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From LeverNews.com — Lever Time is the flagship podcast from the investigative news outlet The Lever. Hosted by award-winning journalist, Oscar-nominated writer, and Bernie Sanders' 2020 speechwriter David Sirota, Lever Time features exclusive reporting from The Lever’s newsroom, high-profile guest interviews, and expert analysis from the sharpest minds in media and politics.
Frank Cappello: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Lever Time. I'm producer Frank Capello filling in for David Sirota.
For today's episode, we will be sharing the recording of a live event that was hosted by The Lever on Wednesday, October 18th.
David Sirota was joined by author, activist, and filmmaker Naomi Klein
and Palestinian American political analyst Omar Badar
To discuss Israel's ongoing onslaught in the Gaza Strip and the mounting humanitarian crisis.
That'll be coming up in just a few minutes. feed. Last week we shared David's interview with Allison Fisher from the watchdog group Media Matters about Rupert Murdoch's lasting impact on how we perceive and organize against climate change. and next week we'll be sharing an interview with the music writer Robin James and musician Greg Saunier about the online music platform Bandcamp, which was recently sold [00:01:00] to the licensing company SongTrader.
Which then laid off about half of Bandcamp's entire staff, all in the midst of band camp's, unionization efforts. It's a really fascinating story about the corporate influence on the music industry. If you would like to access our premium content, head over to levernews. com and click the subscribe button in the top right to become a supporting subscriber.
This gives you access to the Lever Premium Podcasts feed, which I just mentioned, exclusive live events, and even more in depth reporting, and you'll be directly supporting the investigative journalism that we do here at The Lever.
All right, we're going to get right into the recording of our live event from last week. As I mentioned, was recorded about a week ago on October 18th, so some things have changed since the recording.
But as you'll hear, David, Naomi, and Omar discuss the broader conflict and its perception, which remains extremely relevant. they spoke about the historical and political context that led to this moment, the double standard applied by corporate media outlets when covering Israel and Palestine, the recent responses from members of Congress and the debate surrounding Zionism.
they also took some [00:02:00] questions for the audience. Now, here's that conversation with David Sirota, Naomi Klein, and Omar Badar.
David Sirota: Uh, thank you everyone for for joining us tonight. Um, for this live event for the lever. I want to thank everybody for being a subscriber to the lever. If you are, if you're not go to lever news dot com and subscribe. We held a live event last week about the lever.
Israel Palestine crisis. A lot of things have changed since then, uh, and I wanted to talk to Naomi Klein tonight, uh, and, um, and our other guests who will be joining us, uh, hopefully shortly, uh, but just to update everybody on, on, on what's going on, um, Today, Israel's war cabinet, uh, approved the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza following pressure from the United States and other countries.
The decision came after an hour long meeting with President Biden in Tel Aviv. So I, I would say that that's good news. Now, how good a [00:03:00] news it is, it's, it's hard to know because the, uh, the, the violence there, uh, continues. Um, Probably most people know that yesterday nearly 500 people were killed in an explosion at a hospital in Gaza City.
Now there's a lot of back and forth on, on whose fault that was, who did it, who blew, who blew it up. Was it an, who's responsible for the explosion? And we can, we can talk a lot about that. And I would, I will take this moment to say, I think one thing that's very difficult for a lot of folks is to figure out.
What is credible information and what is not credible information. So that's that's actually something I want to talk about today. But also today, Naomi Klein, our guest, um, and a longtime friend of mine, um, was at a, uh, a cease fire rally, a peace rally today in Washington, D. C. So I want to I want to actually, um Start there.
Uh, with that, um, Naomi, why don't you tell [00:04:00] us what happened today? It's good to see you. Uh, why don't you tell us what happened today? Uh, and why what was said there? What the what the push was about? Why do you think it's so important?
Naomi Klein: Yeah. Hi, David. Hi, Omar. Great to see you. Um, really nice to be in conversation with you. Uh, yeah, I'll just do a live report from my hotel room. I have to apologize. I feel like, uh, these curtains are, are like giving off some like Trumpy vibes. Like I don't control the, um, the, the, the hotel decor, um, you know, today was.
I would just say solidarity is medicine in these times. And this was a, um, a ceasefire rally calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian assistance immediately, that was called by Jewish Voice for Peace. And if not now, which are two, uh, Jewish led organizations, [00:05:00] um, that was Are kind of the other, the other, the other Jewish lobby in a way.
