 All right so here we are again with the Vicki series tonight we're going to be discussing Israel Palestine and what we can expect from the Biden administration, the new administration. President Trump made some changes, some that are would be very controversial, mostly I guess what he did was mainly controversial. So we're expecting that that perhaps President Biden will be different, perhaps not. With us tonight to discuss this issue is Musa Isak who's the president of the Burlington Bethlehem Arad sister city program. Musa was born in Palestine in a village called Abuud. He came to the United States and married the lovely Chris Peterson and was an engineer at IBM for a long time. In 1991 he, Chris and a number of us formed a sister city relationship between Burlington Bethlehem in Palestine and Arad in Israel because we really firmly believe that even though our national government might be adverse to particularly to some of those areas in the world we believe that as a sister city we should be friendly to those countries and we should basically have our own foreign policy in a lot of ways and kind of ignore as much as policy of the United States and instead have a citizen diplomacy with the cities of the world. So Musa is the president of that organization and maybe he can tell us a little bit about what he thinks the Biden administration is going to do also what the sister city has done over the years and so I'm going to turn it over to Musa. But remember that this is a discussion so if you have any questions please feel free to ask them and we hope we can answer them. Okay Musa take it away. All right just a little correction my sweetheart Chris here we met in Egypt we were going to the same we were going to the same college AUC the American University in Cairo she came from Georgetown to study Arabic I was studying engineering we met and the rest is history so that's where it came from. So your history included coming here to the United States right? Right she dragged me over and I loved it you know yes so and we ended up in Burlington Vermont I couldn't have chosen a better place truly you know when I was looking for jobs IBM is the one that brought me over to Vermont and we the rest is history. You know I will start with the larger picture and sort of speak then zoom in on Bethlehem since we are zooming these days and you know Bethlehem Palestine in the West Bank sister city with Burlington we started the project with Sandy, Roz Payne, sister Miriam myself and the others you know joined in as we as we went but that's how it started in 1991 and we were the first American city to be a sister city with a Palestinian city the absolutely number one and there were probably hundreds of cities already sister cities with Israeli cities but not with a Palestinian city and it was not an easy birth but we made it work you know lots of good people worked on it and it came into existence just want to mention a couple things you know before we go to Biden and Trump and 100 percent Bethlehem and the West Bank you know the rest of the occupied territories are under total Israeli occupation since 1967 so that's 53 years that's two generations what is a generation 20 years 25 years two generations have been born and will die under this occupation I hope it doesn't happen that way but it's just going on way too long you know it's not good for the Israelis to be abusers and it's not good for the Palestinians to be abused occupations are major abusers and the grotesque wall which is 28 feet high hams the town cuts Bethlehem of 80 percent of its land it's all about land you know that's I want that totally understood every Palestinian city suffers the same fate stripped of its land it happened in 1948 when Israel first was created all of the Palestinian population centers in the gallery in Nazareth all of them were stripped of all of their land and they were hemmed into these little banter stands in Israel and in the West Bank the same deal now and land is gone it was the land was expropriated appropriated into the national Jewish fund not to ever be given to anybody but of somebody of Jewish background not to be sold you know it doesn't sound good not to be sold or rented or anything to anybody but of Jewish background and you can check all of this you know we have to really address the history where Bethlehem came into the picture so area C in the West Bank what they did very smart in the Oslo deal they came with area A which is controlled by the Palestinian Authority which means they are responsible for collecting their garbage not much more and the area C comprises 60 percent of the occupied areas you know the West Bank Jerusalem Ramallah all of that area 60 percent is under total Israeli control which means Palestinians cannot use it for most importantly for natural including Bethlehem for what you call it natural Palestinian population growth so everybody ends up crowded in these cities and generation after generation there have no place to go and you end up with overcrowding misery and you know I think the ultimate aim is to drive these people make their life miserable until they leave you know they learn and which is not good the so you know I mentioned it's an insidious way to control the Palestinian population natural growth a crowded cities pressure people to leave that's really my my question could I ask a question please okay so this this occupation occurred in 1967 correct correct okay and that was a war was that the six-day war yes okay so and in that war the Israeli armies occupied the west occupied right the West Bank Gaza the Sinai and the Gulen Heights so the West and East Jerusalem and East Jerusalem in the West Bank so the West Bank you know remember you know we are talking about governments we are not talking about the people the West Bank is the crown jewel that the Israeli government is after and you know that includes Bethlehem Jerusalem all of that area it's the land so 60 percent already of the