in their own homeland seemed unjust and unfair. In November 1947, the UN put the plan to a vote. In the aftermath of the Holocaust and after lobbying from US leaders and Zionists, the UN voted in favor of partition. Britain announced their mandate over Palestine would end on May 15, 1948, even as Palestinians continued to reject the UN's decision to partition the land. By the end of 1947, Zionists had several well-developed paramilitary forces. The largest one known as the Haganah and more extremist militias like Irgun. On March 10th, a couple of months before the British mandate would end, the Haganah adopted what was called Plan Dalit, or Plan B. On paper, the main goal was to gain control of the Jewish state as laid out in the Partition Plan, while also defending Jewish settlements outside of the borders. In reality, that's where the majority of these operations took place, outside of the UN's proposed Jewish state. Some carried out by Haganah and others by more radical militias. Many of these operations focused on isolating Jerusalem and the roads to it. A set of brutal instructions called for the destruction of Arab villages by setting fire to blowing up and planting mines, especially those population centers which were difficult to control. In case of resistance, it called for the population to be expelled outside of the borders of the state. Villages emptied and for the occupation and control of Arab villages along main transportation arteries. One of the most widely publicized village massacres happened here in Derya Seen. We lived in Derya Seen, which is about four miles west of Jerusalem. 91-year-old Dawood Assad was there the day of the massacre and was 18 at the time. We saw one night at that night before the movement of lights, armored trucks moving around, moving, moving like this. So we know if something is wrong, that's why we knew that something is going to happen to our village. On April 9, 1948, extremist Zionist forces, executing Plan D, closed in on Derya Seen, even though the village had made a local peace pact with neighboring Jewish settlements. Friday morning, they attacked us. My uncles, they were shooting at them and I was there loading the gun for them and shooting. We fought about almost two and a half hours. They found my uncle and they put him on the wall and they shot him eight bullets in cold blood. My grandmother, she went in the village to see my mother. On her way, she got shot. My brother Omar fell from her shoulder to the floor where the floor was a concrete one. Dawood escaped through a trench. I went down all the way down here like this. So it was four hours walking to Jerusalem. To this day, the archive of the Israeli army refuses to release many of the images and intelligence reports on Derya Seen. But one UN report detailed circumstances of great savagery, including women and children, stripped, lined up, photographed and slaughtered. Roughly 100 people, largely children and the elderly, were killed in the village. As for Dawood, he later reunited with the group of Derya Seen captives in Jerusalem, including his sister and mother. My mother says, where is your uncle Radwan? She says he was shot. Where is your grandmother? He said he was shot. And Omar was with her. So everyone has a commotion, you know. Where is Fatma? Where is Abraham? Where is Amaria? Where is David? Where is Ahmad? Where is Ismaeel? I dream, I'm on Dima College, you know. News of what happened in Derya Seen spread quickly, with far-reaching effects. Designist militias used it as a propaganda tool to tell people about it everywhere. The idea was that if you don't leave, we will do to you what happened in Derya Seen. Stories came out about women being raped, about babies being killed, and induced a great deal of fear among the Palestinian Arab population, many of them fleeing as a result. Jewish troops routed Arab forces from the city of Haifa. After taking Derya Seen, Zionist paramilitary groups cleared major cities, including Haifa and Jaffa, and took hundreds of smaller villages and towns, too. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee, pouring into neighboring states as refugees. Plan D became the blueprint for carrying out the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine to make room for a new state. And on May 14th, the day before the British mandate ended, Zionists declared the state as Israel. But the creation of Israel didn't end the Nakba. Neighboring Arab countries that were overwhelmed by Palestinian refugees immediately went to war with Israel. Now united in a league of Arab states, they are insistent that the entry of refugees into Palestine must be ended. The fighting lasted for months. Arab armies eventually lost while Palestinians continued to be killed and forced out throughout that time. Palestinians who fled often carried only enough to stay away for a few weeks, hoping they'd eventually return home. A lot of them locked their doors, put their key in their pocket, and then moved to safer ground. When you leave the house and you take your key with you, it's because you're planning to go home. In the case of the Palestinians, those refugees weren't allowed to return. Refugees trying to return were often shot at. Zionist paramilitary operations also tried to prevent them from returning again by destroying the villages. That act of preventing their return compounded the Nakba. So the Nakba is both a forcible displacement of Palestinians from their homes and lands and country, as well as preventing them to return once the fighting was over. Palestinian society was dismembered, crushed. More than half of the Palestinian people became refugees, stateless, dispossessed of their land. Over time, the State of Israel covered up the physical evidence of an Arab Palestine. Place names were often changed from Arabic ones to Hebrew ones. The Jewish National Fund embarked on a massive effort to plant thousands of acres of pine forests and recreational areas on top of hundreds of ruined Palestinian villages. Even though these forests have now grown into big pine trees, Palestinians have not forgotten their home lands. While we know that roughly 6,000 Israelis lost their lives in the violence of the Nakba, records for Palestinian deaths weren't kept. It's estimated to be around 15,000. By the end of the Nakba, roughly 750,000 Palestinians had been forcefully expelled, and more than 500 villages destroyed. Though the UN's partition plan allotted Israel 56% of the land, through the Nakba, Israel captured 78% of the land. It was everything, except what's now known as the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Today, that's up to at least 85% of the total area, turning 6 million Palestinians into refugees without a homeland. It's why, around the same time that Israelis are celebrating Independence Day, Palestinians are out protesting on May 15, holding up keys as a symbol of the homes they lost and the hope to return. For them, the Nakba isn't just a moment in history. It's a catastrophe that never really ended. I dream about it, you know? We lived a good life until 1948 when we were displaced. Alhamdulillah, since we have a relatively small group we can all share. So the idea is that we want to make it relevant to all the different situations that people are in. So just to set the stage a little bit, I think Sam and I can both talk a little bit about our own personal experiences with Palestine activism and sort of the reactions that we get in different situations. But it's, you know, I think more helpful if we can hear from everybody who, you know, made the time to come here just about your context, about some questions you might have and also even if you have some questions about history, Sam maybe can answer those as well. I really appreciate you even though I've known Sam for a long time I've actually never heard that full story so I really appreciate you sharing the story about your grandparents and your father. Sam's father is actually one of the founders of care. So his family, Masha'Allah, has a long history of standing up for the Muslim community. So yeah, I'll open it up. Let's start with questions about the history of Palestine or context. Anyone have any questions? So one thing I was, when I was watching the video I was thinking that the, you know, when all of that was going on, it was right after the Holocaust and what happened in Germany and Poland and so on and so forth. So the impression that is given to us and which is I'm sure is correct is that Jews, millions of them, they lost their lives and they they were left with nothing and then they were the ones who were taken to Palestine. So what surprised me here was that so where were they getting all these weapons and militias? I thought they were the they had nothing when they went there. So was it the British providing them or what was going on there if you could talk about