I mean, really bringing a much younger, um, progressive perspective. I think a lot of the big Jewish orgs are just panicked. They were smearing JVP right, left and center didn't know what to do. It was the largest, um, Jewish organization led protest in solidarity with Palestinians in US history. There were thousands upon thousands of people in front of Congress.
And more significantly than that, I would say, was the civil disobedience. Um, 500 people, uh, went into the rotunda and, uh, were arrested, including lots of rabbis, um, many, many young people. It was a, it was a, it was a real show of solidarity and the message was every, every life is precious. It was really a message of, of, of total rejection for the targeting of civilians, um, no matter where they live.
[00:06:00] Um, it wasn't this double standard that you hear inside Congress of absolute horror at the targeting of Israeli civilians. Yes, I agree. But then bomb the hell out of them indiscriminately. Um, if they're Palestinians. So, you know, I, I really do believe it was a historic day. I was, I was honored to be there.
It was also in support of a resolution, um, that, uh, is being led by Cori Bush, but, uh, has sign ons from a lot of other members of the squad. So Cori Bush spoke at the rally, so did Rashida Tlaib, got a lot of love. She's been under tremendous pressure, tremendous fire. You know, um, it was in these really some of the darkest days I've ever lived through.
Um, uh, it was a, it was a little bit, it was a little bit of, um, a glimpse of a different kind of world. Um, but obviously. The overall picture is incredibly, incredibly grim and incredibly distressing. I [00:07:00] also, I also spent a lot of time meeting with different Congress people trying to get more people to sign on to this ceasefire resolution and more people did sign on even today.
So you really did see the power of pressure. You know, the number, the number of Uh, people adding their names to the ceasefire call grew as the protest went on, as the arrest went on, but it's still too small. And the, the, the, the, the, the, um, the braying for blood is very, very loud in there. Uh, so it was, uh, yeah, it was an emotional day.
David Sirota: Omar Badr is a Palestinian American political analyst and human rights advocate. He joins us as well. Omar, thanks for being here. Um, Naomi mentioned this double standard about, um, civilian casualties. Um, talk to us a little bit about what that feels like to the Palestinian American community, Palestinians, uh, who, who hear that and to talk to us a little bit about how long a tradition that double standard has been.
Omar Baddar: Thank [00:08:00] you, David. And it's good to be in conversation with you and Naomi. Um, I think you're putting your finger on on a very, very serious problem. Um, that is. Longstanding even beyond this crisis. We've had leading up to before even the Hamas attack. Um, there have been 250 Palestinians who had been killed just this year, primarily in the West Bank, um, as a result of Israeli government actions and settler attacks, and there's hardly any mention of it in mainstream media discourse and hardly any commentary about it from from Washington.
And then we've had this It's absolutely horrific attack that Hamas has launched. And as a result of that, we see on a loop kind of the depth of Israeli humanity. We have, um, parents being interviewed at length, giving emotional testimony about who their children were and how difficult losing them is. And I mean, it's all of it is, is absolutely real and [00:09:00] worthwhile.
But the sharp contrast with the utter disregard we see for, for Palestinian life is, is quite grotesque, frankly. And that continued even as, um, Israel started launching this massive onslaught throughout the Gaza Strip of, again, when we're describing indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, We are talking about war crimes and more than that, frankly, I think the word terrorism is the correct word that comes to mind.
Terrorism is the use of violence against civilians in order to achieve a political end. And there is no question about the fact that this is precisely what Israel is pursuing. There is a lot of rhetoric about... Israel doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties. And if when we kill them, it's by accident, there have been many, many, many bombings of Gaza by Israel before.
And when human rights organizations investigate them, the conclusion they reach is that Israel has engaged in reckless and deliberate bombings and indiscriminate ones of civilian areas. And in some cases, even when there was this great [00:10:00] march of return out of Gaza in 2018, it was Israeli snipers taking aim at journalists and medics and activists who are clearly unarmed.
So we have this pattern of Israel behaving in a way where it shows disregard for Palestinian human life. And yet the dominant narrative. Is that when Palestinians kill civilians, it's because they're barbarian monsters and when Israel does it. Oh, it's it's really has to be an accident because Israel is way too nice and civilized to ever do something like that on intentionally.
And that conveys a level of racism and dehumanization of Palestinians that I think is very, very deeply aggravating for. A lot of people watching and more crucially, um, than just the, the, the emotional impact of it, it stops us from pursuing better policies and moving things in a better direction. If we believe that there's a fundamental disparity in the humanity of people on, on either side, because ultimately beyond just this crisis, I don't think we're going to find a military solution for anything.
