Palestinian Organizers: We Honor Our Grief by Practicing Hope

A part of the Sequence

Motion Memos

“At any time when there may be grief, there may be unity, and in unity, there may be energy, and we really feel it.,” says Jalal Abukhater. On this episode of “Motion Memos,” host Kelly Hayes talks with Abukhater, a Palestinian author dwelling in Jerusalem, and Palestinian activists Jeanine Hourani and Lea Kayali, in regards to the seventy fifth anniversary of the Nakba, resistance within the face of Israeli aggression and the way hope sustains their work.

Music by Son Monarcas, Peter Sandberg, Raymond Grouse and David Celeste

TRANSCRIPT

Word: This a rush transcript and has been frivolously edited for readability. Copy will not be in its remaining kind.

Kelly Hayes: Welcome to “Motion Memos,” a Truthout podcast about organizing, solidarity and the work of constructing change. I’m your host, author and organizer Kelly Hayes. Right this moment, we’re speaking about Palestine, Israeli apartheid and war-making, and the organizing that has sustained the wrestle of the Palestinian individuals. This episode is a part of our four-episode arc marking the discharge of Let This Radicalize You, my new e book with Mariame Kaba — which was launched this week by Haymarket Books. In these episodes, we’ve been delving into a number of the matters Mariame and I explored in our e book. Whereas writing Let This Radicalize You, Mariame and I spoke with numerous skilled organizers who shared their knowledge, energy and hope, as a way to provide newer organizers a little bit of steerage and accompaniment on their journeys. One of many organizers we spoke with was Lea Kayali, a Palestinian author and activist, and Truthout contributor, who has additionally been a visitor on “Motion Memos.” In speaking to Lea about how we’d craft an episode that would function a useful resource, on this second, we determined that essentially the most significant factor we might do, proper now, could be to uplift Palestinian voices. This episode was created with that intention.

For Palestinians, it is a second of grief, wrestle, solidarity and remembrance. This week marks the seventy fifth anniversary of the Nakba, when Zionist militias expelled 750,000 Palestinians from their houses. Might 11 marked the one-year anniversary of the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh by an Israeli sniper. On Might 2, Palestinian activist Khader Adnan died in an Israeli jail after an 87-day starvation strike, and the denial of emergency medical care. A minimum of 37 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s most up-to-date offensive on Gaza, wherein Israel has sought to assassinate leaders of the ​​resistance group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Two Israelis have reportedly been killed by Palestinian rocket fireplace. In line with the UN, seven Palestinian youngsters have been killed through the current Israeli assault in Gaza. Maurice Hirsch, a former prosecutor with the Israel Protection Power, lately tweeted, “Contemplating the army benefit gained by eliminating these senior terrorists, it’s irrelevant to ask what number of youngsters have been by the way killed.”

To say Hirsch’s angle displays the general place of Zionists could be too beneficiant, on condition that many Zionists in Israel don’t merely regard the deaths of Palestinian youngsters as irrelevant, however slightly, actively rejoice the bombardment of Gaza, at instances treating the assaults as a spectator sport. Below the safety of the IDF, Israeli settlers steal Palestinian houses en masse, and commit acts of violence towards Palestinians, together with youngsters, with impunity. As my colleague Mike Ludwig lately wrote in Truthout:

Many Palestinian youngsters dwelling within the occupied West Financial institution can’t stroll to high school and not using a army escort, assuming their lecture rooms haven’t been demolished or confiscated by Israelis within the first place. Palestinian youngsters face fixed assaults and harassment from violent Israeli “settlers” pushing to colonize the West Financial institution with unlawful settlements, if not wipe Palestine off the map altogether.

In the meantime, Palestinians may be arrested underneath a so-called “anti-terrorism” regulation, handed in 2016, that enables the occupying army and its courts to criminalize any exercise perceived as a menace to Israeli state pursuits. Palestinians may be imprisoned for nonviolent activism, cultural expression, and sometimes, for no discernable cause in any respect. The IDF and settlers proceed to assault and kill Palestinians with impunity.

Israeli settlers additionally routinely destroy Palestinian crops and kill Palestinian livestock, in an effort to destroy livelihoods and communities. As Francesca Albanese, the UN particular rapporteur on human rights within the occupied territories, recently stated:

Apartheid is a symptom and a consequence of the territorial ambitions Israel has for the land of what stays of an encircled Palestine.… The trigger is the colonies. Israel is a colonial energy sustaining the occupation as a way to get as a lot land as potential for Jewish-only individuals. And that is what results in the quite a few violations of worldwide regulation.

We is not going to be delving deeply into the historical past of Israeli violence in Palestine on this episode. If you need to study extra about that historical past, I like to recommend testing my earlier episode with Lea entitled, “What the Mainstream Media By no means Instructed You About Palestine.” Over the subsequent hour, you can be listening to from Jalal Abukhater, a Palestinian author dwelling in Jerusalem, and Jeanine Hourani and Lea Kayali, who’re each Palestinian activists dwelling within the diaspora, as they talk about what they’re experiencing on this second of disaster, what you need to learn about what’s occurring in Palestine, and the way they’re holding each hope and grief. It was an honor to speak with them on this second of loss, wrestle and commemoration, and I hope you all will obtain their phrases with love and solidarity.