it? So that's actually a really good question because I think one thing that gets overlooked was in Europe there was what they call an anti-Semitism problem primarily in England, Poland, Germany and Russia and this actually happened before the Holocaust. So the first Zionist convention was held in 1897 in Switzerland by Theodor Herzl who's the kind of the founder of the Zionist movement and essentially what had happened was the Jewish population had already they've already understood that they're not necessarily welcomed in Europe even though they are Europeans. So he had established this idea that why don't we have our own homeland that way we can run from this anti-Semitism problem in Europe and kind of live on our own. So there were three options there was Uganda, Argentina and Palestine and the one that made the most sense was Palestine because they can tie in the Jewish homeland, and the narrative and the fact that Jewish people believe that Jerusalem is also a holy site for them. So that's kind of the one piece and then post Holocaust and what had happened to the Jewish people the majority of financial assistance that they received were from the British and were actually from organizations and Zionists that were living here in New York and so to speak they had a military advantage they even had an educational advantage where the Hebrew University in Jerusalem was actually established in the 1920s and they only they had professors from Germany, Western Europe United States and at that time they held the top universities top ranking so they had visiting professors visiting there and they only taught in Hebrew. So their whole claim was anyone can join but you have to learn Hebrew so it excluded the Arab population. So there was also kind of an educational advantage that they had as well. One suggestion I have is I'll send the link, I'll figure out the link. There was a really good interview with a Tunisian scholar he's a scholar of Jewish studies, he's Muslim he grew up because there's Tunisian Jews that still live there so he actually grew up with the Tunisian populations in Tunis. He has a very good three-hour long interview that goes over the history of Zionism and how it relates to Judaism and what's happening now and what their goals are in the Middle East, how for example a lot of the universities in Israel, you know surprisingly, I mean it's not surprisingly for Palestinians because we know this but a lot of universities in Israel have for example the Islamic history in Uzbekistan Islamic history in Kazakhstan, what's happening is they're very good because they have a much deeper knowledge understanding of the region and how entrenched they are in there. So I'll find the link and I'll share it with you but that's if you want to get deep into it that will be a really good way. So one of the claims that I've heard that Israelis make is that they are indigenous to Palestine and I was listening to an interview with Gabor Mate who's actually one of the few Holocaust survivors himself and I had thought of this before and when I heard him say it I was like like maybe this is that if you look at who has rights, like how we talk about Aboriginal or indigenous communities, so how does that fit like could it be that the indigenous Palestinians you know I mean do you go back to Israel and then they converted to some of them converted to Christianity and through time converted to Islam where that they're all they were all indigenous at that time and they were converted populations so I'm kind of wondering what is like the understood history of that. Yeah, that's a PhD thesis. It's a really long one. First off I'm actually a huge Gabor Mate fan as well so yeah I read Opus books. So the they're originally called the Philistines or the Kennenites and I think so some of them were for example from Ben Israel, some of them then converted to Christianity, some of them converted to Islam, right. You also have for example the Crusades, right. They came from Italy, modern day Italy Greece, Europe, they came in and a lot of them you know converted to Islam as well. I think I see the argument of kind of going back and saying like well there were Muslims here, well who was before that then they were Jews and then who was before that was Christians. It's ironic because that's not the argument the Palestinians are making right now. What we're saying is there were Palestinian Jews who were ethnically cleansed. There were Palestinian Christians who were I think cleansed and the majority were Palestinian Muslims because just in fact though the majority were Muslims and they were all ethnically cleansed and they're all facing the same discrimination because they were Palestinian because they were there so I think the argument of you know like well who was there before and then they converted the reality is that Palestine pre-American history and I think if you read the history of the books it was a melting pot it was a complete melting pot it was the center of the world when it came to trading it was you know where East meets West, the Middle East really. So it's a very diverse land very diverse people and I think the question of the historic people who was there first and then who has the claim over it that's not actually what Palestinians really argue about. Palestinians argue about how you guys came and ethnically cleansed us. Yeah so but I think again like the claim for a lot of Palestinians if you talk to a lot of them in 1948 some were saying if a Jewish person came and bought some land for me and wanted to live here there is no problem with that. I think the problem is being forcefully kicked out that's the real issue here the issue is not that a Jewish person can come and live in the land you can come and live and buy and you know my grandfather he dealt with Jewish merchants that's totally fine. I think the issue is how you took it and it was the forceful expulsion of the Palestinian people so we have about 20 minutes before Asal so I just wanted to get a sense of there's a lot of different you know context that this is coming up in so Osama is works at LinkedIn so I think there's a lot of people like in the tech community who are trying to figure out what's the way to deal with this in the workspace I'm internal medicine physician I work at the actually I work at the center in the county jail so it's a different very different context than most people work in and then we all live in communities like the grocery store and public spaces and public schools and we navigate all these different spaces so one of the goals of this session is just to sort of help us all work through how we can address Palestine in those situations and I think in the past we would just say we just won't because we don't have to we won't talk about it but now what's happening is the CEO of your company may have sent an email to everyone at your job saying all kinds of xenophobic things totally neglecting any other things we learned about in terms of the Nekba but even just now neglecting the fact that 2 million people are literally being barricaded into an open air prison and bombed from the sky and from the land and from the sea so not talking about it sometimes is not an option anymore and also we have an imperative from our dean to speak the truth and to advocate for our brothers and sisters who are being oppressed and so one of the things we want to accomplish here is just to talk about the different struggles we might be having trying to do that and to see if we can come up with some helpful advice does anyone feel that they want to share something about a message they got at a workspace or issues they're dealing with in other parts of their life in regards to Palestine it's a small group sorry since you didn't get an answer to that so I thought we should ask a related question related to the previous discussion so when we're looking at the numbers and I know there were quite a sizable number of Christians in Palestine they were also part of the Nakba they were displaced as well so I think some people are trying to make it about Islam versus Judaism or Islam versus the West and it's important for the Christian Palestinians who were displaced as well to come out and it's important for us to have those videos as well and also it's the first time I'm hearing that they were Jewish Palestinians as well who were displaced so do you have any of those that literature, information videos that we could or Christian Palestinians coming out because I know for a fact I was in UT Austin I did my bachelors from there and the Palestinian student organization was headed by a Palestinian Christian and they were protesting against what happened the same way the same day when Israel was celebrating their Independence Day they were protests going on they were headed by Christian Palestinians but it's very rare to see them at a high level