occupied areas in 1967 including Bethlehem's 80 percent of their land is gone it it was confiscated from Bethlehem so when when you see the wall they say oh security and all of that the main purpose of the wall one of the main reasons around Bethlehem it's it's very sad scene if you look in Bethlehem and surrounded by 28 foot wall with wires on concrete wall you know you blocks your view from everything and with wires on top and watch towers and all of that you feel like you are in prison but the main purpose of it when they built the wall around Bethlehem is to cut off Bethlehem from access to their land olive groves these are the natural areas for population expansion no longer available to the people of Bethlehem or to the people of my village you know also area c took 90 percent of the land of my village it's called area c so you cannot do anything in area c if you build anything what you see in the news lately is demolitions house demolition so people you know because they have nowhere to go they built without permit israel doesn't give them permits they built without the permit and then the israelis send the bulldozers to take their houses down and they end up you know homeless economy in Bethlehem do you have enough sad news i'll give you some more and then i'll give you some really good news economy in Bethlehem is 70 percent dependent on tourism tourism in Bethlehem now in the whole west bank is zero nothing and then on top of that you know they have the pandemic it started in Bethlehem by a i think it was a greek we don't want to blame anything on anybody but greek two tourists were in Bethlehem and i give greece incredible credit when the greek tourists came back to greece and they discovered that they have COVID they called Bethlehem municipality and told them you'd better do something because our tourists brought you a gift and so Bethlehem went into lockdown the whole west bank went into lockdown and then israel went into lockdown and they were successful in the beginning the west bank actually did much fear much better for the COVID than israel you know israel was still more open and but now it came back and now you know i saw by alice rath child if you check her on facebook she's awesome you know she's a doctor she's been here she's been here yeah many times and she showed she's a md she showed graphs despite the vaccination in israel the west bank still has lower you know it's bad in both places despite the vaccination that has been hailed as a major example to the civilized world but no no vaccination for the people who are under their control which are the palestinians they are not under the control of jordan or america or anybody they are under total control of israel and that people don't dare say anything about you know and i just so they are not vaccinating the palestinians they should be they are the occupying power and they should be responsible for both people and but anyway what dr rath child showed is the graphs the graphs is still in israel despite the vaccination is going worse than in the palestinian territories because of the what do you call it because of the fundamentalist or the the hasid the orthodox the orthodox are not following the rules so they they still really have issues with the covid spread so that's on the vaccination so i want to give you good news before i continue i have a couple more minutes in christmas batlehem had no choice you know every year you see batlehem literally teaming with tourists for christmas eve and christmas day celebration you know thousands of people from all over the world this year they had a virtual one the mayor of batlehem sent in out to all sister cities and they have tons of them you know in italy in germany in the united states latin america requesting that we send music to share you know cheer up batlehem and they will air it out on christmas eve so we immediately thought of who can we go to fast we knew christmas and i went to our favorite uh women's chorus uh called bella voce if you have not heard them you must because they are the i think they are the crown jewel of berlington and vermont so what we did is we talked to don ellis and a neighbor of ours who was in in the chorus amazing chorus and they obliged immediately they were honored they said to to be part of this they sent us two videos beautiful videos of vermont with with their music you know little town of batlehem but they also were wise they said probably everybody is going to send little town of batlehem they gave us another song which was uh the wexford carol wexford carol was both of them magnificent you really should show them you would be proud of the videos as vermonters and we sent them immediately to batlehem and then i was really nervous are they gonna show them you know how we didn't know how they are gonna show them so i kept going to facebook of batlehem municipality so if you have facebook go to batlehem municipality and still there and at four o'clock you know christmas eve which means it was 12 midnight in in batlehem our videos were absolutely the first to air out to the whole world and thousands of people have been watching these you know and ours and then they had you know music from russia from the united states from all over Paris from vatican and ours from berlington vermont were the first two and they still come out the first two so anybody that goes to that music deal from batlehem will will stumble on our videos from from berlington vermont from bellavocci if you have not seen how many of you have seen bellavocci can you raise your hand no i haven't i have awesome you must it's really they're magnificent they are amazing just beautiful to us to christ and i we have been the usher in the christmas and the holiday season to us you know for us and uh and they have a spring concert maybe they'll have one this year we don't know you know i want to mention before i go to biden and i'm coming to it in two minutes uh my dad once you know i mean we