[Musical interlude]

Jalal Abukhater: My identify is Jalal Abukhater. I’m a 28 year-old Palestinian author. Author, and activist based mostly right here in Jerusalem. I work as a freelancer.

Jeanine Hourani: My identify is Jeanine. I’m a Palestinian organizer at the moment based mostly in Britain. And I’m a member of the Palestinian Youth Motion Britain chapter.

Lea Kayali: My identify is Lea Kayali. I’m a 26-year-old Palestinian organizer within the U.S. based mostly out of Boston. I additionally set up with the Palestinian Youth Motion.

JA: So this has been a really tough month. We’re simply getting into Might and we’re already coming in to this month considering of how we’re going to mark Shireen Abu Akleh first anniversary, the primary anniversary of her loss when she was killed in Jenin. That occurs to be the 11 of Might. On the 15 of Might, we have been marking the reminiscence of Nakba, which is the disaster, the occasion that started in 1948 and led to the expulsion of Palestinians from their homelands and the theft of their land.

It’s already been an intense month, like months beforehand. Coming into Might, issues might at all times worsen. The truth that we misplaced Khader Adnan after 86 days of starvation strike, it was a really crushing feeling. However on the similar time, individuals want to grasp who Khader Adnan is. It is a man who gave his life. He went on a starvation strike a number of instances and needed the entire world to have a look at the deep injustice that’s being dedicated right here in Palestine.

The truth that he selected the executive detention — to protest admin detention. Mainly, he needed to inform the phrase, “Take a look at us Palestinians. We’re combating with no matter we’ve.” This man himself selected his empty abdomen to point out that we’re being imprisoned in such an unjust and merciless system. The truth that Israel pretends to be a nation that practices by the regulation, it’s false when it’s imprisoning, proper now, there are over a thousand Palestinians in administrative detention, that means they don’t know what fees have been put ahead. They’re held with secret proof and so they’re imprisoned.

There may be numerous injustices. The truth that we misplaced Khader Adnan, the hero of this combat of shedding a lightweight on this injustice within the jail system, the truth that we’re marking Shireen’s dying, a journalist, a beloved one who we’re nonetheless grieving over, and the truth that the deaths of Palestinians have been occurring virtually every day.

At present, I’m watching the information and Israel is bombarding Gaza. I’m seeing photos of youngsters who’re affected, youngsters who’re being killed in Gaza. It’s a really intense interval. Individuals want to grasp that they will’t maintain getting away with this, once we, the world neighborhood, doesn’t do the whole lot that’s potential to place stress on this Israeli regime to boycott, to name for diplomatic motion towards Israel, to delegitimize this Zionist apartheid regime that’s mainly persecuting Palestinians as a matter of ideology and matter of coverage.

There must be motion and there must be accountability. We can’t lose one other Shireen, we can’t lose one other Khader Adnan. Individuals are giving approach an excessive amount of. Individuals are giving their lives to spotlight the injustice that we’re dwelling by means of. It’s a really tough month coming into. It’s simply… I don’t know. It’s onerous, it’s robust, however we’ve to maintain going.

JH: Now we have seen 2023 be an more and more lethal for Palestinians, and the variety of deaths we’ve seen have been the very best for the reason that second Intifada, however I additionally suppose it’s essential inside that context to acknowledge the continued nature of the violence, the continued nature of what’s been occurring, the truth that the Nakba been ongoing for 75 years. And although we do see these ebbs and flows of violence, and the information headlines and the mobilizations, as Jalal talked about, are coming as much as one 12 months of Shireen Abu Akleh’s martyrdom, we’re coming as much as 75 years of the Nakba and marking that.

It’s additionally essential that between these monumental dates and these mobilizations, we’re additionally form of organizing in between, doing the invisible work, constructing energy in our communities in between these sorts of moments of mass mobilizations.

On the flip facet of that, I additionally suppose it’s essential for us to consider what we’ve gained and the positive aspects that resistance has made, particularly over the previous couple of years we’ve seen with the unity Intifada, or the unity uprisings, in 2021. And more and more since then, the unity of all fronts. We’ve seen important positive aspects to the Palestinian resistance and important unification throughout factional and geographical boundaries. And so I believe it’s additionally essential for us within the context of fascinated about loss to additionally take into consideration the video games we’re profitable to keep up that revolutionary optimism and maintain the wrestle alive and shifting ahead.

LK: Yeah, I’ll simply soar off of what Jeanine was saying in that I… I resonate quite a bit with each of what Jalal and Jeanine mentioned. And I believe for me, after I see… What I might need individuals to consider after they see Palestinine, the information, after they see escalations within the information, is 2 issues. The primary is that each one violence towards Palestinians by the occupation is a part of, as Jeanine mentioned, a decades-long colonial undertaking to remove Palestinians. The second factor is that Palestinians won’t ever hand over their proper, their inherent ethical proper to find out their very own future.

What this implies is that once we’re considering by means of 75 years of Nakba, which means Palestinians are birthing just like the fourth, and in some instances, fifth technology of individuals dwelling both underneath colonialism or in exile. On Might 15, Palestinians all over the world commemorate the Nakba, which is, as others have alluded to, the Arabic phrase for disaster. It refers each to the wave of terror and ethnic cleaning in 1947 and in 1948, that displaced three quarters of one million of our individuals, together with, personally, my grandparents. However it additionally refers back to the colonial construction of occupation elimination and apartheid, which has been oppressing our individuals for the final 75 years.