Israel [00:11:00] has believed for many decades that if only they pummeled the Palestinians hard enough, and if only they squeezed them and confined them Strictly enough. That they're going to resolve this issue and then Israel gets to live happily ever after and the lesson has been repeatedly that this approach does not work and all it does is produce the kind of despair on the Palestinian side that then leads to an explosion like the one that we just saw and what we really need is a shift in Israel's approach and that could only be achieved by American pressure to accept that the only true way out of this Is one in which Palestinians and Israelis get to live in safety, freedom and security, and that entails ending Israel's siege and occupation and apartheid system that has made Palestinian life really unlivable.
I want
David Sirota: to remind everybody and just welcome everybody for for joining us here. If you're just joining us, you can ask a post a question in the Q and a at the bottom of your screen. You should see a Q and a button and we're going to try to ask as many questions as we can. Uh, and I pledged to, um. [00:12:00] To ask as many, um, uncomfortable questions, uh, as we can, because I've been struggling with how to think about this, as I think probably everybody watching this, uh, and seeing what's going on has struggled.
One thing that's come, come to mind, and I'm going to, we'll go back and forth between Naomi and Omar, and then we'll ask some questions from the audience. So please post, uh, your questions. Um, this question of what Israel's response To the Hamas terrorist attack should be and I want to, I want to frame up this question by saying, let's, let's set aside just for a moment.
I'm talking about a short term question here. Let's set aside, um, Israel's occupation, uh, creating the conditions for, uh, uh, attacks like, like we saw. And to be clear, I want to be very precise with my language. Creating the conditions for an inevitable, uh, inevitable blowback, as the CIA calls it, does not mean that, that, that that blowback [00:13:00] is justified or the tactics of that blowback are justified.
I think there's been a lot of conflating of things that are inevitable versus justified. So all of that is to say, A terrorist attack happens. Uh, Israel argues that the terrorists who committed that attack are deliberately basing their attacks from within civilian facilities, from within hospitals, schools, civilian neighborhoods.
And so then the question comes up, okay, well, what is a humane, adequate security response? If then let's, let's just, let's just For argument's sake, say that part of that argument is true, that there are some Hamas, uh, bases of power inside of civilian areas, and that Hamas uses civilians as kind of human shields.
What is a humane security response to something like that? Naomi, I'll ask you, because I, I, because I don't necessarily know, I'm not a military strategist, [00:14:00] but I don't necessarily know how to think about that question. It's a tough question. What, what, what's your response to that question, Naomi?
Naomi Klein: I don't think there is a military response, um, that is going to in any way get at the root of what led to those attacks. I think, I think that they, just to be frank with you, I think Israel's creating more and Quote unquote terrorists every single day. Um, you know, I was in Gaza in 2008.
I met lots of little kids in the rubble. I met kids whose bodies had been burned with white phosphorus. You know, those, those are young men today, you know, I saw the same thing in Iraq after the invasion. I'm not a military strategist, but I can say that these that that the targeting I believe Palestinians have a right to art that people under occupation have a right to armed resistance up to targeting of civilians.
Because that violates, uh, you know, that [00:15:00] violates the Geneva Conventions, which are the legacy of the Second World War, right? And the reason why I, you know, there's somebody, you know, in the, in, in, in the comments talking about an interview that they, that they heard that talked about how, um, you know, it's understandable if you, you don't live this way, you have no right to condemn it.
The point is we have an international. Legal architecture that is one of the legacies of the holocaust and the other horrors of the second world war and right now, it's really officials are going on television, just shrugging it off going. You bomb Dresden. So can we as if those laws don't exist and You can't shrug off international law in the morning and then invoke it in the afternoon when it's Israel who is violating international law.
You know, I have been talking all day about Israel's war crimes, but the point, the thing about war crimes is you have to apply. The, the, the, the standards, [00:16:00] um, you know, no matter who violates it, it's not like my team's okay and your team isn't. It just, it just doesn't work that way, um, because all you really have is the moral force of it, um, and so you have this farce now where one side, you know, just.
Cares about it if if it's the other side doing it and it's it's it's not why we have these laws. They're really being shredded. It's a really perilous time. But, you know, one of the things that we talked about a fair bit today with these Congress people is, you know, everyone now looks back on the response to September the September 11th attack with a lot of regret, right?
Because ultimately, those were criminal acts that could have been responded to. And, um, you know, with criminal criminal as if they as if they were criminal and not through these massive wars that are basically unending even if our government governments no longer admit it. So, uh, I think we're [00:17:00] repeating the same mistakes all over again.