cannot hide the there is a conflict between the palestinians and the israelis and my dad who was a sixth grader but the wisest person i've ever met in my life and uh heard us this is in the united states friends of ours and us discussing you know why are the israelis you know how could they become abusers when they were abused in europe we know the history of pogroms and all of that and how could they become abusers of the palestinians and my dad you know in his simple way really explained it to me for years i've been trying to figure it out and he explained it to all of us we were translating to him and he said this conflict really has nothing to do with religion israelis that came to palestine were europeans and they treated the indigenous population he was there like europeans treated indigenous population populations everywhere the us australia south africa and israel so he says it has nothing to do with religion it has to do they were europeans they looked down at us and they said we can take everything they've got their inheritance their land their and that's exactly what really unfolded and then he said you know to counter all people resisting you know the occupation with the israelis he said we resisted the turkish occupation which occupied them for 500 years by the way you know it was a long occupation palestinians and the rest of the arab world resisted the turkish occupation not because they were muslims because most 90 percent of the palestinians are muslims 10 percent are christians at the time and not not because they were muslim we resisted them because they were occupiers and then palestinians were lucky they got occupied by the british after world war one and he said we resisted the british occupation that was brutal also as brutal as the turkish occupation not because they were christian you know my dad was christian he said we didn't resist them because they were christian we resisted them because they were occupiers and then now we are resisting the israeli occupation has nothing to do with being jewish or not it is a brutal occupation that must end and i hope all of us you know we really have to work on that you know we have to push the biden so that brings us to biden versus trump under trump i think it got to the worst ever i've never seen it trump what trump did he moved you know these are unimportant to me moved the the american embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem you know symbolic very bad symbolism but what he did is he cut off all of the money that went to anura you know un that takes care of the palestinian schools in the camps millions of people depend on the united palestinian refugees depend on the united nations for schools for food for all of that cut off all of our funds to that and then he cut off all of the funds to the palestinian authority which is a useless authority takes care of the palestinians but they control nothing no borders no skies no resources they under their feet even the water that under the west bank is not controlled by the palestinian authority it's controlled by israel and so they really hurt the palestinians big time so i don't dare now say oh it may get better under the biden administration because every time i have said this in the past or any of us have said oh this situation is gonna get better it gets a lot worse so i'm gonna dears just say it may get a little better under biden but i honestly don't think that biden and his team unless we push him you know like the biden administration better than the trump the disastrous trump administration but we have got to push him i don't think they are gonna invest any effort or any capital in in fixing you know doing anything for the palestinians and what you will hear always when they discuss that with any of the biden administration people they'll say oh what do you think we will do they'll say two state solution that is the safe retreat for for anybody who wants to say oh you know we want peace without really doing anything to help peace come about while so when they say two state solution they're supported while allowing israel to gobble up the rest of the west bank you know and so we really have to i think you under the biden administration we have to absolutely push him to do the right thing they are gonna do the right thing on many issues you know that we care about in this country but when it comes to palestine israel i think they are gonna not do too much they will probably restore the money to anora which is uh onra which is very important the the money to the palestinian authority which pays policemen you know again it goes to palestinian people who are dependent on these salaries and they are absolutely dead in the water now with the economy so the west bank i have no idea in betlehem in ramallah and all of it you know including my village i have zero idea i talked to my relatives they all say thank goodness we are okay we manage but to tell you the truth i have no idea how they survive because they are hemmed in they are totally closed in they cannot leave the west bank they cannot go anywhere without israel's permission and those permits are very far and few in between okay um how about any questions before i have some questions anybody else have any comments questions uh frank does frank frank i'm quite i'm quite sure that i read uh within the last week that the the monies have been restored uh to the palestinians uh the onra and the other i haven't heard about onra you know i hope i hope onra before anything else i think they're in process but they are in in process and the i think i heard the same thing frank that they are in the process of restoring the money to the palestinian authority which is beings compared to what israel gets you know i think they were giving them 400 million israel gets 3.8 billion a year from us so so did the united states cut off funding to palestine also okay so but the united states gives huge aid to israel correct right okay so since