 Hello, I'm Jodi Evans and I'm one of the co-founders of Code Pink. It's a pleasure to be with you today on this episode, false media narratives on Palestine disarming the disinformation. We cut through the smoke screen of misleading propaganda surrounding Palestine. With critical insights and on-the-ground perspectives, we challenge the mainstream media narratives from the bustling streets of Gaza to the corridors of power in Washington D.C. We're on a mission to amplify the voices of those who are tirelessly working to end U.S.-led wars all over the world and to build a peace economy. Today's episode is a call to look beyond the headlines and uncover the truth behind the fog of war. Welcome to our show. Before we begin, come with me to Chicago, where our guest today, Code Pink's co-director Danika Kedevich, made headlines by boldly disrupting President Biden during his remarks at the UAW Union. Her demand? An immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Watch with me. President Biden! Was that incredibly powerful? Let me tell you, that took a lot of courage. I know I've been there. When you see people loving someone and about to hate your message, that takes enormous amount of courage and she did it unshaking. We all need that courage right now to speak up while those in power are lying and they're trying to force us to think the way they want us to. So that's why you're here today. You know, Code Pink was president in Chicago to confront Biden for his support of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. We need to be that wherever there is power to bring the message of ceasefire. Over the past month, Gaza has endured relentless bombings resulting in the deaths of over 10,000 people, at least half of them children, also leaving 25,000 wounded while bombing hospitals. They've been cutting off electricity, water and food, which has further escalated this humanitarian crisis. And it couldn't be more clear how misinformation is fueling the violence and allowing this war to continue. And before we kind of move in, I want to share something that the co-founder of Code Pink, Medea Benjamin wrote this week, because it really is a stark view of how, and I keep saying this every day, how our hearts and minds are weaponized for war, how the beauty of us is grabbed and used for violence. So while Palestinian officials have identified over 8,000 people killed in Gaza, which we watched President Biden deny, Israel officials has so far only identified 933 of the 1,400 people they say were killed in the Palestinian attack on October 7th. The Haaretz newspaper in Israel has a webpage with photos, names, ages and some personal details of the people killed who have been identified. At the prompting of the Israeli military, many Western politicians and media have painted the Palestinian attack as a mass of civilians. So it may come as a surprise to see that at least 361 of the 933 dead so far identified were in fact soldiers, police and security officers. But Hamas, Islamic Tehada and other Palestinian fighters also killed hundreds of civilians on October 7th, as surely as Israel's airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians in Gaza. And some of the prisoners they took back to Gaza were also soldiers and included civilians. Haaretz's records also raise another question about the story that has been widely repeated by Western media and politicians, again, including President Biden, which is that Israeli soldiers found 40 dead babies who had been decapitated by Hamas. But in Haaretz, there are seven children below the age of 10 among the 572 civilian dead identified in Haaretz. The oldest, sorry, they're under 10 and the youngest was four, not a baby. So I just want everybody to feel into the news that they've been fed and what I just read you. And just think about how information weaponizes fear and hate and then this murderous, you know, some rational people thinking that it's okay to murder babies, murder children. So there couldn't be a more vivid description of what this week has been about. So we have a treat today because you're going to get to meet the co-director of Code Pink, Danika Katowicz. She's graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor's degree in political science. And she's been working towards ending US participation in the war in Yemen and has also been building the Peace Collective at Code Pink, our youth cohort that focuses on anti-imperialist education and divestment. She's an amazing campaigner and we're so lucky to have her as the leadership at Code Pink. And then Noor is our Code Pink's Palestine in Iran campaigner, also a graduate of DePaul University, studied international studies and has been advocating for Palestinian liberation for over five years organizing within her university. So I want to start by just letting everybody know that this isn't a new issue for Code Pink. We've been working to end the occupation of Palestine since we began. We were returning from our first trip to Iraq after the US occupied it and the women for peace in Palestine asked us to join a march they had at the border and they were Palestinian Israeli women and so we joined them and we were all tear-gassed. It was quite violent and horrible and horrific. And so that was at the very beginning of Code Pink. When the BDS movement started we joined and led two very successful campaigns, one against Ahava and Soda Stream. Both were being the products developed in occupied territories but calling it Israel and they have since moved out of the occupied territories. We've engaged in the halls of Congress for 20 years just as Medea and the team did this week with 25 people holding up their bloody hands and calling for a ceasefire. But we started during Operation Cast Lead at the end of 2008 and early 2009. This was during a lame duck period between Bush and Obama where Netanyahu began his intense bombing campaigns on Gaza and got away with them. In 2009 we led eight trips into Gaza bringing almost a thousand people followed by