So once we mirror on the depth of the final 12 months and these escalations, as in comparison with the previous couple of a long time, on the similar time, we perceive that it’s utterly suitable with our understanding of what Zionism is. That’s to not say that the depth of the violence and the grief that we’re experiencing this month and this final 12 months isn’t actually heavy as a result of it’s actually, actually heavy.

On Might 9, 15 individuals have been massacred in Gaza, together with many youngsters. As Jalal mentioned, some resistance leaders and the director of a significant hospital, amongst many individuals who have been killed. That’s heartbreaking, and it’s actual, and it’s painful. On the similar time, the Palestinian individuals have 75 years of expertise resisting this violence. And our resistance is just changing into extra unified, extra inventive, and extra profitable and extra common all over the world.

On that observe, I assume I might simply say that once we see Palestinians talking out for our rights to defend our land, our proper to exist, it’s a apply of survival, of dignity, and of protection. To take the instance of Khader Adnan and his starvation strike. Khader Adnan’s empty abdomen, as Jalal mentioned, it nourished hundreds of thousands of individuals within the type of our motion. The prisoners wrestle, typically, it brings us nearer to freedom as a individuals, regardless of them being behind bars. Equally, each martyr, each Palestinian that we lose lives on not directly within the collective wrestle and march in the direction of liberation.

And so, that’s, for me, what I consider after I mirror on this second as a part of 75 years of Nakba, and the legacy that we’re standing in and strolling as part of and the duty that comes with that. For me as a Palestinian and diaspora, I take that duty very critically. It’s one thing that I believe all of us carry with us day by day on the similar time that we’re studying the information, grieving, simply attempting to maneuver ahead as nicely.

KH: I lately began studying The Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein, and I needed to share some phrases from the e book’s introduction. Loewenstein writes:

Palestine is Israel’s workshop, the place an occupied nation on its doorstep gives hundreds of thousands of subjugated individuals as a laboratory for essentially the most exact and profitable strategies of domination.

Israel as the best ethnonationalist mannequin is reliant on with the ability to commercialize this message.

Loewenstein additionally warns that “despotism has by no means been so simply shareable with compact expertise,” including that, “Ethnonationalist ideology grows when accountable democracy withers. Israel is the final word mannequin and objective.”

I’m concerned about your ideas on Palestine as a frontline in world wrestle, on condition that Israel has so efficiently commercialized and exported its instruments of occupation.

JA: Certainly, it’s very robust, or it’s bizarre generally to be dwelling on this place, to be dwelling in Jerusalem and to know that my existence on this place and my entire life, it’s like I’m at all times being, for instance, watched. My motion is being managed. I’ve discovered about all of the difficult techniques that, architecture-wise and roads and infrastructure, how our lives as Palestinians are managed in Jerusalem and elsewhere, particularly underneath occupation. But additionally, individuals, Palestinians who stay in ’48, what’s now Israel, communities which are actually disadvantaged of their land and their pure sources of earnings prior to now, which have been both fishing or agriculture, these communities in ’48, the siege on Gaza, the very particular management and domination that we expertise within the occupied West Financial institution, town of Hebron, Nablus, and in Jerusalem, whether or not it’s surveillance techniques, whether or not it’s how the general public house is designed, how they assemble and alter the options of our cities and our streets, they remodel the whole lot in each method to management and dominate our existence on this place to make it simpler to go on violating our most elementary rights and make sure the profit {that a} colonial regime would profit off of our backs.

They might get their labor, for instance, their low-cost labor. They might get their pure assets, in fact stolen from the place we stay. They might get their settlers to take pleasure in… They might have industrial curiosity in facilitating life for settlers within the West Financial institution to make sure there’s commerce and commerce occurring between, for instance, Tel Aviv and the settlement of Ariel within the West Financial institution. The College of Ariel can have college students from in all places.

All this infrastructure and improvement is supposed to make Israel, as a colonial regime, revenue off our backs. That’s on the native stage. On the worldwide stage, it’s a lot, a lot scarier once we notice that the techniques of management and domination that Israel employs on us right here, in Palestine, it’s very nicely designed techniques in fact, and so they’re now being promoted as instruments by sure corporations which can be all, or most of them, are based mostly in Israel. They’re promoting expertise that’s focusing on states the place there’s curiosity by both despotic regime or by industrial or enterprise or company curiosity to infiltrate and manipulate the democratic course of in that nation, for instance, or guarantee one occasion will get domination over one other in another nation.

We’ve seen applied sciences which have been bought to nations in Africa, in Latin America, even been used within the States, in the USA. I believe it was a expertise that’s hacking techniques to present out a false message, false messaging to have an effect on a democratic course of. It occurred someplace within the States as nicely.