speak about these issues like why is that and how can we resolve this Islam versus West that some people are trying to make it out to be so there are actually a pretty good number of Palestinian Christians they make about 15% of the population in Palestine two days ago or I think it was yesterday the idea actually bombed the Baptist church, the oldest church in Reza and they are facing a lot of ethnic cleansing Muslims in Palestine as well I don't know much about their doctrine but their let's say version of the Mufti he actually is very outspoken about protecting Mr. Al-Aqsa because of its importance in the Islamic religion and there are a lot of Palestinian Christians who do speak out I think the difference is they may not because we all realize that we are on the same boat they don't come out and say I'm a Palestinian Christian they just say I'm a Palestinian and this is what's happening there was a really good interview that Deena Takroudi did she's from AJ Plus maybe after the talk I can send it to you she interviews a Palestinian pastor and he talks about the ethnic cleansing the majority of Palestinian Christians are Muslim in Bethlehem because obviously there are those cities with their significance and there is a pretty sizable community in Reza one of the former congressmen of this country I think his name is Justin Amash he was a congressman from 2011-2021 his cousins were killed in the airstrike in Reza yesterday they were part of that so there is a sizable Palestinian Christian community and I do think that they do a lot of work and there is a lot of cross cross work that's happening so that's really good and I can share with you the link there's Azmi Ibshada so part of it is who you're exposed to because in American media there's a lot and Azmi Ibshada is a great example Arab Christian Palestinian Christian public intellectual and politician who is very vocal but I don't think he's ever been on CNN the last couple weeks for me it's been very difficult time management wise because I spend way too much time looking at videos and reading things it's probably not the best use of my time I can stay informed but do I need to be informed within a minute but what I do think I see from just all the videos or whatever that I've been watching is there is a change in perception there's a sense that the next generation does understand a lot more about the Palestinian problems and the oppression they've been going under what do you attribute the kind of change in the generation and maybe more a better question is what should we be doing to make sure that this next generation is convinced of the situation of the Palestinians and how they need to protect these people because I don't think the older generations they're done they're not so I guess my question is like what works and what should we do to help convince more people I think what worked and maybe as I can also testify to this is actually a college level activism the SJPs and the MSAs that were very outspoken and I know at times a lot of older members in the community felt that they were either too outspoken or they pushed the boundaries a little too much they were a little too like rocking the boat a little bit and when I looked back I was talking to a he came to MCA yesterday so I was talking to him and I was telling him that the majority of the people that I talked to now about what's happening and how we strategize are the same exact people that when I was at UC Irvine with us had we're all in the same group chat trying to figure out what is the best way to strategize so I think the one thing that's helping a lot is that the MSAs from a very early on is their stance on Palestine is very clear so that's I think the first the second is also the internal dynamics that's happening in this country you have what happened George Floyd in the beginning of Covid Trayvon Martin there was a sociologist yesterday she coined the Trayvon Martin generation where basically people in their 20s and 30s when Trayvon Martin was murdered how that kind of affected and shaped their view of this country and what and how they still have not been able how this country has not been able to reconcile what they did to them for the past two or three, four hundred years you know and there's a lot of intersectionality with that now I'm not saying it's perfect I'm not saying it's it's the best solution or to the only solution but I do think just the fact that we were able to kind of shake things around people woke up and the third I think it was just really the Afghanistan and Iraq kind of post 9-11 rhetoric that this country engaged in a lot of young people or you know under 40 years old even Americans who you know let's be honest they don't really care about the Middle East they just care about their taxes or they just care about like you know what's going on in our public school system with all this you know social push towards the left a lot of people are just saying like wait a minute what's going on here like why are we sending so much aid to one country when you know you look you just look you know in Sunnyvale you see all these like homeless tents going around and we're not taking care of our own people so there's a reality where people are waking up to so I think it's a lot of things that kind of play into that in order in terms of how to kind of work from now on how we push I do think you know just to be you know transparent and honest I think also as Palestinians we need to work more on the narrative of how to push for people who are in the middle or people who don't know about the topic we kind of speak we like to speak a lot in our own community and we're very ingrained in like the internal politics and what's going on and who said what who said that I don't think like John Smith and Pleasanton cares about like what's going like what some politicians said I think what they care more about is where their tax holidays being used so there is now a shift where we're trying to see who are the people kind of on the side or in the middle a little bit confused a little bit you know that you're able to make a lot of headway and a lot of games yeah I would just you know to add to that I think this is what you're asking but like I think so part of the stress of seeing all the news and stuff which I agree with you like I am not good at this but I try to like have a limit for like how much time I spend because you can spend forever clicking through links and that's not helping anybody but at the same time it's like a kind of a feeling of distress and panic because you're like this is happening right now and I don't want to just it's hard to just move past that and go past your regular day as if as if there aren't you know bombs falling falling from the sky on you know children so totally appreciate that I think another part of the stress comes from a feeling of helplessness like you know what cannot what can I do one of the things that in my mind there's two answers to that the first is even if like let's say I had some kind of guarantee that all pro-Palestinian activism is utterly useless and can and will affect zero change right even then I would say you know like an excuse in front of God right so one one aspect of it is we are accountable all of us are going to die and we're going to be accountable for Allah so even if we were to know that speaking the truth would have no material consequence we should still do it so that we can say to Allah that we witnessed injustice and we did something about it something that's not the case we know that it actually does do a lot of things earlier today a mutual friend of both of ours his name is we were I was in college with him we did a lot of pro-Palestinian activism together a sitting congresswoman actually tweeted out his name to the whole world said mention his name and called him a quote very dangerous man okay he's a currently a graduate student in Minnesota and previously worked for American Muslims for Palestine I think maybe he still does so he works for American Muslims for Palestine so he's just a community activist like any one of us but a congresswoman is afraid of him and is saying calling him a very dangerous man so our work has a material effect in the world especially if we educate ourselves and we try to channel our efforts in ways that are effective and like I said more for us as believers it's also like it's in our scale of good deeds and lots of hanja efforts regardless of the outcome so those are the two ways that I see it and that I try to remind myself in terms of how to use my own efforts that we are more impactful than we think and the most important impact is the one on the scale of a loss of panasata we have a question from our online viewers my CEO sent a one-sided company-wide message about what's happening I reached out to the diversity folks that's not working what should I do next I'm