I think, also like 911, you had, you know, if we think back to those days those of us remember it and I know we do. There was a lot of opportunism. This is what I wrote about in the shock doctrine where there were people in the Bush administration who had a whole plan for redrawing the map of the Middle East and they saw their moment.
And I really think we have to remember that and think about people in Benjamin Netanyahu's very extreme far right government who have been openly espousing. Genocidal ideas and talking about how they don't want to deal with Gaza anymore. And they do want basically, they've been calling for ethnic cleansing.
They want to take the entire West Bank and they are seeing their moment here. Right? so, yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, Omar will have a better answer than me, perhaps to the question of, you know, what to do about the embedding and civilian infrastructure. It's a very dense area and it is not an excuse for war crimes.[00:18:00]
David Sirota: Right, and I want to just add some context there because you jogged my memory. I remember, I'm so old, I not only remember being on Capitol Hill on 9 11. To your point about dealing with terrorist acts as a, with a military solution or as a law enforcement matter, I bet there are folks who are watching this who remember during the 2004 presidential campaign that George Bush.
Uh, and the Republicans just lambast John Kerry for saying that we would probably be a better idea to have dealt with 9 11 as a law enforcement matter. I mean, he was lampooned. He was ridiculed for saying, I remember, I remember living through that and thinking, has everyone gone insane? Because what, what, I mean, I'm not a huge John Kerry fan, like, I'll admit that, but like, I was like, What John Kerry is saying when it comes, it comes to a response that makes perfect sense, but that's like [00:19:00] gone.
And I've wondered in these last, uh, this last week, when did 9 11 or the response to 9 11 become a guidebook? rather than a cautionary tale. And I don't know if there's a, I don't know if there's a particular point, but Omar, I want to ask you that question. I want to stick to that question because it has come up a lot.
What is in the short term? You know, ending the occupation. I'm here for that. I've spoken out about that. I think a lot of people agree with that. Not everyone, obviously, but in the short term. A terrorist attack targeting Israeli civilians happens if we stipulate just for argument's sake that some of those terrorists are basing their base of operations among civilians.
What is a humane response from, uh, the Israeli security forces to something like that?
Omar Baddar: Let me just say, David, real quick that When it comes to the invocation of 9 11, I don't think that that's a policy prescription [00:20:00] as much as it is an emotional appeal to say, you remember how angry you were and how much you wanted to copper bomb the entire world, and so you can't, you know, the sense of 9 11 is that yeah, we made mistakes, but Our anger was understandable.
So we were not expected to behave greatly. Right. And I think that's basically what, what the Israeli government and part of the Israeli public is also appealing of, yeah, we don't really have a game plan of how this is really going to work out, but you know, you can't be hard on us right now. We get to just do whatever we want to, because the moment calls for it.
Look, part of the challenge with. What effectively amounts to a suicide attack when, you know, you send militants across the border with the expectation that they're going to be there to fight and die. When it's over, you've killed the people who perpetrated the attack. They're all dead. you have now then beyond that, uh, a question of, all right, well, how much of this planning and how much of the organization and, and, you know, the extent to which you want to go deeper into Hamas's You know, broader responsibility as an organization [00:21:00] that does absolutely become a law enforcement issue first and foremost.
And it's a question of what does it mean to pursue a sensible judicial process by which you hold Hamas members accountable, whether you're trying to get people arrested, who you're appealing to, who gets to do it. All of this is a non starter for the Israeli government because the idea is that they're so offended at the prospect of an attack like this giving Hamas any sense of power that the goal, first and foremost, is not to pursue justice by any stretch of the imagination.
It is to punish them for daring. to do something like this, and that involves decimating them in every way possible. That is, that is the approach, and it's obviously not one that's going to work out. The only way you're going to eliminate Hamas from existence is by committing unspeakable atrocities that literally flatten huge parts of Gaza.
Uh, you know, you are talking about genocidal practice in order to, to be able to achieve something like that. On, on the question of, of human shields. I do [00:22:00] think that there's a lack of nuance in the way that we talk about this that to me is very, very important. There's a disparity of power, militants, you know, who use guerrilla warfare and guerrilla tactics because they don't have, um, airplanes and tanks.
are by necessity have to be embedded in civilian areas. They're just, there is an imbalance of power that makes it impossible. Hamas cannot just all gather in one empty part of Gaza and say, we're all here, we're staying away from civilians because then one Israeli missile takes them out. By contrast, Israel has more flexibility on that front because it has a very, very advanced military machine where they don't have to be operating deep within civilian areas, even though the IDF headquarters is in the middle of civilian area in Tel Aviv.