organizing the Gaza Freedom March which was 1,400 people from 40 countries. Most of them were shut out by Egypt going to Gaza but we succeeded in getting about 100 in with two buses and truckloads of humanitarian aid and every year since Code Pink activists have been part of the Gaza flotilla including the first year when some were killed on the first boat that was fired on by the Israeli IDF and people died. Hundreds of international laws have been broken, hundreds of Palestinians killed with no global outrage or calls for justice and the occupation of Palestine must end for peace. So I want to turn to Nora or Danika whichever wants to start to give us a little history of the occupation which has been denied to most people that read mainstream media. Yeah I think one piece of misinformation people might be hearing that I think is it's important to understand the greater history of the occupation of Palestine to to refute it is people will tell you I mean I had this interaction a lot on campus when I was doing Palestine organizing is people would say to me that Palestine was never a country and forget that people born in Palestine before 1948 had Palestine on their passports had Palestine on their birth certificates any form of like documentation of their life said Palestine on it so forget that part or just map saying Palestine and forget the fact that for hundreds of years Palestine was subject to colonization and continues to be people don't just belong to a place because there is a formal nation state called whatever their country's name is people belong to a place and call it home because they have lived there their entire lives their families their parents have lived them they're their entire lives their grandparents live their their entire lives they love the land their stewards of the land they farm there they get their food there it's a deeper connection than whatever a nation a modern-day nation state can represent um and using that argument to support the ethnic cleansing project of Palestinians has been you know something very disgusting to watch so just to get a little bit into you know the history of the the occupation a lot of people will say it started in 1967 when Israel took parts of Egypt parts of Syria the West Bank and Gaza um but that's not when it started um in 1948 which is called the Nakba or the catastrophe um about 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their land hundreds of I think 500 villages were burned to the ground um and and before this you know Jewish people did live in in historic Palestine I think there's a good um context for this if you all know Bella and Gigi Hadid their their father Muhammadah Hadid was born a few months before the Nakba happened in 1948 and he actually had a Jewish family living near him who fled anti-Semitism in Poland and moved to Palestine and you know they lived amongst each other um until the British with the uh the British gave sort of the green light for the Zionist project known as modern-day Israel um where Zionist militias uh overtook Palestinian villages like I said slaughtered thousands of people and pushed a bunch of Palestinians thousands of Palestinians created the largest refugee population in the world um off their own land into refugee camps in their own land uh some into the West Bank some into Gaza and some into the surrounding Arab nations thank you um so maybe you could tell um I I also you know wanted to check in on the creation of Israel and was a Zionist project which is different than being something rooted in the Jewish religion it was actually a project of Zionists and you know what do we know about what was intended in the founding are there you know voices that had a plan um yeah for sure and I think one thing to note is that the Zionist project was to establish a Jewish majority uh nation state so in order to do this there's been explicit documentation of doing population control on non-Jewish people that live there and that's you know exactly why you're seeing what's happening in Gaza happen right now and it's exactly why um Palestinian citizens of Israel are effectively legally second-class citizens that don't have the same rights as Jewish Israelis um and so it's always been um a core of the Zionist project that they needed to maintain a Jewish majority um so any sort of population control there's been you know sterilization projects of of women um so that they cannot have children um there's been obviously um an an increase encroachment on Palestinian land in the West Bank um and I see Neuerson so I don't know if she wants to add anything here yeah sorry um sorry it's a bit dark right now but I just wanted to add that when the Zionist project um that manifested into the state of Israel was actually being created um the founder of modern Zionism Theodore Herzl actually um it's very well documented mentioned in all of his works that he was weaponizing anti-Semitism and racism in order to make the case uh for settling the Jewish state in Palestine so not only did he play on the anti-Semitism of world leaders at the time especially the British Arthur Balfour who actually uh made the Balfour Declaration which is one paragraph that gave a Zionist the green light to fully colonize Palestine in the violent way that they did he was actually a huge anti-Semite um you can just from documentation in British Parliament he says very crazy things which is why um he was so eager to establish a state that Jewish people can go to uh not only that but he Theodore Herzl was playing on racism against Arabs in order to make the case to settle in Palestine he actually said that Israel would be like a vanguard like sort of a barrier against barbaric Asia like into Europe so like the way that Palestine is it's like next to Europe at the end of like the Middle East you know next to Africa so they were saying like this is a perfect position to like protect Europe from the barbarians that live here so the founding all together was extremely racist and if we can like kind of connect that