concerned that it will this one-sided messaging will increase Islamophobia I was mentioning that I think that's actually one of the spaces where we can have the most impact is in the workspace and I have a few examples I'm on some groups with Muslim doctors who at Kaiser for example who try to address this Muslims but people who have some sense of what's happening in Palestine and want there to be justice so there are ways especially in work because there's always like an exposure risk that you're putting yourself in and advocacy many times in these settings if you send a private email to HR or if you reach out directly to your CEO the doctors that actually I think UCSF and Sutter they've been doing that as well they got together and they wrote a joint letter and they all signed it together which is another strategy that can be very helpful and in at least two or three cases I saw responses from the CEO part of what happened in this particular case is that people came out very hard after the initial attack from Hamas one side supporting Israel but now anyone with any sense of decency, fairness sees that there's literally thousands of people being killed in Raza and I think people who have some sense of responsibility will take a more balanced approach so I don't know if LinkedIn has some experience yeah I think our experience was that when it first happened there was obviously that one-sided message so I kind of set the framework and then what had happened was a lot of the Muslim groups some of them are Arab groups within the companies got together and what they started to realize that if three, four or five of us send an email to HR then they'll start to see that there's something brewing so that's one step is to kind of unify come together and have several people send out emails and I think this is also another one that you can leverage is actually speak with your manager and talk about how these past two weeks have been rough I've been kind of stressed out and then manager will kind of be like well why, what's going on and then you can explain what's happening and how you do not like that message so that goes up with management and they do take that very seriously so there's a lot of ways around it those are the ways that I would recommend what we did at work because Lincoln's part of Microsoft so where there's kind of this Microsoft Muslim group that came together and what we did was we got people who worked in Jordan and the West Bank because they have offices over there to speak out so that it kind of tied into that their employees' safety physical and mental mental wellness was kind of tied together so they couldn't really you know dodge it they had to address this point we also have already seen that the consequences domestically like this anti straight up the rhetoric of the president is Islamophobic, absolutely without doubt President Biden right now is expressing the most vile forms of Islamophobia and showing absolutely zero regard for Muslim life and that results in harms here for us and it's already resulted in the killing of a young boy and an attack on his mother so that's also an important thing to emphasize in the messaging as far as when you're talking to your company or to other folks as well that type of rhetoric that's being propagated right now by the pro-Israeli side is Islamophobic dehumanizing and affects us here in our communities in America we have to take a break it's for us and then we'll resume Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem Alhamdulillah we're going to resume inshallah I think this one is sufficient we're going to resume inshallah and we're going to start off just by addressing two aspects of this one is the type of principles that we should keep in mind as we are engaging in conversations whether it's at work or in like the broader of the world we're going to resume whether it's at work or in like the broader public square and then we'll inshallah also try to have time for how we process this from a spiritual and metaphysical perspective because it is difficult to see so much human suffering and adversity so we'll start and then definitely we'll pass it to the brothers to share when we are talking about these types of subjects there's spiritual principles that we need to keep in mind and then there's principles to keep in mind of how you actually convey the argument that you're trying to convey spiritually the first thing is we should be very careful to get emotional or angry it's valid for us to be angry of what's going on but when we're trying to have a conversation or a dialogue the thing that works for most people is actually using like logic, intellect history to try and convey the points already as Muslims there is a context for the last 40 50 years in this country where people have painted Muslims in a very specific way they're angry, they're terrorists they're violent so people are putting that hat on as a stereotype whether they're aware of it or not when they're talking to us and so if we in their mind quote unquote fulfill that that's going to already tilt the conversation in one side and so we want to just make sure that we're very level headed, reasonable logical and when we're feeling emotional and we're feeling overwhelmed when we're feeling just upset and angry about everything that these Zionist occupiers are doing to our people we have spaces to process that but I would not recommend and you know brothers so afraid to disagree but I would not recommend don't process that type of stuff at work with your colleagues who don't know the conflict who don't know the history so that's one the second thing is that facts and history and context and laws they tend to work well for people who themselves have a level of you know they consider themselves intellectual especially professionals and they like to hear those things and if you use those things and convey those things in the right way it can have an impact so that's where I think the history that was just walked through having understanding from the time of the late 1800s when the Zionist movement started clarification on what Zionism is racist white supremacist ideology not it's not Judaism it's not the same thing understanding when the Balfour Declaration happens in 1917 and when they make this intention to take over the land understanding that the British basically took seize the land they took it from the Ottomans and then they decided basically unilaterally and then convince the rest of the governments that they're going to give this land to the Jews and understanding violently the specific events that took place with facts figures how many homes were demolished how many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced how many thousands tens of thousands of people have been killed those facts tend to help in certain contexts so just having that ready the third thing is use when appropriate articles books videos depending on the generation you're talking to not always coming from Muslim sources there are many people who are Jewish who are rabbis even who have been speaking out against this for 60-70 years or for 40-50 years let's say and it's amplified in the last 20 years as the Zionist regime has gotten worse and worse and worse in their oppression so also feel free to direct people towards those books try to read them ourselves there's videos that are going on if you're talking to like Gen Z or Millennials a one two minute TikTok video might be good YouTube video if you're talking to somebody who likes long form articles I think I forgot the name of the author but I have it written here so I'll check in a second but Ilan Pappe has an excellent book on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine or of Palestinians so you can point people to there he's European, Caucasian this person is Muslim they are talking about it from a quote-unquote neutral perspective and then same thing when it comes to human rights violations international law violations it's powerful when you quote somebody who is objective like an objective lawyer who is not necessarily Muslim who is saying hey look at all these laws that have been violated in the last and there's literally hundreds of laws that the occupiers have violated we're not talking about five or ten I mean it's continual and you point them out so those are a couple of principles just to kind of keep in mind when you should engage somebody and when we shouldn't engage somebody so as Allah says in the Quran when the jahil approaches you meaning like in this case you say peace so if somebody is super Zionist built in their views they're not going to change they have a strategy I was talking about this one of my friends the other day who's a Palestinian he's been an activist for 10, 20 years you might know Siddiq one of the tactics that they use is just to exhaust you like they'll just keep going and pushing