But the question of human shield specifically, the legal definition of it, it's the practice of holding civilians against their will in front of you in order to deter other people from shooting at you. And the only party here that has been [00:23:00] documented to practice this. Is in fact the Israeli military. A lot of people don't know this, that it's been standard Israeli military practice from the year 2000 to 2005 to just use Palestinian civilians as human shields, including children.
By the way, the idea is during the second Intifada to prevent Palestinian militants from shooting back. The Israeli Supreme Court said this was not an acceptable practice. So in 2005, they officially banned it. Uh, the Israeli military then objected to that ruling, and they were challenging it and appealing it.
But that ban stood. So on paper, the ban against the use of human shields is official in Israel. Nonetheless, in successive Israeli military operations, both in Gaza and in the West bank, there have been instances in which Israeli soldiers were caught using Palestinian children as human shields. And when they're caught in one instance, in 2014, when a 10 year old boy was used, human rights watch described the punishment that the Israeli soldiers got as a slap on the wrist, which means.
They don't [00:24:00] really have a deep problem with that practice and the reason why they use it is because they know it is effective and that the other side would be reluctant to shoot at you. So it undercuts this entire narrative that Palestinian militants are so monstrous they want their own children to die as Dershowitz claims.
If that were true, then what exactly is the point of the Israeli military using Palestinian children as shields? If they really believe that the militants did not care if they killed them or not. Clearly, they don't even believe that. So I just think that that's a point of distinction that is that is really worth emphasizing.
This is not to defend any of Hamas's tactics and not to say that they don't endanger civilian areas by embedding themselves in those civilian areas. But just I think that technicality of what human shields are is is a point that is worth worth highlighting.
David Sirota: Let's talk about the, the US response to this, and then I'm gonna read some questions, uh, from, from the audience.
And if you're just joining us, you can go to the bottom in, in the button that says Q and A, add your questions. I wanna ask about the, the, the US role here. And, and I [00:25:00] think, uh, Naomi, in, in your opening remarks, you mentioned this resolution that, um, some folks in the, in the, on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are pushing.
I read this resolution. It struck me as an, not only entirely sensible, but, um, kind of like the most minimal statement that any non sociopath should be able to agree with, right? I mean, it was, I've seen a lot of resolutions. I used to work on Capitol Hill, so I've seen how they're crafted and people are trying to throw in a bunch of things.
And clearly, whoever wrote this resolution was actually trying to keep as much out of it as possible. Down to the core of just a statement of, uh, of don't kill is, is essentially limit, reduce and eliminate, the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians. And yet as best as I can tell, it only has, I think, 50, 55, maybe 60 at this point, [00:26:00] um, uh, uh, uh, sponsors.
Meanwhile, separately, just for folks to know this, there was a letter that circulated that I was appalled by. A letter from, uh, both Republicans and Democrats led by one of the most conservative, uh, really pernicious Democratic Congress people, a guy named Josh Gottheimer from New Jersey, uh, in which it's talking about the role of Iran, and we can talk more about that, but it had this line in there.
Uh, and I reached out to some Congress people that I know who were on it, and I expressed my extreme displeasure that they signed on to this thing. Because there's a line in there that says, quote, We are already beginning to see calls in some circles for de escalation. Premature de escalation would be a victory for the terrorists and allow them to continue to threaten Israeli civilians with future attacks.
So, so it's one thing to say Iran is playing a nefarious role. It's another thing to say, um, calls for de escalation effectively mean you're a terrorist. I mean, that is, [00:27:00] that's the way to read that. It's almost literal. I guess if there's a question in here, it's how do we, how do we explain why there's relatively little support For a, I think it's a two page resolution that just says let's let's stop killing civilians and yet there is also support on Capitol Hill for saying any calls for de escalation effectively make you a terrorist, and it's, that's a call, that's a kind of implication from both parties.
Like, how do we understand that? How do we explain that?
Naomi Klein: I mean, it's absolutely true. I heard this from multiple people today, uh, Congress people that the, uh, that the phrase deescalate, sorry, not deescalation, but cease fire, which used to be a more kind of liberal Zionist call that J street would make, you know, very frequently is now seen as. Toxic, you know, um, like it's it's it and it is exactly as you say to it.
It's it's seen as as, as [00:28:00] not quote unquote standing with Israel. That's and I saw a lot of those signs in the hallways, uh, stand with Israel, which is code for. Blank check, whatever we, it's the same thing the U. S. did after 9 11. I mean, I think this is going to be a recurring theme, right? Like, are you with us or against us?