No matter strategies of manipulation and management and domination and surveillance they use right here, they’re selling and making revenue. They’re the very best at promoting weapons. They’re the very best at promoting strategies of controlling crowds. Different regimes are Israel feeling like we need to do what they’re doing. It appears to be working. They’re holding the Palestinians at bay. After all, Israel resorts at all times to the killing and slaughter of Palestinians, however they at all times devise increasingly more intrinsic and extra complicated and extra cynical and peculiar strategies of domination that maintain us underneath management.

That is how they keep a system of apartheid domination. It’s a really complicated system. There’s definitely quite a bit for them to profit of. And so they’re promoting it. They’re promoting it to the entire world. If individuals don’t name this out for what it’s, it may very well be anybody else subsequent that’s the sufferer for this technique of domination and oppression.

LK: Yeah, I can simply soar off of that as a result of I really feel Jalal ended the place I’d love to select up, in speaking in regards to the methods wherein these techniques of oppressions and machineries of oppressions are related globally. It’s a extremely useful framework. I need to use it to get tremendous concrete, as a result of one instance of the best way that Palestinians have develop into a laboratory for world oppression is the weapons trade and the surveillance expertise trade. Only one instance of that is Elbit Programs, which is the biggest Israeli weapons producer and develops its weapons and its software program to make potential the colonization of Palestine and the subjugation of the Palestinian individuals.

It then sells these weapons to fascist leaders, for instance, Duterte within the Philippines, to make use of in his battle towards the Filipino individuals. Elbit additionally sells to the U.S. border patrol to have these dystopian surveillance towers that may spot migrants from miles away, alert them to Customs and Border Patrol to ship asylum seekers again to sure dying.

So Israel could also be in some methods the mannequin of oppression, warfare and colonialism, nevertheless it’s exporting that mannequin all over the world. And people conveyor belts of this battle machine additionally bind the individuals all over the world who’re the take a look at topics of those weaponries. And that is one thing that, I believe, as Jalal was saying, Palestinians are very conscious about. Each time I speak to people, each time I’m going again and go to Palestine, each time I speak to people dwelling underneath occupation, we’re reminded collectively that our wrestle isn’t the one wrestle and that the connections between our oppressors are… They necessitate connections between our struggles as nicely.

That is one thing that we’ve discovered traditionally. Lately, I used to be watching a documentary the place Leila Khaled was interviewed and shared this quote that I actually thought was related right here, which is actually that: “Previously, our common consciousness was that the world was towards us. This provides a really darkish picture. The hope that there’s a risk of adjusting it is extremely low as a result of the world is merciless. It allowed the Israelis to do that to us, to take our land and all that’s international towards us. However afterwards, we realized that there are enemy forces and there are pleasant forces. There are people who find themselves not Palestinian, however pals of our trigger. And from this level, we had a brand new outlook to the world.”

And I simply needed to share that as a result of I felt it was very related to your query, Kelly, as a result of once we see these connections, it’s not one thing we are able to look away from, we are able to shrug our shoulders and say, “Oh, the world is merciless.” No, that is an organizing crucial. I believe particularly in diaspora and in solidarity all over the world, efforts to confront these nexus of world oppression are organizing imperatives. That’s why efforts like Palestine Motion’s marketing campaign to close down Elbit factories all through Britain is so inspiring.

In diaspora, in solidarity, individuals are tearing down the outcroppings of those colonial factories. Right here in Boston the place I stay and set up, some organizers lately had a protest towards an Elbit facility in our neighborhood, and teamed up with a Filipino human rights group who was elevating consciousness across the hyper-militarization of the Philippines on the backs of the Filipino individuals and drawing parallels with how that’s similar to the best way the Zionist system of domination income off the backs of the Palestinian individuals whereas additionally subjugating them with the identical applied sciences.

So I believe this understanding and this outlook on the world, to reference that quote, actually goes each methods, that after we see it, we are able to’t unsee it and it permits us to be higher related and higher outfitted to construct a distinct future as nicely, and to arrange for it.

JH: To construct on that Leila Khaled quote that Lea simply talked about, it’s additionally actually essential for us to keep in mind that the Zionist entity in itself was constructed as an experimentation floor. That was the entire… One of many key functions of the development of the Zionist entity was to create an imperial outpost for, on the time, Britain, however now much more broadly like Western imperial powers. And so, that is the muse upon which the Zionist entity was constructed was this concept of an experimentation floor. And as Lea alluded to, there have at all times been, or the Palestinian trigger has at all times been a 3rd world internationalist, anti-imperialist wrestle, and they’re pals of the Palestinian trigger. It’s essential for us to remind ourselves of that and never go into, as Lea talked about, this darkish gap of defeatism.

I additionally simply needed to construct on what Lea was mentioning about Elbit. I’m based mostly in Britain. And Palestine Motion is main form of the frontline motion towards Elbit Programs right here. They’ve shut down a number of factories since Might 1. There’s really been an occupation in Leicester, a pair hours north of London, of UAV Tactical Programs, which is an Elbit manufacturing facility. Yeah, they’ve been tenting on the market and refusing to depart till the manufacturing facility will get shut down.

And so we do have a extremely essential function to play within the imperial core as these world establishments and these world companies are festering in our areas for us to be working in the direction of tearing them down and confronting them wherever we’re.