and pushing to just exhaust you because a deep-rooted Zionist themselves just like a deep-rooted white supremacist it's unlikely you're going to convince them that they're wrong what we have to focus our energy on are the people who don't know much about this quote unquote they can be more in the middle about this right they might not be in the middle right now because they're believing the pro-Zionist propaganda that the media is propagating that the western governments are propagating against if someone paints the picture to them and the story to them in the correct way we shouldn't waste our time with people who are so far gone that they're just going to push and push and push and then the second thing is when you identify those people just know when it's time to leave the argument okay you guys do what you're going to do like we're going to do we're not going to reach an understanding here and what was it yeah there's no need to like strangle it or to like overdo it and to like I have to win this argument from a spiritual perspective remember like the goal is truth the goal is not at the end of the day to like flex your nuffs and your arm muscle of like we're the best people know it's this is the truth and this is wrong objectively and it's wrong in every way possible what these people are doing and so we just have to kind of keep that keep that in mind so you guys want to add when it comes to professionally how we engage and then maybe we talk about the rest that was great medical if you just a couple quick points I think one good rule in communication in general that definitely applies in this case you know we say like in medicine first do no harm so the first the first rule in communication is don't say something that hurts if you can't you say something that's going to be beneficial or helpful you know don't say anything at all the prophet said the one who believes in Allah in the last day let him say good or be silent so part of that is preparation so you know if learning the facts are for ourselves feeling confident in them feeling you know gaining some skills in terms of how to communicate those facts and how to discuss with people and the proper way to do so helps so that we can say something good but if you're feeling the other thing is sometimes people feel pressured to say something that they don't really believe because they're in a certain context because you know certain people around them expect them to say so they say something that they don't really believe just to satisfy someone else and that's not good either we want to say things that when Allah swt asked us about them on the day of judgment we feel happy that we said them and we can stand behind them so I would say that's the first step is don't say something harmful and that happens I've been to many protests where people say things that are not helping anybody and so that's the first step we should all be careful not to say something that will harm us in this life or be harmful towards our brothers sisters in this life or for us in the ahira and the second piece that I would say is we all have to do like a sort of a self-assessment of where we are, who we are and our context, what we can do right? I mentioned before my friend Tahir Hazallah who's obviously a activist on the national stage he's speaking on national networks and he's in many ways dedicated his life to this cause and has taken a lot of targeting of himself of his family, personal loss in that way I'm not ready to do that level right? but I can do something just because I can't do you know because you can't accomplish something in its entirety doesn't mean that you abandon it in its entirety we can do something so part of it is sort of like taking an assessment of where are we you know what can we do and what I would say is we all have a comfort zone maybe some of us don't ever talk about Palestine and don't ever communicate with our workers about politics and stuff and that's sort of like generally considered a taboo but by our CEO sending an email to everybody they've opened that door so they've allowed it to be discussed in that space so my point there is see where you are see how comfortable you are push yourself a little bit to advocate more for our brothers and sisters if you've never spoken about this to a colleague before talk about it to your friend who you know is sympathetic who you know knows you and trusts you speak about it with them over coffee I had that experience myself at work with two three different coworkers who I definitely don't talk to about politics but this week they just asked me what's going on they can tell that I was like I'm down like I'm sad so instead of saying nothing or blowing it off I actually told them and then another conversation you know progress from there same thing with I had a neighbor same thing I had a conversation with this week who asked me a similar question and I was able to open up with him and talk with him whereas I've never talked to him about politics before and I was surprised at how willing to listen that they were it helps a lot of times when you have a relationship with that person they already know you so they're not going to assume all these evil bad things about you immediately based on their bias so yeah those are my two advice first do no harm number two see where you're at see where you're comfortable push forward from that and again a lot we want to have an impact in this world but a lot of it is we want to have some deeds that we can be proud of in front of a Las Pontadas to say that we we spoke up for our brothers and sisters I mean I think they've said it all the only thing that I would say is because I get this question asked a lot primarily from younger Palestinians and obviously when you experience it or when you have relatives that have been martyred in Reza and what not there's a lot of emotions so yesterday there was one brother Dr. Hamad Soba he's also a medical doctor he's in emergency medicine in the Stanford he I think 30 members of his family passed away in Reza and he was very calm and he actually gave two pieces of advice he said number one is know your audience like meaning that you know if you're going to speak to a group of doctors you should know like how to kind of push the narrative from the medical standpoint for example like what's happening in the hospitals or what not the second thing he said and I think this is really important is if you want people to stand up for Palestine who are not Palestinians or not Muslims you also have to leverage the relationships and stand up for their causes that they're facing because don't expect you know sometimes you can't expect that reciprocal response if you weren't there for them when they were down for example if a co-worker family passed away family member passed away when you reached out to them people take this into account so when they see you that you're down and you actually talk to them and tell them they're not they're going to come and say you know what this person is actually a really nice person you know when I was down there were there for me so now I'm going to lower my ego or I'm going to lower myself to actually understand what's happening and take it from a place of humility so that and then maybe Allah will then open their heart to actually see the truth and not believe what the media has been feeding on is there anyone wants to share questions or comments anyone just wants to share it could be just you know what a conversation you had with your neighbor a co-worker or conversation you want to have but don't feel comfortable having yet so I'm going to take advantage of the group and just hear how everyone's dealing with things some of us needs to deal with work with some Jews and a professional capacity and in the last few years and particularly in the last few weeks at least it's observable to me and a few others that sometimes the position that they take particularly in this event is in a continuum there are some people who are clearly demonstrating the white supremacist mentality but there are also you know people who they don't agree with their government they don't even support the movement but they can't openly clear openly state the position about that so do you have any thought on that and how do we deal with this particular situation so if the person who you're speaking with let's say like if they're of the Jewish faith and they practice the Jewish faith right the thing I would start with is like understand the tenants of the Jewish faith that are being violated with the Zionist agenda so like three things I would regularly quote for like the ten commandments there's three of the ten commandments which they just, the Zionists in their claim to form a Jewish state are completely ignoring one is the next is those are ten commandments revealed that we believe as Muslims and that Jews and