Are you with us or with the terrorists? It's, it's a straight up, you know, kind of loyalty test. It's outrageous because These U. S. Congress people should not be standing with Israel if that means that there are no strings attached to any of the weapons, any of the aid. They should be standing with international law.
They should, I mean, they don't, but they should be. and so the question is, how did this happen so quickly? Why is it so fierce? you know, I think, you know, speaking as a Jewish person, I think that what the Israeli government did very deftly and very [00:29:00] quickly was take a, um, war crime, which is what, you know, what, you know, I, I have no problem describing what Hamas did as a war crime, um, because you Um, when you have armed combatants in a conflict zone, in a conflict over borders, land, political power, rights, which is what the contours of the, of the, of this conflict are, um, and you use a tactic.
That as, you know, Omar said, there's reasons why these tactics are used. It's an incredibly asymmetrical conflict, but there's also a reason why we have the Geneva Conventions and says, can't do it. Right. So that's a war crime, but that is not how this has been described. It has been systematically and from out of the gate described as a hate crime, as the single deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
and pogroms. Right has been described, and I'm not minimizing it. I think war crimes are a [00:30:00] really big deal, right? I think massacres are a big deal. but that is not how it's been described. It's been described, it's been taken out of its geopolitical context and put within a narrative of, of primordial Jewish trauma and, and, and, and, and anti Semitism, which Inherently can't be reasoned with within that narrative.
And so the test is, they're trying to wipe out the Jews again. Will you stand with the Jews because you didn't last time, right? I mean, not in time. So this is being put within the narrative of the Holocaust. That's the only way that I can explain how, why, why it has been so fierce, um, why people are so afraid of not standing with Israel because We're certain there's like it's a it's it's supposed to be play out as a replay, right?
Um, and that's Smart communications. It's not what's happening, right? But I think that that's why, why people are being as cowardly, uh, [00:31:00] and as deadly as they're being. I would just add one other thing that I think is a factor here, which is Israel is not it's not only its own project that's at stake, and I wrote about this in the Shock Doctrine and people, a lot of people have written about it since.
Israel is a laboratory for a certain kind of, like when I talk, the Israeli military and the occupied territories are a laboratory for what Israel calls security without peace. Okay, when, when Israel, Israel gave up on the peace process many years ago, and, and they have a policy that they describe as.
Security without peace. Okay. Um, and that's what all the walls and the checkpoints and the siege are all about. Um, it's we don't need peace. We can contain right. And so when Hamas breaks through the era's checkpoint breaks through the wall and and inflicts this amount of civilian loss of life, the entire model is failing.
But what I'm [00:32:00] saying to you is that it's not just Israel's model. Every Western power plus India wants security without peace. You know, what do you think is happening on our borders, right? We live in an incredibly unequal world that is becoming more militarized, um, more surveilled. A lot of the weaponry we're being, we're buying from this lab in Israel, uh, you know, companies like Elbit Systems are selling, look, we did it, we did it at home.
Now you do it on your border, Europe, U. S., Australia. So, That I think that also partially express explains the speed with which every Western power has come down to say we will protect the Iron Dome. We're worried about our own Iron Domes. Um, and this is, I think it's helpful to broaden it beyond Israel Palestine.
I don't know how you feel about that, Omar, but I've been thinking about this a lot.
Omar Baddar: I agree with everything you've said, Naomi. I'll just add that I think part of the issue here. I mean, look, the invocation of, of the Holocaust in relation to all of this, it's a [00:33:00] mix of what I have no doubt is a sincere emotional reaction that when you see an event this dramatic, it does tap into, um, some historical trauma that the Jewish community has had.
Um, but you can't also get over the part of this that is clearly exploitative by, on the part of the Israeli government and groups like the ADL. Who are using this as a talking point in order to silence any dissent on, on this issue entirely. to essentially imply that if you do dissent on this, on this question, then you are a terrorist sympathizer and you are.
Not taking the threat of another Holocaust seriously enough and that's been really destructive and, and has created a political climate in which it's very, very difficult to push back on what Israel is doing. But, um, I think the second aspect of it is the extent to which, because Republicans, you'd Israel as a wedge issue against Democrats [00:34:00] constantly and Democrats keep falling over each other to try to say, no, no, no, no, we're not anti Israel.
You know, it's it's funny. Both parties by and large are overwhelmingly supportive of Israel to the point of saying unconditional support. Do whatever you want. This minor contrast is Democrats will occasionally criticize. Very tepidly, very, you know, exclusively verbally, no meaningful, meaningful, um, conditions or, or policy differences.