I additionally simply needed to speak briefly, a number of the issues that Jalal talked about about this concept of spying is a extremely fascinating and in addition pertinent level, as a result of we do see as nicely, in diaspora organizing a lot repression across the Palestinian trigger. Now we have IRL or the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism that’s more and more being taken up and is stifling activists and organizer’s potential to legitimately criticize the Zionist entity.

We additionally see CVE [Countering Violent Extremism] packages within the U.S. I don’t know, Lea, if you wish to discuss them, however in Britain we’ve the PREVENT Program. The PREVENT Program can be form of painted as this, you may’t see my air quotes, however “counterterrorism program” and calls on well being employees and lecturers and college lecturers to primarily spy on on a regular basis residents and report “indicators of radicalization”. A type of indicators is definitely assist for Palestine. So we’re seeing this rising surveillance and spying on Palestinians and pro-Palestinian organizers and anybody who’s in assist of the Palestinian trigger throughout the globe.

KH: One of many themes in my e book with Mariame Kaba, Let This Radicalize You, is holding hope and grief concurrently. Might you communicate to the concept of holding hope and grief on the similar time, and the way hope and grief manifest themselves in your lives and organizing?

JA: Simply immediately, really, I attended the report launch by the Committee to Shield Journalists. They’ve launched a report that speaks in regards to the instances of 20 killings of journalists by Israeli occupation forces, 20 killings and nil accountability in any of the instances over the previous 20 years. At this occasion, quite a bit was mentioned and spoken about Shireen Abu Akleh by her household, by her shut pals. We’re nonetheless grieving. I don’t suppose… Some individuals have… It’s onerous to simply bypass the truth that we misplaced Shireen. It’s very tough, however on the similar time it’s made me notice, and I’ve realized over the previous interval, that the passing of Shireen introduced with it such an immense power that’s being felt. I really feel it amongst individuals, amongst those that Shireen had impressed.

Right this moment, there was a woman. She’s at college now learning media and journalism. She spoke very eloquently and nicely on the very finish. She introduced me hope and optimism as a result of this woman mainly met Shireen when she was in seventh grade at school. She went to the identical college Shireen went to. Shireen went to talk as a journalist. This woman was a younger woman at school who felt impressed by Shireen. Her loss solely pushed her and motivated her to be much more outspoken and extra devoted to her ardour in organizing and reporting and telling the story of Palestine.

And I felt this was inspiring. After all, they have been additionally the households of different journalists who’ve been killed at this occasion. It was very encouraging to see that Shireen Abu Akleh’s brother, was talking about how Shireen is a second. Shireen’s loss was a second that introduced us all collectively to maybe search justice in each approach potential and be tremendous persistent about it and never maintain again in any respect in any approach. This household, Abu Akleh household, are doing a lot and others are becoming a member of them and doing a lot on their very own as nicely, as a result of they imagine that pursuing justice in each capability will hopefully cease this injustice from ever occurring once more.

The truth that we’ve to talk after 20 or extra journalists are killed is sort of scary, however one loss, the lack of our beloved Shireen, introduced so many individuals collectively to shed the sunshine on the truth that there is no such thing as a accountability and the truth that except we maintain these individuals accountable, and particularly the troopers, and be extra particular with the authorized instances in Europe, within the U.S., wherever it’s potential, to hunt justice for Shireen. It implies that sooner or later they are going to be affected, the Israelis, they’ll really feel this sort of… I don’t know. I hope that it’ll have an effect on them in a approach that we are able to cease this injustice from occurring once more.

Our energies, for grief, are reworked into energies that search motion, search significant motion and are very optimistic and hopeful. They’re pushed by optimism in a approach that we do think about a liberated Palestine. We do think about our free individuals. We at all times discuss it. We encourage one another.

At any time when there may be grief, there may be unity, and in unity, there may be energy, and we really feel it. Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral was probably the most unbelievable occasions I’ve attended in my total life. It occurred proper there in Jerusalem. It was an unbelievable second. These moments usually are not stopping. They maintain persevering with.

Each individual grieves when there’s a martyr. In Jenin, in Nablus, the martyr, Ibrahim Nabulsi, for instance, he was unknown to individuals maybe just a few months earlier than he was killed by the Israeli occupation forces, however his charisma and his character and the truth that he despatched out just a few messages and the truth that he left a will the place he referred to as on individuals to maintain going, don’t cease resisting. He despatched a love message to his mom. The truth that he spoke to his pals in such a pleasant and wonderful and charming approach.

These individuals are doing all they’re doing due to their love for his or her communities and their households. They’re selecting this path to develop into resistance fighters due to the love they owe to the individuals round them and the love they present. This power is mirrored. When this individual turns into an icon, Israel goes in as soon as and twice and 3 times in trying to assassinate him. They needed to kill Ibrahim Nabulsi. Thrice, they did not assassinate him. On the fourth time, they sadly succeeded in killing Ibrahim. However Ibrahim’s face isn’t lacking. It’s most likely on a keychain or the necklace of virtually each child you’ll see in Nablus immediately, similar in Jerusalem and elsewhere within the West Financial institution.

With these individuals who select to talk for us and select to attach with the individuals and in such an attractive approach, once we lose these individuals, the Israelis know that these individuals are… They need to kill them. That’s the one resolution they know. They kill these individuals. However once we lose them, the grief that we really feel, we remodel into power that seeks change. We need to develop into extra lively and we need to develop into extra inspirational. We need to do one thing that can result in hopefully the liberation of our lands in the future.