Christians all believe okay they're stealing their neighbor's houses like left and right the occupation forces and the settlers they've stolen millions of acres of land that didn't belong to them and I mean they're murdering and heinously killing tens of thousands of innocent souls in this process and so many Jews themselves will quote the Torah when they are defending the Palestinians and saying again this is not Judaism this is not Judaism so sometimes you have to remind people who are Jewish of like hey this isn't your faith so how do you understand just like when Muslims where we were told which we know right when things are being done in the name of Islam by groups that are not actually following the religion of Islam we all said no this is not Islam and here's where they're going wrong and where they're misquoting and misusing so that would be number one just kind of understanding that if there's anything else you want to add that's the main thing I was thinking of yeah I agree 100% with what Sehri Shahrar said and then what I would just add is in terms of like the knowing your audience that Osama was mentioning before I've had some friends who work in certain places deal with co-workers who were like who were behaving very rudely to say the least and aggressively and basically like openly expressing sort of Islamophobic sentiments and things like that so that's another situation that people might find themselves in where they have like a co-worker or a boss who's basically harassing them or you know treating them in a very rude way so that takes a different strategy so I would definitely reach out to HR and sometimes if it passes to the extent of discrimination or something like that you know you go in that direction but then you also mentioned there are some people who are very sympathetic and very you deal with each one accordingly so the people who are willing to open up and talk you know you can have the kind of conversation that Sehri Shahrar was mentioning but also don't allow yourself to be discriminated against like and I've had at least three or four people come to me and tell me you know they were dealing with outright discrimination harassment in the workplace so don't feel pressure to be silent about that or to just put your head down and move forward Alhamdulillah we have in the aftermath of 9-11 the Muslim community in America has grown a lot in terms of a lot of institutions and knowing how to deal with discrimination and I think Brother Munir is working on putting on like a know your rights thing here at the Masjid we do not need to just be silent and accept those kinds of things so if any of us is dealing with that type of hostile environment that's not the setting to discuss that's the setting to protect your rights, protect the rights of your fellow other Muslim co-workers and other people because people who have that kind of attitude are usually harassing many other people not just one or two I mean I would just echo last point staying silent is actually going to be very detrimental and we've learned that in the post 9-11 some folks decided to stay silent and some of it is justified because of the scare tactics that were used and a lot of people Muslims, especially Palestinians were like I'm getting 9-11 vibes like I'm getting these 9-11 vibes and I think the best thing that we did was we just still kind of spoke out because the more we spoke out, the more we kind of broke out of this shell we kind of got rid of this fear that was always kind of hovering over us so definitely just continued to speak out and especially you know here in America we have our rights, we have care we have other organizations even for Palestine we have an organization called Palestine Legal which is like the care for Palestinian activists you can think of it that way so you have rights you can speak out obviously with wisdom with manners and with a purpose and with a clear mission and goal Peace be upon you Tomorrow there is a Muslim united Muslim for Palestine really organized in Auckland Oskar Grand Plaza I think 14th and Broadway I'm thinking of taking my family and a bunch of other families and some of them are already boycotting me families they say don't go to worst it's true but as you said 9-Eleven wipes is the same thing so I'm actually concerned about my children actually my daughter is quite a radical activist in United San Francisco State Alhamdulillah that she is having profiled and all that if you know what is the Jewish profiling like canary mission profiled but anyway that's under control she went for a program to learn do's and don'ts when you go to a rally as you said we have to have our humility without offending at the same time I recognize my rights at the same time I can sound nasty because my voice is already cranky so I'm saying people taking it wrong and I see this on my facebook page some of my employees body language has completely changed they are having the Israeli flag on their picture they update these things and I just send some information and then he's sending the sad picture reply is not okay I'm just sad and I wish I had the sad but I feel sorry for the 1.2 billion Muslims you know imagine you have to say I call you I look after you I don't want to involve anymore because I'm not going to waste my precious time trying to rationalize with this kind of not misunderstanding it's been arrogantly misunderstood you know so if you could advise I can share with my family and this bunch of other families tomorrow anticipating to participate in Auckland do's and don'ts in the sense of how much they are profiling us how it has gone bad to worse and so forth and so on so I'm not afraid I don't care because I lived my life even almost I'm surviving today because last year I had stage 5 cancer but I'm concerned about my future children you know their generation what are the challenges that they will be facing down the line I have ready to go anywhere today I already went to Allah and I said Allah take me if you can't heal me but Alhamdulillah I mean I got healed 100% So my rule of thumb in general whether it's protest or whatever I say is I always tell people anything that I say in private or public I know that I can defend it so that's just my rule of thumb I'll never say something that I cannot defend so that's put that out there the second I think maybe as you can speak to this because he's one of the Irvine 11 which were the one of the people that stood up against the ambassador Oren and I think all of them all prospered in their careers every one of them was threatened that they will no longer become a doctor you won't get into this medical school you won't get into this law school the person that had a mission or whatever they wanted to do got into the school that they wanted to get into they even excelled in their career whenever they wanted to and Alhamdulillah they're living very happy right now so I do think there is kind of this facade a little bit that they want to scare us the third I would say is I encourage people to go to protest and the reason why I encourage it is not so much to go out and just scream but to go out and see the different people that are there advocating for you to see the black Muslims to see the non-Muslims to see your Jewish brothers and sisters to see the indigenous people of this land people that suffered in here the Latino, the Hispanics everyone who is pretty much what they coined the global south or people who are not you know who are the supremacists they understand what the Palestinians are going through and I think in moments like these you do need that cohesiveness and the kind of the spiritual or the mental just leaning on one another to see that there is other people advocating for Palestinian rights I think that really does help especially in these moments when things are just really bad Alhamdulillah I encourage others to go we went last weekend my wife is pregnant due in a couple weeks and I have a three year old daughter we went to the protest in San Francisco we took the BART we went to the protest in San Jose and yeah some people I told were like oh why would you there's a lot of levels to the question that you asked it's a deep question you know one level is how much are we willing to sacrifice Alhamdulillah many of us not everybody there are homeless people here, there are people who are dealing with all kinds of difficult challenges but many of us living in the Bay Area and many of the Muslims in this area have from a material point of view a very comfortable life and everyone likes comfort but the you can't read hardly a page in the Quran of Allah swt talking about jihad and mentioning struggling in his cause it's very difficult to read the Quran without coming across those concepts and I think it's important that we reflect a little bit about what are we willing to sacrifice for and how much are we willing