And the Republicans use these occasional points of criticism to say that the Democrats are anti Israel and that the Democrats immediately bend over backwards to say, no, no, no, we're not. What else can we do to prove that we're not? And you have a situation in which Israeli politics has moved farther and farther to the right.
And it's become more and more extreme. And yet you would think that that would naturally break the dynamic in the U S but it has not, it has broken it in terms of public opinion. Where, you know, I don't know what kind of impact this, this particular crisis is going to have, but before this, a majority of Democrats were saying we should withhold some military funding [00:35:00] to Israel because of Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights.
That's unprecedented, but you would not know it looking at the democratic party establishment. This is the dominant sentiment in the base of the party. It's been left to literally a handful of people within the progressive end of the spectrum of the Democratic Party who are willing to echo that sentiment that hey, maybe this kind of unquestioning unconditional support for Israel.
You know, do whatever you want with the military funding we give you. If the UN tries to vote against you, we're going to step in and veto it every single time. If Palestinians go to the international criminal court to try to get some, some accountability, we're going to place enormous pressure on the criminal court and say, don't bring charges against Israeli war crimes.
And just, they've closed down every single possible peaceful political Avenue for Palestinians to push for their freedom, pushing us towards a situation of violence while Israeli political rhetoric has gotten more and more. Um, right wing vicious anti Palestinian and yet the Democrats continue to be pushed farther and farther to the [00:36:00] right as well that then when an incident like this happens, it's almost no surprise that we live in a political climate in which everybody is going to fall in line and even in the face of literally genocidal rhetoric and the beginning of genocidal actions that we're currently seeing in Gaza, we're stuck.
It's it's honestly infuriating that we don't have An awakening of the American political conscious on a moment like this to say, slow down, we get this is a big deal. This is really horrible. But cutting off food and children and water from a million Children is not okay. That ought to be a fundamental sense that our political establishment seems to be lacking.
And when you compare it to what's happening in Russia and Ukraine, you know, Biden's policy is that we have to arm Ukraine to resist Russian invasion and occupation. And the policy with Israel and Palestine is literally the opposite where the policy is to arm the occupiers in order to maintain that occupation over Palestinians, while just occasionally criticizing that occupation [00:37:00] and insisting though that nobody can arm the occupied or that this this entire framework of who has the right to self defense is exclusively invoked.
Um, in the right of Israel to defend itself, but never the right of the occupied people to self defense that just does not come up and even at the rate of the killing that we've seen in the entire first year of Russia's war on Ukraine, you've had less than 500 children. I don't want to play that down by the way, when I say less or fewer than, obviously, it's still absolutely horrific, but you've 500 million children, 500 children who were killed in Russia's entire first year of its war on Ukraine.
And then you have Israel killing more than 700 Palestinian children within one week of this assault on Gaza. You do the math on that, and Israel is killing Palestinian children at a rate that is 100 times greater than what we had seen in Russia and Ukraine. And we need to look at the extent of the backlash, the political establishment backlash on what happened in Ukraine and the necessity of standing up for them and what's happening to them is [00:38:00] monstrous and so on, and you see this utter monstrosity being playing out right before our eyes and nobody's willing to speak out against it.
I think is an extremely, extremely disturbing climate that I'm, I'm, I'm so grateful for groups like, if not now, and JVP who have. given a voice to the voiceless and have stepped up. They're the only groups that are immune from these just ridiculous charges of antisemitism and sympathy to terrorism. These are progressive American Jews who, in the case of if not now, some staff members lost friends and family members in this Hamas attack.
So you can't pretend that they victimhood, but they're saying. Do not weaponize our pain in order to commit crimes against other people. And that's a message that I hope creates some kind of awakening within the American political establishment to start understanding that the current trajectory is a deeply ugly, disturbing one that is going to lead us to utter disaster.
Okay, I'm going to turn to some,
David Sirota: some questions now. And just to [00:39:00] let everyone know, I'm going to try to summarize as many or combine as many questions as possible. So we get to as many of them. I've also been reading the comments and I think there are a lot of great comments. I've been a little triggered by, by some of them.
Um, and, and actually one that I'm triggered by. I want to, it's good because I want, I want to start with this. There's, Somebody has commented, this is a comment in the chat, I think Zionists use the Holocaust as a shield like they use anti Semitism. Now, I'm triggered by that because I don't like, uh, the way Zionist is used as an epithet.