On a private stage, everybody feels in another way after they grieve, however they really feel one thing collective. As for us Palestinians, we grieve quite a bit, quite a bit. I can’t even start to let you know. There’s quite a bit to grieve about. Within the morning, and at midday, within the night, it’s very onerous being Palestinian generally, however on the similar time, everyone knows that holding onto hope does enable us to outlive these phases. And actually, over the previous two years, I’ve seen this on the bottom. I’ve seen that hope does carry individuals collectively and it does carry energy, particularly right here on the road the place it’s most significant. And the waves we create right here in Jerusalem or elsewhere in Palestine, they’re felt and so they unfold throughout the globe.

I do really feel that there’s an intense chemistry between grief and hope. It’s a tragic state of affairs, nevertheless it’s good to be hopeful. It’s what all of us want. Despair is the enemy. We can’t fall for this entice in any respect. Despair and desperation. That’s what they need us to stay by means of. We need to be hopeful, we need to give love and we need to do all we are able to to our individuals and to our communities. That’s what drives most of us right here in Palestine.

LK: That was so… I’m simply taking a second, Jalal, as a result of I’m actually moved by your phrases. And I believe it’s evident, from the whole lot Jalal was simply saying, that Palestinians are actually no strangers to holding hope and grief on the similar time. In reality, culturally I believe a lot of our practices assist us to carry and transfer by means of grief whereas persevering with to withstand and persevering with to domesticate hope. For instance, our killed family members usually are not… Are useless. They’re our martyrs. They’ve not deserted us, they’ve ascended.

Even woven into our language is a dedication to respect the losses which can be compelled upon us within the combat for our homeland. Our losses additionally confer duty on us to proceed the wrestle. To me, that’s deeply rooted in a apply of hope.

My household was expelled from Jaffa and Lydd. I used to be fascinated about, as Jalal was recalling, the story of Shireen Abu Akleh, that I visited Lydd for the primary time this final 12 months. The kids in Lydd really… There’s a road… On one facet of the road, there’s a wall that Israelis have imposed in order that the Palestinian neighborhood received’t be trying onto the Israeli neighborhood.

On that wall, the kids’s spray painted and so they renamed the road, Shireen Abu Akleh, the road of Shireen Abu Akleh. They named the playground on that road after her as nicely. And so, youngsters are actually taking part in amongst this fixed reminder of the lack of an excellent Palestinian icon. However on the similar time, I believe there’s one thing so profoundly hopeful and revolutionary in that. There’s nothing extra hopeful than the sound of youngsters’s laughter and the thought that youngsters are carrying with them this legacy day by day in simply the apply and the play of being a toddler, I believe for me is so symbolic of the Palestinian expertise in a approach.

One other instance of this concept of holding each hope and grief, resistance and grief that I needed to share was the story of the Rimawi household. For many who, listeners who won’t know, in late November of 2022, two brothers, Jawad and Dhafer, from the identical household, have been killed by the occupation forces in a single afternoon. So this household misplaced two sons, two brothers, two grandchildren in however a few moments. Within the wake of this monumental loss, Ru’a, the sister of the 2 martyred brothers, mentioned at their funeral, she gave an impromptu speech that ended up going viral. I needed to simply share a bit of that as a result of I believe it’s one thing that I’ve returned to fairly often after I’m reflecting on this query of holding hope and grief. What she mentioned was, “Don’t enable their blood or the blood of any martyr of this homeland to be for nothing. Don’t enable the tears of my mom to be misplaced. Each individual that’s ready to withstand with stones, with a gun, with training, with weapons, ought to resist. I’m a health care provider and I need to heal individuals, and immediately I buried my brothers. Each one in all us resists in their very own approach, however maintain resistance alive and maintain the wrestle alive. Don’t cease for something till this land is liberated.”

These have been her phrases in that second of simply unfathomable grief. It jogs my memory that as Palestinians, we honor our grief by working towards hope. This isn’t to disregard dying, however to acknowledge that actually our motion itself is what’s alive.

For me as a toddler of diaspora, I mirror on this as a duty to reclaim our function within the wrestle. This concept of holding grief and hope and carving a job for oneself within the wrestle and taking part and contributing to one thing that’s larger than any of us has been profoundly liberatory for me at a private and a religious stage. It has been an antidote to despair, which as Jalal mentioned, is the poison capsule of any motion is despair. It’s precisely what our enemies need. To have the ability to maintain on to one thing, to drag out of despair or out of a sense of helplessness, is important. It additionally, I’ll say, is one thing that requires us to get our fingers soiled within the work of planting one thing and constructing one thing in our lives. It requires us to, in diaspora at the least, to check and determine the ways in which Zionism manifests in our communities and to grasp that we are able to and we should confront these issues.

It’s an crucial to begin campaigns, to make errors, to study and to develop and to strengthen the muscle tissues of the motion. And whereas our martyrs could be the lifeblood of our motion, and Palestine is clearly the center of our wrestle, right here within the U.S., we’re maybe one arm of the wrestle, and Britain perhaps is one other. The camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria are one other. If we aren’t working towards constructing a liberated world within the small methods we are able to from the locations that we’re, if we get snug with merely reposting or critiquing from afar, then we’re letting these limbs, our limb of the wrestle atrophy. And that’s one thing that we’ve a duty by no means to let occur in the identical approach that we’ve a duty by no means to overlook the Nakba and by no means to overlook our martyrs and the those that we’ve misplaced.