to the United States where we see such a racist foundation here we can see those problems still manifesting like hundreds of years later so who's to say that 75 years after the occupation like somehow this racist foundation has like now disappeared clearly it's very deeply embedded into the founding of the country itself and will manifest um into the way that country operates from 1948 until today in all I had one quote from uh David Ben-Gurion who the airport in Tel Aviv is named after um he literally said we must expel Arabs and take their places thank you um I I also wanted to play a couple of um recent you know to speak to the um the racism for sure um two clips just to see you're talking about the past but to look at what's present we're in a religious war here I am with Israel do whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourself level the place so um it's not just the past it's the present that we're we're dealing with and um we see that the um the racists also in the United States um have been weaponized with this information maybe one of you could talk about the napka um like what what was that and um uh how do people who live in Palestine you kind of spoke to it Danica but is there um maybe nor if you can you know share what that is for you and and growing up and how you know you your life relates to that definitely um so I actually consider myself to be very lucky uh the village that I'm from both my parents are from there and it's in the west bank um and it hasn't been taken over uh necessarily I mean of course they still live under occupation uh in my village and there's actually like two settlements right next to my village which if you just know the nature of settlements they just encroach closer and closer and closer until they eventually uh completely take over whatever village they're next to but to just talk about the neck but in a greater sense I mean a lot of my friends are from places that they will never be able to visit or um their parents will never be able to visit they they could have been born there and right we know that Palestinians don't have a right to return so they can't return to their lands um I can give you a good example of this actually um there is this one village um it's near the border of Lebanon it's called Ikretz it was this like beautiful village where people like farmed like olive trees figs the land there is very fertile and it's such just amazing use of the land is to just farm uh there and Ikretz was taken over during the Nakaba um and it was turned into the largest military base in Israel and it was actually all the um farmland there was completely uprooted and destroyed and they planted pine trees uh which aren't native to Palestine and they actually erode the soil there so this act of settler colonialism it's not just like an attack on the people but it's also an attack on the land and it proves how you know removing the indigenous people from a land will destroy it's not it's not even good for the environment it just it will destroy the land because settlers you know are settlers they don't have um that general that generational knowledge and relationship to a land that they would be able to take care of it um that way and actually the people of Ikretz have um resisted in many ways uh nonviolent resistance you know they camped out in Ikretz you know trying to get their land back and the Israeli government actually has a document that says people in Ikretz have a right to return they can actually return to their land but that documentation within the own like Zionist government is not being honored so this document actually exists within the Israeli government yet it's not being honored so you know the Nekba is not something that started and ended in 1948 like Danica mentioned 67 when other lands were taken um but it's actually something that's ongoing when people don't have the right to return the Nekba is still living right when Palestinians in the West Bank are still living under occupation the Nekba is still alive and well right if Palestinians are constantly under threat of you know their neighbors and settlements neighbors um taking over their land the Nekba is still alive and well um and when Palestinians you know can just be killed in the streets or detained for no reason other than being a Palestinian man or you know looking a little suspicious or no reason at all you know that's the Nekba so when we talk about the Nekba it's important that we don't talk about it like it's something that happened in the past kind of like what Jodi was saying about the racism it's something that is still alive and ongoing and we see it right now when we see um almost like 10 000 Palestinians being murdered in less than a month that's that's the Nekba right there 15 000 Palestinians were murdered in 1948 so when we're approaching that number what else can we call it but the Nekba thank you um so let's you know keep talking about the misinformation because that is what this week is about and I you know as you're listening to these two women just thinking about you know how your relationship to the information has been so um I want to start first by asking you know Danika you first and then you nor what is the misinformation around this moment that most infuriates you where you just think my head's gonna explode it is hard to choose it is really hard to choose I've I've felt a combination of insane and um just had a loss for words over the last few weeks but one that came to mind instantly especially with the last two days Israel committing massacres repeatedly on a refugee camp in Gaza um the there's a talking point regurgitated by Zionists about Hamas using human shields um they say this whenever Israel attacks a hospital a church anytime Israel kills civilians in Gaza um which has been non-stop over the last three weeks they say that Hamas is using human shields um they said this during the great march of return they they said they've been saying this for years and um it makes me feel crazy because they the