trump came in i think second year probably or soon after he closed the palestinian embassy in washington shuttered down uh shuttered it down and cut off all aid to the palestinian authority and then you know to really all palestinian projects and all palestinian projects you know whether by hospitals all of that the the other thing you know to hem the palestinians even more sometimes they had money coming in from the gulf countries so you know for you to understand what's going on behind the scenes then kushner and company did all of these deals with saudi arabia and the gulf those were all absolutely to squeeze the palestinians to death no money coming in from any of those places so now i don't know that's why i say i have no idea at least before you know some money would come from the gulf you know to help them you know pittance but now with these uh deals between israel you know there is when they tell you oh israel is making peace with the gulf who cares that's not the issue the real peace that i'll be proud of is when they palestinian and israelis can live in peace as equals together that's the real peace this year is all working on the edges for evil reasons in my in my uh book they really are to totally strangle the palestinians and that's exactly what happened you know no money coming from the gulf from saudi arabia or these these are reactionary regimes this is being this is being recorded i hope i'm okay you know i'm seeing all of this but i don't care any any questions i have a question musik could you even could you talk about you know i think that when when you talk and when i talk i think it assumes that people understand the whole historical development of israel and palestine and i'm not certain when people talk for instance about the recognition of jerusalem as the israeli capital that people understand the importance of that could you because trump did that too i mean that's i mean no other no other superpower has done that correct no no other administration has done that before no other administration although the american administration and they have seemed to want to correct yeah but they never done it they never did it okay so what is this why why is that so important that is real that the united states did that international law you know it's international law they they occupied areas have got to be solved correctly you cannot you cannot have an occupying power two things that are very clear in international law you cannot change anything in the occupied territories and you cannot move your own population in occupied to occupied areas they've done both so it is against international law pure and simple and you know the the thing with with the moving populations into the west bank it's still happening and it is on palestinian land being grabbed from my village from batlehem's land from and it's it's counterproductive you know on the its obstacles to real peace you know and we have to fix that okay well maybe you could talk a little bit about that because the settlements have increased correct yes okay but they they have increased over the years but there was there an increase in the settlement jewish only settlements correct on the west bank they are all jewish only settlements i know so maybe you could so that has increased so they've basically not only had the occupation they moved populations of israelis into the west bank as well right yes and those are those form really tiny cities in a way don't they or what they are not tiny cities they are bigger than burlington most of them you know they are huge 50 000 60 000 70 000 for example uh around batlehem it's run by they took a mountain it's called abugh name and now i forgot what the the israelis changed the name it became a settlement it was really a beautiful mountain full of pine trees you know it was like a reserve and they stripped it of the trees and they built a huge settlement i don't know the number but i would estimate you know minimum 50 000 and uh harahoma harahoma is the harahoma is the the name of the settlement and around my village for example which is about 20 miles northwest of batlehem they took a third of my village the land that is owned by relatives you know private land took it and put a settlement on it there are three settlements ringing my my village and it's jewish only settlements with jewish only roads you know this is really what hurts me the most is how could we agree to how can you justify you cannot justify it by any means you cannot say security reasons or any of that because other regimes did that before justified even with the security you can how can you support how can we support a system that allows roads for only one religious group or one national group you know talking about supremacy we are now you know it's in the air in the united states white supremacy you know if you have been watching all day i have uh watching the tv how the supremacist attacked our uh capital white supremacy palestinians know what supremacy is it is national and religious supremacy when somebody tells you god gave me what you've got it's over you cannot there is no further discussion and i know reasonable people will say that's not acceptable you know you cannot use religion and the bible to justify but unfortunately it has been so i love lincoln president lincoln today i was saying to christian i've heard it who said it and she found it beware of somebody says if somebody says god is on my side beware of a person like that i think cliff has a question be friends with yeah be friends with somebody who says i hope god is i hope i am on god's side what lincoln what lincoln said was i hope god's on my side but i have to have kentucky on my side yeah that's what he said i think anyway no no he didn't say he didn't say that okay we just cliff we just cliff yeah cliff mosa thank you for your sharing and also very much the personal experiences with your family as you mentioned the 3.8 billion dollars um that are used