For me, I believe it’s about upholding the dignity of the those that we’ve misplaced by constructing a motion of their legacy. That is likely one of the issues that being part of this motion has given me, is a capability to muddle my approach by means of grief by constructing one thing else and by contributing to one thing larger than myself. And I believe that means of constructing one thing is the one approach out actually.

JH: I utterly agree. For me additionally as a diaspora organizer, I believe the best way that I join hope and grief is thru a linking of the previous, current, and future. I do know that sounds fluffy, however what I imply by that’s with regards to the previous, the significance of us learning and understanding our historical past with regards to the current organizing and our current second and guaranteeing that, as Lea talked about, we’re upholding the legacy of our martyrs and being led by our prisoners who’re the compass of our wrestle.

After which, shifting ahead, or at all times remembering that what we’re working in the direction of is the full liberation of Palestine from the river to the ocean. When it comes to historical past particularly, it’s essential for us to keep in mind that within the instant aftermath of the Nakba, Palestine youth activism performed a extremely essential function in educating, coaching Palestinians to imagine duty for the implementation of political, financial, social, civic and authorized rights. Youth mobilization has usually functioned because the lifeblood of Palestinian resistance and offered the political framework and the methods for our motion.

This was significantly the case with the final unit of Palestinian college students within the Nineteen Fifties and the legacy that youth held within the PLO throughout that point. However throughout Oslo, through the Oslo processes, we actually noticed the fragmentation of Palestine and in addition the dissolution of Palestinian establishments and the elimination of youth from these management roles. And so it’s essential for us to recollect the historic legacy that youth have performed and the way we obtained to this second the place youth have been stripped of their management roles.

What we’re organizing for on this current second is reclaiming our function, reclaiming that historic function in our liberation motion. We’re organizing on this post-Oslo second to revitalize the function of Palestinian and Arab youth and reclaim our function within the liberation wrestle. A central a part of that’s becoming a member of organizations just like the Palestinian Youth Motion, or your native PalSoc in case you’re in Britain, or your SJP in case you’re within the U.S., and actively organizing in the direction of liberation of Palestine.

In doing so, in really being concerned in making change in our locales and combating liberation of our locales, we’re working in the direction of liberation of Palestine. We’re working in the direction of difficult the disillusionment that we’re seeing in our communities that has additionally been more and more prevalent for the reason that Oslo processes. Now we have a extremely essential function to play as youth in reinstating the promise of liberation in our communities.

KH: Is there anything in your hearts and minds that you simply want to share with or ask of the viewers immediately?

LK: I’ll simply say tremendous rapidly that I might hope that folk proceed to floor themselves in what’s occurring in Palestine by following and staying abreast of Palestinian information, voices from a Palestinian perspective, following journalists like Jalal, staying updated with what’s occurring after which utilizing that as gas to do one thing about it, as Jeanine was saying, and significantly talking to those that are listening to this in hoping to affix a solidarity motion or who’re perhaps a part of the diaspora themselves. I believe we actually have a duty to reject a sense of helplessness and to show that into actively doing one thing about what’s occurring, about turning overwhelm into motion.

It’s not that it’s not okay to really feel all of these issues, however to make use of them as gas and fodder for becoming a member of a motion. If you happen to’re within the U.S., Canada, or Britain, there’s a Palestinian Youth Motion chapter most likely close to you. Or in case you’re in a college, in case you’re not Palestinian or Arab, I promise there are nonetheless solidarity teams so that you can plug into. We actually want people to reject helplessness and to grasp the Palestinian trigger isn’t hopeless. And I believe, rejecting these issues, the one place that leaves you is becoming a member of the motion your self and being a part of the constructing.

JH: The one different factor that I’ll add is a little bit of a plug. One of many current initiatives that the PYM, the Palestine Youth Motion, has been engaged on is a e book translation of Wisam Rafeedie, is The Trinity of Fundamentals. We launched the e book in early Might, nevertheless it’s really not going to be launched till November. However although the e book was printed in 1993, we nonetheless noticed it as actually essential and related to immediately’s context. That’s why the PYM took up the work to translate the novel and to make it accessible to Palestinians and Arabs and others who won’t learn Arabic or who’re within the diaspora.

The theme of the e book is, two central themes inside the e book are this concept of revolutionary optimism and the significance of self-sacrifice. After we discuss historical past and the significance of understanding our historical past and of utilizing our historical past because the gas to drive us ahead within the wrestle, this e book is such a distinguished instance.

Yeah, I simply needed to inform everybody to maintain a watch out for it when it’s… You may pre-order it now, and when it’s out in November, get your fingers on it. There’ll be a number of launch occasions throughout completely different areas, studying teams and issues like that. So yeah, get entangled. It’s a extremely good entry level into this concept of linking previous, current sooner or later that I used to be speaking about.