to sacrifice and I'm not saying like I said I'm not everyone has different levels I think I was mentioning to Sidi Shaytayat earlier wherever we are we want to go higher whatever we're willing to sacrifice now we want to push ourselves to do a little bit more in all aspects in our Aibada, in our learning of his deen and everything and in many ways the Sahaba sort of exemplified that for us because they are definitely trying to intimidate absolutely which is part of the reason why I do not share these links about I know Canary Mission is a horrible organization and these other people because their goal is to intimidate and they want to intimidate because it's effective right and so I think I'll speak for myself, I refuse to be intimidated and I think we should refuse to let our children feel intimidated and we have to stand up to that and we have to be able to say just because you say the word anti-Semitic does not make it anti-Semitic anti-Semitic has a real meaning to it it actually means something and it means genuine hatred for Jewish people and discrimination against them and that's absolutely has nothing to do with what we're doing right so just because they keep saying the word doesn't make it true and I think we should refuse to be intimidated we should use the resources that Allah gave us to stand up and the example that he gave so when I was in college I was involved in a protest against the Israeli ambassador we were arrested the university initially suspended us they actually disbanded the Muslim Student Union entirely like shut it down they banned me, I was the president of the union they banned me so that I couldn't be president so that I couldn't serve as an officer suspended me from the university very racist, horrible district attorney of Orange County filed misdemeanor charges against us a whole long story went to trial, got two misdemeanor convictions that was while I was trying to apply to medical school I went to medical school I interviewed at 15 different medical schools or 16 different medical schools and almost everywhere I go someone's asking me like so are you a terrorist basically like does this mean you're a terrorist because it says here that you were arrested for advocating for Palestine and Palestinians are terrorists and you were protesting for Palestine so you're probably a terrorist and those people are ignorant and I did my best to communicate what I did and why I did it and I absolutely stand behind what I did and that sacrifice is what? I got two misdemeanors and I had to talk to a few people what is that? People are literally sacrificing their lives people are literally dying so it's it's relative and I'm also I think not just a belief that I have but I think it's part of our religion to know that when you give up something up for the cause of Allah and you're sincere in that he always replaces it with something better always, every single time so if we're sincere in that intention and we do it with that intention, I have no doubt that any of the people listed on canary or tried to be intimidated in anything any other way, whatever harm comes to them in this dunya even in this dunya they will receive something better and what awaits them in the akhirah is much much much greater so that's part of their tactics to intimidate us that we know that there's something beyond this material world because if we didn't know that we might be intimidated but because we know that there is Allah there is a day of judgment, there is an akhirah then their strategies inshallah are meaningless thank you to kind of piggyback off that now that I feel like because public opinion has kind of shifted and people are calling for a ceasefire what are we calling for still because we know having witnessed this for 75 years that a ceasefire or what people in Gaza are just going to go back to their rubble homes now so what are we practically, politically in this moment calling for is it reasonable to say like and the siege is it reasonable to say and the occupation or are we just calling for a ceasefire I'm not reasonable but you know I know exactly what you mean I think what when it comes to advocating especially like kind of on the politics and what can we do I think the number one thing that we have to really understand and a lot of Israelis will admit this that without the U.S. aid Israel will not be able to maintain the occupation so as citizens or residents of this country it's our moral obligation to one, ask why are we funding an occupation with our own tax dollars, 3.8 billion dollars and now Biden wants to give another 14 billion and two, there's even if we give a maid there's also something called the Lehi Law which is coined after Senator Patrick Lehi who stated that any foreign aid that's given to any country should not be used to violate human rights so that definitely puts Israel like number one right and we've tried to pass a bill called the McCullum bill which was making sure that any Palestinian children that get arrested in the West Bank that none of that is used for none of that, none of those resources were used via U.S. aid and if they are that they're given a translator that their parents can go visit them in jail because right now they cannot because West Bank Palestinians are under a military law they're not under a Israeli civil law so I think those are actually like the practical ways to be quite honest, without the U.S. aid there is no way for the Israeli government to execute their occupation of the Palestinian people and they're very open about it and we're talking about weapons through the military industrial complex, we're talking about security systems through HP through organizations through companies like Microsoft and HP that provide the ability to scan faces so they can track the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank and so there's a lot of a lot of ways, I think the last one I shouldn't forget about shouldn't not forget about this one is BDS Boycott Divestment Sanctions and I think one of the most practical ways it's not just a product that you buy but also like you know your 401K are you invested in Lockheed Martin are you investing in Raytheon a lot of these 401Ks they go through funds so they're you know mixed so a lot of companies are kind of mixed up have that conscious to be like I'm not going to invest in this company you know I'm not going to work there or I'm not going to you know buy this index one even though it may be more lucrative you know the returns might be 10% versus investing in a hell of a fund that's like you know 34% I know because you know I work at a tech company so they don't look so doesn't look good when it's like you're like I'm making 3% year over year and this guy is making like 15% because they're invested in Lockheed and all these other companies right but that's the conscious decision that you need to make and you may feel it's not going to make a difference but it really does make a difference because when you sit down with your children and you tell them I did not invest in these companies and you know Muslim families we have like 4 kids you know then when your kids become trouble you know become engineers doctors or you know whatever they're also not going to do that and then they're going to have kids they're going to have friends they're going to you know convey that to them so it's a long road ahead but it really starts with you making that first conscious decision we have some questions online that I'll get to right now so I'm going to combine these questions together it's from a student who goes to a public school I'd like to hear your perspective on how to navigate pushing the administration to speak about issues revolving around doxing and harassment of Muslim students surrounding the Palestine issue and then also from a parent who has a child in a public school our school district informed schools to talk about the subject during the classes if teachers feel necessary what should we tell students to say if students are asked to share their opinions I don't know too much about this other than to remind everyone that doxing is obviously a form of bullying and cyberbullying and care has made that one of its priorities to address that especially affecting Muslim students and so I would I don't know too much about it but I know that we have folks at the care San Francisco Bay Area office and the care Sacramento office and all over California that are dedicated to addressing these issues of bullying for any Muslim student for any reason but including if they're being bullied over their perspectives or their opinions in regards to Palestine so and the parents should be empowered also to speak up on these issues that's part of the whole reason about educating and speaking out because it's easier to be bullied and to be silent when we're not familiar with what's out there and the different