the occupation has shoved two million people on a very very small plot of land um built a fence around it uh only has one exit controlled by the Israelis and the other ones controlled by the by Egypt but um only two exits uh Palestinians can't even leave for medical care um and they are saying that Hamas is using human shields so they're saying that Hamas has tunnels under these hospitals Hamas has um and one thing important is critically important to understand about Hamas is it's not just a military wing it is the elected government of Gaza so of course Hamas has government uh government buildings that do things like healthcare services social services and that sort of thing so any government building in Gaza is is technically Hamas so they use this and they're just saying Hamas is using human shields who are babies and incubators who are patients getting care from already getting attacked by Israeli bombardment in hospitals they these human shields are Muslims praying in mosques they are Christians praying in churches they are kids in schools so it's just every single Palestinian in Gaza is being called a human shield and therefore is collateral damage for whatever Israel wants to do in Gaza so I really encourage everyone to reject this idea of human shields the the only people pushing the human shields uh talking point is the Israeli military so that's that's one thing that's been making me a bit upset over the last few weeks thank you nor what's yours and you can share more than one I know there's a list I know like can I just pinpoint one I'm not sure but I think one thing that is really weaponized in order to like justify all of this is the idea that this is some sort of like religious war and that like the reason that Israel was attacked on October 7th was because it was an attack on Judaism not that it was um within the framework of settler colonialism and I think that is very important um it's true that the majority of people in Palestine are Muslim but that's not the that's not like the end albeit like there are Christians in Palestine there used to be Jews in Palestine um there's people who don't follow any religion in Palestine and Israel has declared war on all of these people so you know to say that this is some sort of like religious issue is completely false because you know some of these people being murdered are children who don't even have any concept or awareness probably of what religion is like who who's to say that you know the tens of probably over a hundred uh children under one year old are are assigned to some sort of religion that's kind of like that kind of doesn't even make sense um so this is not just also about like what's happening right now I think that's something that's also getting to me like people keep talking about October 7th you know since October 7th since whatever it's not since October 7th it's since 1948 it's since the Sijan Raza it's this isn't something that just started happening right now and I think by you know playing um on the religious card you know allows for like the fuel of um you know saying that this is anti-Semitism and framing this as a religious war and then also by not acknowledging you know the history that happened before October 7th it makes it a lot easier to peddle that lie because people aren't seeing this in the full context of what's been going on for 75 years um and I think if people had that knowledge they would probably be able to navigate the media a little bit better and they would probably be able to put this in like a lot better context and it would definitely end with them having much more sympathy for Palestinians and you know much greater understanding of the suffering that they have um been subjected to by Israel for the past 75 years uh and I think that you know everybody would just have a much better understanding if they had those contexts there's a lot more but I'll I'll I'll say that so um one of the big issues I think in the misinformation uh circles around do Palestinians and Gaza have a right to defend themselves um and that whole contortion of that can you talk about that yeah if we're talking like widely accepted um just like humanitarian law yes Palestinians have the right to defend themselves I think what we're seeing right now is the extent that Palestinians are even able to defend themselves I think if Palestinians really had like the ability to defend themselves probably like almost like 9 000 of them wouldn't be dead right now so I think like the short answer is yes Palestinians do have a right to defend themselves um but we kind of see what that looks like now and it doesn't it's not really much but yeah maybe you can speak to that no no no I think you should speak to that because I think that's one of the also disinformation pieces of first of all even calling it a war because it's not a war because wars are between two armies and people not understanding an occupation you know what an occupier is and what an occupied is and um and maybe just the part about the the disinformation that is always trying to get people to see this as two equals um if you could speak to that yeah so what is going on right now is not a war it's a liberation movement um against a settler colonial occupier that has backed Palestinians into a corner for 75 years deprive them of their dignity deprive them of their freedom of movement deprive them of their access to water deprive them of their uh opportunity to have a life that they lead that a life that is taken into their own hands has subjected subjected them to violence you know has demolished their homes murdered their families think about a Palestinian growing up in Gaza who has lived through you know at least a few wars like just just to give like on the shorter end of the example this person who grew up in Gaza was born in Gaza maybe they've had a family member who was murdered maybe they've had um you know somebody they know or themselves house being demolished by israel are being air-striked or they weren't able to see their friends