JA: Lastly, I simply needed to speak after you guys as a result of I need to thanks all as nicely on your great contributions. There may be at all times one thing I take into consideration right here in Palestine, each time I doc one thing or I report on a sure matter, and others do the identical, we report generally with the uncooked info of what’s occurring on the bottom. However once more, for the whole motion that’s in Palestine and in diaspora, Palestinians should be supportive in a approach that we have to create content material and make it simpler for it to every others. After we report and make our tales, fiction novels, cinema, speeches, no matter form of reporting that all of us do, the place we create assets for simpler entry to info once we amplify sure voices which can be actually missing in viewers, there’s numerous mutual… We will assist one another in some ways by simply amplifying the messages.

I don’t know. I used to be considering of Visualizing Palestine simply now as a result of I noticed their e-mail. Visualizing Palestine, for instance, is a undertaking that’s great. They do acquire unbelievable info and so they create lovely visualizations. However I’m at all times struggling to search out increasingly more of this interactive knowledge that’s being disseminated overseas and individuals are understanding higher of what’s occurring in Palestine and that despair isn’t an possibility, not at the moment. Now we have numerous momentum. We’re on the streets and the sacrifice is every day. Palestinians are being killed as a result of they refuse to bow down, they refuse to cease resisting. That is the one cause that this grinding machine retains going and we’re nonetheless resilient and surviving is due to the assist of the neighborhood that’s supporting us and round us, our neighborhood, the Palestinians.

We’re the energy that can liberate Palestine, finally, Palestinians. Our pals can be there with us, our allies, however Palestinians, us, we should be doing all we are able to to assist one another and amplify one another’s voices. I hope for the very best actually, as a result of this darkness can’t final for too lengthy. It could’t be this dangerous endlessly. It has to get higher sooner or later.

[Musical interlude]

KH: I couldn’t be extra grateful to Lea, Jeanine and Jalal for his or her phrases and insights. I particularly recognize their reminder that, whereas the wrestle for Palestinian liberation is marked by loss, tragedy, and grief, it is usually a motion powered by hope, love and solidarity. As Jalal recently tweeted, “Shireen lives. Palestine lives. evil will perish and we will be free.”

Because of a long time of organizing, assist for the Palestinian wrestle has been growing in the USA, with a file variety of People voicing assist for the Palestinian trigger. A gaggle of congressional progressives lately wrote an open letter to President Joe Biden, calling for an finish to U.S. assist for Israel’s violent apartheid insurance policies. As nicely they need to, on condition that Israeli violence towards Palestinians thrives on U.S. assist. As Lea wrote in Truthout in Might of 2021:

Lots of the teams fueling the Israeli extremist settler motion are headquartered within the U.S. and registered as American nonprofits. The funders of Palestinian dispossession get a tax break for each test they write. The common American pays about as a lot to Israel’s homicide machine as they do towards the general public library system. All of this cash ought to be going into our communities as a substitute. If you happen to aren’t already, it’s time to begin listening to what Israeli beneficiaries are doing with U.S. {dollars}.

As with many struggles, the extra you listen, the extra plentiful frontlines develop into. And as with practically all struggles, there’s a function for almost anybody who provides a rattling. Most of us nonetheless have quite a bit to find out about this wrestle, and we must always pursue these classes, for the sake of supporting Palestinian liberation, and for our personal sakes, as a result of our fates are related — as are the injustices that we expertise. When apartheid and ethno-nationalist violence prevails, wherever on the earth, we’re all harmed. Right here in the USA, we should rage towards our personal authorities’s assist of Israeli atrocities, and we should proceed to assist and uplift the voices of the Palestinian individuals. Now we have a lot to study from their experiences, and from their wrestle, and I’m grateful for these classes.

I want to shut immediately with some phrases from the poem “Silence for Gaza,” by the acclaimed Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish:

Gaza has no throat. Its pores are those that talk in sweat, blood, and fires. Therefore the enemy hates it to dying and fears it to criminality, and tries to sink it into the ocean, the desert, or blood. And therefore its family members and pals find it irresistible with a coyness that quantities to jealousy and concern at instances, as a result of Gaza is the brutal lesson and the shining instance for enemies and pals alike.

Gaza isn’t essentially the most lovely metropolis.

Its shore isn’t bluer than the shores of Arab cities.

Its oranges usually are not essentially the most lovely within the Mediterranean basin.

Gaza isn’t the richest metropolis.

It isn’t essentially the most elegant or the most important, nevertheless it equals the historical past of a whole homeland, as a result of it’s extra ugly, impoverished, depressing, and cruel within the eyes of enemies. As a result of it’s the most succesful, amongst us, of disturbing the enemy’s temper and his consolation. As a result of it’s his nightmare. As a result of it’s mined oranges, youngsters and not using a childhood, previous males with out previous age and ladies with out wishes. Due to all this it’s the most lovely, the purest and richest amongst us and the one most worthy of affection.

I need to thank Lea, Jeanine and Jalal for speaking with me for this episode. It’s a dialog I’ll carry with me as all of us transfer ahead in solidarity and in wrestle. I additionally need to thank our listeners for becoming a member of us immediately, and keep in mind, our greatest protection towards cynicism is to do good and to keep in mind that the nice we do issues. Till subsequent time, I’ll see you within the streets.

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