that the united states um gives israel on an annual basis it was during the trump administrations that the parameters of that funding was changed and so previously to president trump um the ceiling was at 3.8 billion dollars but with the legislation during his term in office uh 3.8 billion dollars is now the lowest amount so we'll be up to the up to the government to decide how much israel will get now yesterday i had the privilege of being a part of the american friend service committee announcement about a new website and uh they are calling it uh connecting the shots and in the chat i put the link to that website and it's interactive and i learned for the first time that israel is the largest weapons producer in the world larger than the correct larger than the united states and today today talking with some other quakers who have been at the site and and working there are 110 different countries that are listed are part of that website and it tells the relationship with israel and uh the united states and different dynamics um it's very interacting the country that right now is buying the most weapons from israel is turkey i found that quite interesting uh so one of the other things musa that that they shared were in televiv is a a big convention center for when they have those conventions that where there are selling different styles of weapons surveillance materials etc and so in the midst of the different booths and exhibits they have platforms set up and at different times during the event um those companies will put on a show featuring the israeli military and whoever the other people are usually palestinian sort of a good versus evil and demonstrate their new products fine that's do you have a question yeah right so so to you musa um how israel i know has used the palestinians as laboratory kind of animals for for their different products especially their weapon products what experiences might what experiences do your family face where they they feel like they're still a part of the of any laboratory kind of experiences you know i think i think the weapons uh deal the the people who have really suffered the most right in gaza in the west bank it's in the west bank my village is in the west bank about 20 miles northwest of durus and i'm actually less than that they suffer it's major suffering anyway you know they don't have control in my village supposedly has 20 percent of the water aquifer mayor clavel is here he knows about water and good to see their club l is here i don't see him and so water aquifer my village supposedly sits on top of 20 percent of the water aquifer of the west bank they have zero access to that water that's why the three settlements around my village is to steal that water you know and control it you know the the thing i just want to mention something because if we want to solve the problem which i really hope we are all solvers you know by understanding the issues as americans you know i'm here frank donath jamie lee's a robin loyde musa we are all equal under the law we hope you know we are equal under the law in 12 hours i tell my friends in 12 hours we get on the airplane this is when covid is over we get on the airplane we go to israel we are equal here we live in the same neighborhood as neighbors we get one my friend the jew and myself the palestinian we will get on an airplane land in tel aviv that will be treated they've never been there that will be treated like kings and queens and that will be treated like not very well and so that's you know that's an issue we have to somebody can make alia who's never been ever lived there you know originally from russia or from new york city and musa and his offspring cannot ever go there i cannot to live i can go there for three months and they will watch me very carefully get out you know you are never to be permanently appropriated back to palestine so you know these are issues for example i mentioned to people if somebody tells me and by the way there are many around us you know who are saying that we want to make this country a christian country i would we would all go crazy about that we would all reject that because it's not just a cute name if you say oh this is a christian country then somebody is going to be the christians are going to be in the supremacy seat and everybody else is going to be second or third grade person so you know again when people say oh this is the jewish state why can't it be the state for everybody you know where equality reigns so when they say jewish state it is supremacy it is saying jews have the upper seat the upper hand and everybody else is second citizen is second grade citizen so it's these are structural problems you know in batlehem everywhere we have robin robin where is she robin you are muted i don't see or i'd signal to her does somebody's somebody signal okay uh yeah good to be on this call um my question is of the palestinians who live in israel as i mean i thought there were they were 10 or 15 20 percent of the population of israel is palestinian now but they they must call themselves israelis because they are in the israeli nation right yes so how are they faring now with all of this various crises that have happened in the last few years okay from day one the palestinian israelis who were left in israel they were in 1952 four years after israel was created they were given citizenship and the reason they were giving citizenship because there were palestinians that were ejected coming back into palestine so it really was not being generous to give them citizenship it was to mark them have the papers you are we gave you citizenship anybody who doesn't have these papers will be caught and ejected again so that was the main reason but immediately she wants to zone immediately what they did is they stripped all palestinian villages and towns that remained and by the way the the leader that was directing the operations to eject the palestinians out of palestine was uh he was a