growing up because it was dangerous or it was at a time where Israel was bombarding Gaza like try to put yourself in that mindset and think about what that child would be conditioned to think about Israel growing up we cannot reasonably expect that these people to have some sort of positive uh outlook on their occupier because that's not what this is this you know it's a it's an occupier and an occupied people and that is not the same as two sovereign countries at war because Gaza even if Hamas is in control is not even sovereign like clearly Israel can cut off the water they cannot allow food they can destroy the and any electricity and internet and they can control who goes in and out tell me how that's a sovereign country what other sovereign country in the world has this amount of restrictions placed on them by another entity we would never call that sovereign country we would call that a colony or like a country or a land under occupation and when people are occupied they're going to have um a desire to resist to resist the violence that has been um sub like that they've been subjected to for 75 years and we can't expect people to allow themselves to accept this life like livelihood of being a victim and to just like be okay with that that's just just not even reasonable like if we just think about how people naturally are if somebody is discriminant like you're facing discrimination you're never just going to be like okay like but I shouldn't you know I should just accept this that's just it's not how people work thank you um Danica do you have anything to add there um not much I think nobody did a really good job and I people will hear you know um pundits or political elite in the US talking about how um they would imply that they would do things differently than people in Gaza are doing them but not one of them has lived under occupation like no one's talking about not one of them has grown up their entire life in Gaza and never been able to leave um not one of them have has experienced this degree of dignity and human dignity being stripped from them and so they really can't talk about what they would do they really can't um because sometimes like people have throughout history risked their lives for dignity um sometimes we want dignity more than we want to be alive and so they really don't they really don't know what they would do and I think if you hear someone saying that you could just tell them you live in the United States you you do not live under a military occupation well I mean we also saw this you know a few years ago with Black Lives Matter when everybody decided that how young Black kids were um protesting didn't fit their ideal of what that should look like um and it's the same thing if you've been um in a way you know your life has been not valued and you've been dehumanized who who can judge you for what that feels like and how you're going to respond to it um so yes well said I you know I want to say something else to that moment of like how would you react and just say you know at least for me growing up it's like how would I have been under slavery who would I have been um when genocide was happening how would I have been in Germany um during the Holocaust and for me it feels right now that we are watching slavery because that is exactly what it's looking like it's kind of you these are the slaves are inside the you know the prison and they you know tried to do the break and the same stories you hear that happen to slaves in in in the south of the United States for some reason I just like all those stories it's exactly like this that level of objectious violence of murder of like just get rid of everyone and frighten everyone else so they never think of doing it again and a genocide and you know in a way fascism so here we are and I just you know keep asking people like here's your chance to show how you would have responded then and the most important thing is that you cannot be silent and you cannot look at it and rationalize it because that's what happened in slavery that's what happened with the genocide and that's what happened with the Holocaust so as you're reflecting on this information it's like what how how are you being visible in this moment knowing this information from these two courageous women um so how has Israel imposed collective punishment on Gaza which is illegal under international law well I think that the genocide happening right now is the most in-your-face example of collective punishment uh that Israel has imposed on Gaza when you indiscriminately bomb hospital schools residential buildings when you completely level neighborhoods and you kill children men women the elderly without a second thought I think that in itself is probably the highest form of collective punishment but I would argue that dozens kind of live under a sort of collective punishment in their day-to-day life when their water is being controlled when their imports and exports are being controlled when their movement is being controlled because Israel feels threatened by uh the power in that area that is collective punishment I think that is the textbook definition of collective punishment actually Thank you and some other information that we see that's triggering is that this is being reported as Israel's 9-11 how do you respond to that? Danica? Yeah I mean I think it's it's very clear if you know you're familiar with the propaganda that came about after actual 9-11 and it's being used for the same purpose because it worked back then um they said you know we are under attack here's who's doing it here's a list of people who are doing it they have to be killed no matter what the cost because they are only going to attack us again and so Israel's just using the exact same playbook playbook that the Bush administration used after 9-11 to justify the killing of as many civilians as it takes for them to feel like their political goals were accomplished um so they know okay if we use the 9-11 rhetoric it worked back then on a lot of people but