ways we can address it there are talking points that it's important to have down for students and for those of you that were on the session that was being conducted in the other room I don't think it was live stream but perhaps if there's a way we can post that list somewhere on the MCC website it's like a document that one can download and just use for talking points so 5, 10 different talking points about what you should say how you should respond to certain type of comments that are very based in facts and history that will be very useful when it comes to conversations at the school and network for those that are watching online in addition to those that are here in person in the video description of today's event on the live stream we'll have it in the description both the template that you could use from City of Osama that you could use to talk to your employer to send to your HR and then for the parents as well to share with your youth the talking points that we've shared with the teenagers in the conference room today there's a Care California has a tool kit for discussing Palestine in the workplace in the school that will be in the description as well perfect yeah it's almost okay we can wrap up in Chela just a reminder also the kids are still inside the City of Mahdi but we do have a pizza and snacks in the banquet hall for everybody after we finish the both sessions beautiful so yeah good luck again everybody for coming today and it's an ongoing discussion especially the practical aspect of how to do it it's something you got to keep that's what communities for that's one of the you know roles of communities that we you know talk to each other about it we have different perspectives we have different situations and we kind of figure out how to do it but the most important thing is that we're intentional about it and that we you know put our sincere effort to doing something so I just want to head to brother Saman to see some effort for coming really appreciate it and I think she's and this was some that in the name of Allah I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a the Allah. We turn to you, Ya Allah. We beseech you by your mercy, Ya Allah. We beseech you by your Rahman, by your Lotf, Ya Allah. We ask, Ya Allah, that you completely, completely, give assistance to our brothers and sisters and the children in Palestine, Ya Rabb Al Alameen. Compass them in your mercy, Ya Rahman, Ya Hafid, Ya Hafid. Protect all of them, Ya Allah. Protect all of them. Protect all of those whose homes are being destroyed. Protect all of those whose lives are being targeted, Ya Rabb Al Alameen. Protect all of those who are just standing there with just living their life and then they are being targeted and they're being harmed and that they're being killed, Ya Rabb Al Alameen. We ask that you restore your special protection around Gaza and around Palestine and around the West Bank, Ya Rabb Al Alameen. We ask that you treat the people of Palestine whom your messenger, Ya Allah, has said our special people, Ya Allah, treat them with the best of protections, Ya Allah, and the best of Rahmah, Ya Allah. Ya Allah, for all of those who have passed away, Ya Allah. All of those who have passed away, Ya Al-Rahman, Ya Allah amongst the Mu'minin, Ya Allah. Elevate them to the highest station of Shuhada, Ya Rabb Al Alameen. Give them the highest of stations of Jannah with your Nabi, Ya Allah, there are so many, Ya Allah, who have lost their children, who have lost their parents or who have lost their siblings or their cousins or their aunts or their uncles, Ya Allah, and they're going through their lives, Ya Allah having Sahuaqul in you and having Sabir, Ya Allah. But, who are extremely, extremely sat in by the difficulties, Ya Rabb, Ya Rabb. We beseech you for your help, Ya Allah, help all of those, Ya Allah, who are struggling, Ya Allah help, all of those who are struggling, Ya Allah help, all of those who are struggling, Ya Allah. Ya Allah, all the children that are getting harmed who no longer have their parents to take care of them, Ya Allah. We ask that you take care of them, Ya Allah. Ya Allah, all of those parents who have lost their children, Ya Allah, and who are struggling immensely, Ya Rabbil Alamin, Ya Allah, with this immense, immense, immense tribulation, Ya Allah, we ask that you give them strength and that you give them sabr and that you give them khimma, Ya Allah, we ask that you end this evil occupation, Ya Rabbil Alamin, this satanic occupation that has been taking place for so long against our brothers and sisters. We ask that you completely remove the occupiers and that you destroy every single one of their intentions to harm innocent Muslims, Ya Rabbil Alamin, Ya Qahari, Ya Qahari, Ya Qahari, Ya Allah, we beseech you for your help and for your aid, Ya Allah, we have you, we have no one else to turn to except you, we express our brokenness before you, Ya Allah, we are weak, we have no ability but we have your ability, Ya Allah, we have no strength on our own but we have your strength, Ya Allah, we have no power but we have your power, Ya Rabb, Ya Rabb, we ask that you help our brothers and sisters, Ya Allah, make their feet firm, point and then pour sabr into their hearts, Ya Rabbil Alamin, and give them victory over these oppressors, Ya Allah, and allow these oppressors to leave them, Ya Rabbil Alamin, Ya Allah, and return Palestine to the Palestinians, Ya A'raham Al Rahmeen, we ask for your immense assistance in these difficult times, Ya Allah, for all of those Muslims around the world who are feeling so much trouble over this, Ya Allah, give them inspiration and understanding to turn to you and to beseech you, Ya Allah, you are the one who can help in this situation, Ya Allah, whatever we do, whatever we say only comes after your help, Ya Allah, so give us strength and give us the ability to turn to you, Ya A'raham Al Rahmeen, in dua and in dhikr and in Salat and in prayer, Ya A'rabil Alamin, Ya Allah, and whatever other actions that we can take, Ya A'rabil Alamin, Ya Allah, give us all courage and understanding, protect the Muslim generality around the world, Ya Allah, protect the Muslims in this country, Ya A'rabil Alamin, Ya Allah, protect them from any form of harm, Ya A'raham Al Rahmeen, Ya Hafid, Ya Hafid, Ya Hafid, we ask you, Ya Allah, for your comprehensive goodness and your comprehensive guidance as we try to process all of these things, Ya Allah, and we ask that you lift the seas, Ya A'razak, Ya Allah, provide them water, Ya Allah, provide them water, Ya Allah, provide them water, Ya Allah, they don't even have enough water, Ya Allah, to drink or to wash or to do any of their basic acts, Ya Allah, and we are standstill living in luxury and we don't even realize our blessings many times, Ya Allah, provide all of our Palestinian brothers and sisters with their necessities and much more, Ya Allah, give them water and give them food, Ya Allah, and give them electricity and give them homes, Ya Allah, and give them help, Ya Allah, they have been living under difficulty and tribulation for decades, Ya Allah, we ask for your mercy, Ya Allah, you have said that your help is near, we ask that you show them your help and that you show them your aid and that you assist them and give them high, high, high, high ranks for all of the suffer that they have endured, Ya A'rab Al A'rameen, we ask you, Ya Allah, that you allow us to be people of shukr and that you allow us to be people of worship and people of service towards you, Ya Allah, and that you allow us to spend our life, Ya A'rab Al A'rameen, in the best ways to try and serve your Ummah, as so many Muslims around the world have so much less than we do and they are spending their life in service of you in whatever way they are able to, we ask that you allow us to use our blessings and our ability and our voices and our capabilities and whatever blessings we have been given, Ya Allah, in service of you and in the service of the Ummah of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ, we ask that you give the Ummah of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ victory, Ya Allah, Allahumma, Fardh Umma di Sayyidina Muhammad, in Sallalem, Allahumma, Arhum Umma di Sayyidina Muhammad, in Sallalem, Ya Allah, give mercy and give relief to this Ummah all around the world and give this Ummah victory. Like you promised, you're blessed messenger, Sallalem, Allah give this one victory around the world, Ya Rabbil Alameen. We ask for your comprehensive goodness that the Prophet ﷺ asked for and we ask you for protection from everything evil that he asked protection from. Wassalamu ala wa sallam, barakah ala khayri khalqai, Sayyidina Muhammadin wa la alihi wa sahbihi wa salim. Wa alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. And we'll do Al-Fatiha collectively for all those souls who have passed away al-Fatiha.