canadian jew and when it came to the gallery he refused to give the orders to push those people out and big mistake good mistake but immediately after that citizenship was given to those people and then the land was totally stripped from the these villages and towns so they have no land at all all of their land is gone and now they are ignored the the government funding goes to the jewish towns and cities government so if you go to nazareth or any arab town in israel that are israelis citizens the palestinians in those cities are living in crowded conditions because natural growth is gone it's not there and when you hear about you know that there are coexistence very few places in israel have coexistence haifa you know some arabes and some palestinians and israelis live in the same neighborhoods but very very segregated society so the population the population is increasing then a percentage yes the cause of the greater yeah and the the different laws i want to mention this is really really important i think we did this you recorded it sandy at one of your lectures where the palestinians anybody non-jew has a citizenship but the nationality law is only for jews nationality law i don't want to use the word supersedes i was going to say trumps supersedes the citizens law frank love but yeah so uh citizen law it's like you know you you have permanent citizenship but you are not in national like you have to be jewish to be part of the nation of the jews but you can vote you can vote yeah yeah you can vote but again in the voting you know this is another lecture i think it's important you really should listen to it because it is incredible very insidious how all of these laws you know i call him the gym crow of our area uh how all of these laws they were not allowed to form their own uh parties they have to be party of another party so they are diluted their vote and because that how would you explain they can vote 20 percent but none of them are in the prime ministership or the ministers or in any positions of any importance in the israeli government you know these are israeli citizens that are not or they are none of them are in any of the big companies in israel musa musa could i ask peter hi peter and betsey i'm wondering peter do you have do you have any questions or any thoughts peter and i were together in israel palestine at one point right and i wish i went with you but it didn't work out i know anybody else because i do have a question i think most of us know this but i would like to have musa discuss what's what's going on with the two-state one-state so-called solution what's going on peter peter wanted to say oh peter i'm sorry peter the point that i would want to make is that uh this has been a long lasting uh relationship the sister city program right but you know going back to what 1993 one 1991 we started in 1991 started in 91 but it was consummated in 93 yes so almost 30 years now but what can we do as a community to bring some new energy some new blood some young people into this relationship because this is all about creating awareness and informing people through conversations and dialogue but you know as i look around this room you know i'm one of the younger people here and this is uh i can't say that too often these days that i'm the younger one in the crowd but i think we need to give some have some discussion as to what might be done to re-energize this sister city program like to connect with folks in in bethlehem i was lost there probably five years ago and i was amazed that uh they knew burlington and they brought me into a room and they had every piece of correspondence communication ever between bethlehem and burlington in this room and they must they've done a they've done a much better job of maintaining the history of this relationship than we have but uh my point is not about that but it's about what might be done to create some new energy and bring some new people into this conversation it'd be a very excellent excellent question uh they are clever yeah excellent now you know we did we started unfortunately we were interrupted by covid we started a program with champlain college that was gonna involve what do you call it the the students no but it's the teachers and the students you know on a project that involves uh you know photography and all of that and it wasn't it started and it just happened to be coincide with the covid and we were hoping that we will harness you know some young people and professors but everybody on this year is also invo uh invited to join the sister city we would love to have you i most of the before i really would like you to say something about is there a change in attitude about one state two states what's going on i mean for the for the united states they've always talked that there has to be two states right and that doesn't de facto that's not happening and i don't think it ever was planned or never could happen as a matter of fact and in my mind de facto it is one state so what on earth is going on with this continual rap about two states so so to the powers which are what counts you know to the united states and the politicians the easy safe retreat or position is to say two states oh we believe in two states meanwhile as i mentioned earlier everything is being gobbled up so they say two states but they are not doing anything to stop israel from gobbling up the west bank so you know i will be fine with two states if you allowed everything to be fixed in place until we fix it but the land is being stolen the resources are being carved up and so two states i think for the politicians is safe retreat but in actuality israel is really gobbling up the whole place you know it's uh and so who who basically has jurisdiction anyway really israel has israel has israel controls the boundaries the airs the the skies and the everything under the ground which means water you know very important and the land you know most of the land so if you paul has a