you know hopefully we have learned our lesson and hopefully we as the people are able to call that misinformation out uh and we're able to you know a little course correct a little bit and be a bit smarter this time um so I you know I've been hearing some things including from an IDF officer and this question's out there um by many people so I um I'm not I'm asking a question not as disinformation but one that is being asked by people in Israel and that is the same as the questions around 9-11 that we later learned that the president of the United States knew that there were um pilots being trained they knew uh the FBI had warned them about you know what was going to happen and and some the guy who warned was like fired so it wasn't this information was available and not acted on and so here we are again where IDF officers are saying I don't understand what happened that how long it takes a helicopter to get somewhere um that this doesn't make sense also has a little bit of the same shadowiness of 9-11 and then that we're not that there's no lesson learned um by Israel that the lesson they decided to learn was that they could be violent and just to say that the war on terror has killed 4.5 to 6 million people with no accountability so Netanyahu can look at that and go you know it might you know people might think it's wrong but hell they got away with it and that's you know 6 million people um nobody can't nobody seems to care again also racist um that we saw with the beginning of the Ukraine war where everybody had sat by during the United States bombing a sovereign country and nobody said a word um so I just wanted to bring up those 9-11 pieces at the same time how um can this audience avoid misinformation on Palestine um I think there's a few things that you can do I would say that um even you know mainstream sources that have been reputable have been uh very unreliable on this issue like CNN is the outlet that started the false narrative about Hamas beheading babies that they later retracted but kept their original comments up online um so this story could be reproduced over and over again and Nurini and I even saw it being reproduced in our Chicago city council meetings um weeks I think a week and a half after CNN made the initial retraction um so don't share something online without fact checking checking it even if it's like reputable see if there are other people posting about this is it only CNN is it only BBC and CNN who else has reported on it um look for the sources that the outlets are citing if they are citing something and they said it came from the IDF maybe it's not so reliable um they bombed the hospital and said that they didn't do it um so the IDF is not a reliable source I would say um and then always ask the question of like what what do you think the agenda is of this reporting is it supposed to evoke emotion in you who benefits from this story being true um and on whose behalf are your emotions being evoked for um and just sort of be careful about stories like that in the first place um and then I'll pass it to Nguyen maybe you could share some good outlets to follow for Palestine too yeah I'd say like a general rule I think for news um just in general is to like listen to the side of the people who are being oppressed not the people who are doing the oppressed oppressive not the people who are doing the bombing and funding the bombing um and there is a lot of uh people in Gaza on the ground that will show you firsthand what's going on I will say like you need a strong stomach to watch it but um you can follow I on Palestine on Instagram I think it's I period on period Palestine and then there's Mataz Aziza on Instagram as well um and then you can also just check out the electronic in Zifada and El Jazeera those are all um you know they do accurate reporting on what's happening in Palestine and then you know Janika how as a feminist and progressive leader do you find your support in Palestine like can if someone's a feminist and a progressive like how is that necessarily mean that you support Palestine yeah of course and I will say people who have argued with me about this are saying they say things about Hamas and they say things about Arab people generally and Muslims that are they say things like culturally like these cultures don't support women I will say that is ignorant and mostly rooted in Islamophobia so check yourself there but also I support Palestine as a feminist because the Israeli occupation and the Zionist project is the greatest purveyor of violence against Palestinian women in the world um occupation is in feminist blockading Gaza is in feminist carpet bombing carpet bombing Gaza isn't feminist um you know I I think one thing that's stuck with me is like the feeling of I'm not I'm not a mother I don't have any children but when I think about like the possibility of not being able to like protect my child of not being able to shield their eyes from seeing their siblings you know under rubble or their father being killed because it's not just about like women in Palestine it's about everyone that women love it's about their husbands it's about their sons it's about their daughters um their sisters and so um that's why I'm a feminist and I support Palestine because um occupation isn't feminist there's no there's no feminist argument for supporting Israel nor do you want to add anything to that yeah um just like maybe share something like a bit more personal um like Danica was saying occupation right isn't feminist any form of oppression is you know inherently going to affect the women that live there as well and if you care about women then you should care about women that are living under occupation in Palestine um but my sister's um husband his close friend his family is in Gaza right now and his um like the mother and the family she had she gave birth on October 6th and so just like think about like what it would like what that even means like she cannot get the necessary care that she needs after giving birth the baby