question yeah paul i i had a question with regard to aid aid to palestine and that is with the new positions that our senatorial delegation has in particular do you think there's any hope of working through them to increase it i hope so yeah we we have to work on that you know with our government it's a you know i'll tell you this it probably one of the biggest pushers one of the biggest people to push for restoring what has been taken away from the palestinians is probably senator lehi behind the scenes our congressional delegation is wonderful you know on wanting some some goodness for both sides so senator sanders today he refused he was one of three that refused to sign the deal about the israeli embassy right well he was was there a deal today yes today or yesterday there was a vote in 97 to 3 sanders warren warren and and carper from somewhere carper i didn't i didn't know who is but warren and sanders three only wow where we're against keeping the embassy in but again remember sandy the congress has been pushing for all of these good things forever it's the administration that has prevented this from happening the embassy move and all of the above so now it's in the you know would have to be biden and team to restore some of that back but and you and your prediction is what what's your prediction about that about jerusalem it's going to stay the way it is right or what look i mean here is here is the problem about you know there is a good question about your question is about single state or two state a two state would be awesome if everything was fixed and then the Palestinians get you know what they wanted which is the west bank and Gaza with the access you know it's clear what would fix it and allow two state and then maybe in the future i mean that would be the best option if they really have freedom the Palestinians and then the Palestinians and Israelis joined together in a federation or whatever you know they can come up with something the problem is Israel is not allowing that and i don't think we'll ever allow it to have a separate state in under you know which is under its control now and so the problem with one state though is once you become one state you can abuse your minority actually will be the majority you can abuse and nobody nobody will interfere because it's your business that's one disadvantage to one state we know the power the power is in the hands of the Israelis companies military all of that if they become one state Palestinians would be totally totally helpless yeah but my question is somewhat different Musa de facto it is one state yeah so we have we have to uh the struggle should be for equality exactly we we know you know the answer is if it is one state but Israel is not gonna allow it to happen and that by the United States is somebody has a question yeah so i i can't i can't see it john uh you're muted right okay so hi Musa i don't know if you remember me we sure hi john hi john i do work together and um i just have a few ups of it i didn't even know about this group peter clavel invited myself uh i got an email a couple days ago um but one one of my observations for vermont is and i've been involved in this for about 20 years um is the number of organizations who are independent of each other who don't know what the other organizations are doing and don't work together if you could form a group of this group you've got vtjp you've got jews voice for peace you've got the episcopal church you've got cliff pennant down there and water berry with his group you've got all these disjointed organizations and we don't even talk to each other so if you came together you would probably have a better chance of making sure and in a response to peter's uh yeah i that's been the question for me all these years why isn't the university of vermont these students uh i mean i was with uh with a palestinian doctor today a 24-year-old intern that uh who was giving me a physical he's palestinian he doesn't know about we you know what's going on in the in vermont about this his mother is from palestine his father is from india uh there are young people especially we have bernie sanders here we have lehi but you know i you know vtjp we've been holding his feet to the fire for the lehi law which says you cannot give any military assistance to any country that commits human rights abuses and i think that's something we can continue to pound on him especially as he uh is at the end of his career and leave a legacy for him to begin to push the lehi law as the the episcopal church by the way uh passed three resolutions two years ago um for the diocese of the episcopal church on the lehi law on apartheid and bds and the episcopal church i think has a uh a national uh voice in washington with the with the washington cathedral so we could work through them also but my point is that as long as we continue to uh work apart and not try to figure out how we can work together vermont we're just going to be continue to spin our wheels right you know i just want to mention john one important factor about the lehi law is if it is inactive it has to go to the state department and they are the ones who would apply it so they certify it so if they don't certify it lehi law and lehi can go somewhere and yeah we've heard we've heard that we've heard that for 20 years but now we've got the senate and the house of representatives and the presidency now it's time for the lehi law that the secretary the state department to to take action on the lehi law they can no longer use that as an excuse i agree with you that uh that's why you know early on in this uh discussion i mentioned we are happy or some of us are happy that uh biden is in and the other guy is out but we really have to work on all kinds of issues not just the palestinian issue on all kinds of issues to really fix what's broken and we have to push biden and his team on palestine and the rest right i'm palestine i told you my feeling they are not going to invest much capital unless we really make it make their life miserable and we'll see right okay musa but um again what i mean i think john brought up an interesting point about how we can really do anything to change what's going on in washington that's a constant complaint from a lot of different groups right now and i i guess i would say i would ask you if you are at all encouraged musa has there been a change in the years that you've been involved on this issue any changes at all changes you know to mention we have to grab on anything positive right for example sanders has changed big time he before we met with him many of you here were in the room he would not touch this issue with a 10 foot actually 20 foot pole now he's fantastic he really is i we are very proud of him that he's for justice and for doing something and jimmy wants to say something jimmy yeah jimmy leaves so on on friday the um pre-trial chamber of the international criminal court came out with a decision yes that um recognized it's the court's jurisdiction over the situation in palestine back to 2014 when there was a massive israeli assault on gaza and i think it might also cover israeli settlements in the occupied territories and the violence that israel committed against hundreds of people in 2018 at the protest at the wall it might also address israeli apartheid if they so do you think this is one of the positive developments recently this was just on friday what does musa think or anybody else i think so but maybe musa has something to say about them musa musa where is he what happened to him amir amir so on on the international court it's already being rejected or pushed back at by our state department already our state department yes so it's not going to be an easy deal but bet salam you know one positive thing bet salam which is an israeli human rights organization came out and said you know let's stop beating around the bush israel is an apartheid state you know when you treat two populations totally differently and subject them to different laws you cannot keep saying oh we are the only democracy in the area so bet salam this has been in the news i'm sure if you missed it search for it came out and said you know just period end of story this is an apartheid situation we have from the river jordan to the sea is there are approximately five million palestinians and five million jews they are about equal numbers yes we can we can they can live in equality if the powers to be forced the issue if they choose to it's the only hope for me is the only hope for israelis and palestinians is equality under the law where it's not jewish state or christian state or muslim state it's a state multicultural and good for everybody that lives there and one man one woman one vote right that's one person one vote right absolutely that's the only solution and the people who keep saying oh god maybe favors us a little bit you know over the other guys or are just wasting everybody's time and will end up causing more pain and misery and dragging the situation out there is no hope that you know israel has tried everything to drive the palestinians out checkpoints there are 600 checkpoints in the west bank you cannot go from my village which is say sx to berlington which is only like eight miles without going through several checkpoints you know so you don't know if you are going to make it to the hospital or to your work or to so they live palestinians are living a miserable life under this occupation and it's not good you know the israelis they know they are abusers you know the army knows what they are doing and it's not good for abusers or abused you know and in the end they will consume everybody i really believe equality under the law one state for all is the only solution and the sooner we work on it and that's what we should be working on all of us okay i think we're about out of time tonight any final questions or thoughts before we close and i might remind you all that next week we're doing another program on sister cities and i think mayor clavell will be with us and i hope all of you are with us next week we're going to be discussing our sister cities primarily in latin america our sister city in port of cabezas which is nicaragua and which is also under siege right now largely by people who would like to overthrow the government in nicaragua and their allies probably some of them find themselves in washington um and also we're going to contrast that with us foreign policy in other words we're going to talk about sister city diplomacy and us foreign policy next week and we would welcome you all here because a lot of that's going to have to do with sister cities as well and sister cities remember are based on friendship and i think there are two there are two questions sandy one is by john and one is robin okay robin or john whoever first john yeah okay so talking about sister cities i just want to inform you that vtjp we're working with rochester new york they do this famous film festival every october they show five films they have a very good audience on palestine they take the whole year to select these films and we are going in partnership with them to do a similar film festival in vermont and we're underway with that with marcage and kathy shapiro and what yeah yeah so uh peter i'd like to call you tomorrow um i want to get out another sort of press release about the portugal basis um webinar next wednesday so i'll give you a call please please call me we've raised some money we're in contact and almost a daily basis with portugal basis they're really hurting and yeah we can help them wow great okay i just want to say it was so good to see everybody here you know lots of good friends that we haven't seen during this covid disaster it's good to see you all really and thank you for being here and thank you for inviting me sandy thank you a lot moosa thank you for calling over the for many years okay thank you see you next week i hope