itself is not going to get the care it needs and is she the stress that she's under like she cannot properly care for her child like what Danica was saying um and then also this something that uh Israel does in the West Bank is they will impose like like this is not just about Reza like also just a side note the occupation is happening all over Palestine like uh settler colonialism isn't just in Reza it's in the West Bank uh it's everywhere in Palestine so what they they do this thing uh where they impose a curfew and um you know so you can't leave after a certain time of night and the consequences of leaving are literally being killed like by the IOF it's not like oh like you just can't leave you'll get a ticket like you literally cannot leave or you will die um when my mom lived in the West Bank uh her this was when she was younger and her younger brother was young that he needed like a baby formula like that's that's what he could eat right and there was nothing they had none in their house and my mom told me the story of my grandma having to sneak around to go going through houses and like just just to get some baby formula for my uncle and that is a woman right having to risk her life just to provide for her child just to get what her child needs she literally risks being murdered just so that she could um you know feed her kid in what world is that um is that feminist you know like if we are going to be feminist if we're going to stand up for women we need to include all women in that you know including women that live under occupation even if it's something that's difficult for us to grasp when we see oppression it's going to affect women and being a feminist means standing up against all forms of oppression because they will affect women thank you for that so the last question that i want to bring up from the audiences um how do we get to peace well i think the most immediate thing that we need to do of course is cease fire like we need to immediately stop israel from dropping bombs on reza because this is not peaceful this is not even close to peaceful it's extremely violent and brutal and it's inhumane um but larger than that we need an end to the occupation completely and we need to lift the siege on reza and you know like the total liberation of palestine like no palestinian living under occupation and we need um also the right of return for all palestinians who were exiled in 1948 in 1967 and anytime after that um we also need freedom for all of our political prisoners we have over 10 000 palestinian political prisoners being detained by israel that number actually um was 5000 before october 7th and then it doubled and those are people being taken again from the west bank where there's no hamas uh israel is still like attacking the west bank it's just not just about reza like i said um so cease fire immediately lift the siege on reza and end to the occupation right of return and freedom for all political prisoners anything you want to add danica yeah i i'll just echo what nor said peace can't be achieved without justice and what justice means for palestinians is everything we've said and i would say facts instead of um misinformation that weaponizes hearts and minds to be become themselves monsters because that's really what happens is that we lose our humanity and then decide that it's okay to murder people which it never is day in day out we've been hitting the halls of congress bringing the voice of the people straight to the doorstep of each member tirelessly fighting for them to call for a cease fire it's crazy it feels like it should be so simple i mean really killing innocent people there's there's no reason there is absolutely no reason to kill innocent people but we know throughout our 21 years at code pink there is a thick fog of war that penetrates congress so across the world we see the streets overflowing with people in kefias and palestinian flags calling for a cease fire calling for an end of the occupation that builds courage and that builds hope just like what we saw at freedom plaza and in the streets of dc on november 4th where over 300 000 people came together the biggest gathering in the us ever for the people of palestine so as we wrap up let's watch the powerful speech that was delivered by norm i'm happy to see you all coming today in support for palestinian liberation and i want to start with a text from my friend muhammad who is currently in northern aza he says we are living in horror here i'm sitting at home i expect that at any moment missiles from his rarely occupation aircrafts will fall on us i hear the sound of missiles coming from above our house one of the most prominent questions we need to ask ourselves right now is why can we hear these words and these firsthand accounts from leza yet the genocide still continues why do only 18 representatives and one senator support a cease fire and why is this genocide is simple palestinians have been stripped of their humanity to justify this genocide code pink as a feminist organization has seen for 20 years how arab and muslim women are used as political pawns by imperial leganda palestinian women are committed to life and dignity they are not human shields they are the vanguard for liberation strategically targeting palestinian resistance fighters what's the issue are being murdered simply for being come for a free and i would like you all to make that promise to him as well so please repeat after me thank you noor straight from your heart to ours that's the kind of passion the kind of truth that can fade out when the screen goes dark it sticks with you challenges you fire you up and with that kind of fire remember it's voices like noors like yours that are the light in the dark we know from history bad things happen when people are silent so it's up to all of us to be visible and disrupt the lies keep the conversation going keep the pressure on and above all keep standing up for peace stand up with for muhammad and for all the palestinian people and until next time be peace