I don't like the implication that anti Semitism isn't real and that Jews just make up anti Semitism in their head. I'm trying to, to not get enraged by that, that kind of rhetoric. And I would, Ask people in the chat to not use that kind of rhetoric and try to be precise in your rhetoric. When, when you hear me talk about Israel, I often talk about the Israeli leadership or the, this particular Israeli regime or Bibi Netanyahu, one of the most right wing, [00:40:00] uh, destructive forces in the last 30 years of global politics.
So, but I think that's a good segue to, uh, sort of, this is a composite question that's been kind of thrown around in the chat and, and I'll go to Naomi on this one, which is. Zionism. first of all, let me just preface this by saying, I think Zionism means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
So, uh, it's hard to know what we're really talking about when we just use that term. But I think, I think a central question here is, can Zionism in one form or the other, which I define as the belief in that a state of Israel can exist. Is Zionism, can Zionism exist in a two state solution situation?
Is Zionism at odds with peace in this particular part of the world? And, and it can, I'm not just talking about, you know, however you define Zionism, right? Like, is there a version of Zionism that can exist in [00:41:00] a, in a place in this part of the world that is peaceful, uh, coexistent and respectful of the Palestinians and other peoples in the region?
Naomi Klein: it would be very different than the Zionism that we have. Um, so I'm not going to get very like hung up on the words right now. I think it is triggering for a lot of people. I think what's more urgent is that there needs to be a horizon, um, where people can see themselves. uh, where, where, where, where everybody is in, in Israel and Palestine, um, see a future for themselves for life with dignity, with full rights, with full freedoms.
And I don't think it's up to me. Or you or frankly, anyone who doesn't live there, but certainly people who have who have a right to return. uh, you know, they do have a right to be part of. envisioning [00:42:00] that future. I think right now we're in a very we're in a state where it's we look back a lot at the crimes of the past and there's no end of them.
but we're afraid to look forward. It's hard. It's really, really hard. And it isn't clear who has a right to do that. Um, and this is the legacy of Zionism, you know, a Palestinian life has been, um, it turned into Bantustans, right? I mean, you can't even really have communication between Gaza and the West Bank and the West Bank is being turned into, has been turned into Swiss cheese.
And then you have the diaspora, but there still needs to be a horizon. And I, and, and so that's my answer. You know, I, I, like, I think what we have now. Is a, I, I know that that when these debates were happening, and Hannah Arendt was talking about a kind of Zionism that was not actually, uh, attached to statehood, um, that was a kind of plurinational, but was land based, I mean, there's different kinds of people [00:43:00] had diverse visions, you know, Martin Buber had a vision of Zionism.
That is not the Zionism that has triumphed. The Zionism that has triumphed is extremely militant. Thank And there's a lot, there's a logical reason why each government seems to get more right wing than the last. So I don't think it's enough to just talk about this particular Israeli government, because there's a logic and there's an escalation to it, where it becomes more and more brutal to defend this idea that we can kind of fortress the Jews on land that was inhabited.
So I don't know. I don't know. It's very I'm not sure we're going to solve this tonight on this. But I would I would
David Sirota: I would ask I would and Omar, I'll ask you the flip side of the question. I mean, people have some folks have brought up on the chat that, you know, Hamas and it's sort of mission statements is is says it's committed to the destruction of the Jewish state.
You know, there's a lot of like, you know, uh, getting rid of the Jews in the in the region. If you hear an Israeli or somebody defending Israel say, I [00:44:00] don't believe there is a possibility of peace, a possibility of a two state solution if Hamas exists as a major political force because of what Hamas purports to stand for, what's
Omar Baddar: the response to that?
Yeah, I would point out and by the way, I mean, I hope that that's But I'm neither a fan nor a defender of Hamas, of course, nonetheless, nonetheless, I think that there is been an update in their position that I think is worthwhile is that they used to be a lot more extreme. Their charter was much more destructive.
And then when they finally came to power, through elections. They started taking statesmanship a little bit more seriously, and they updated their charter, they got rid of the old one, have a new one, and the leader of Hamas had a piece in, in the Washington Post, it must have been around 2006 or so, in which Hamas expressed openness to a two state solution, which I know is shocking probably to most people listening, because all you ever hear is Hamas wants the destruction of Israel and the murder of all Jews and, and all of that kind of rhetoric.[00:45:00]
Hamas said that they are not enthusiastic about a two state solution, but they're willing to settle for it if that's what the majority of Palestinians wanted, that they would be willing to abide by it at a time when majority Palestinian public opinion in the occupied territories was in favor of a two state solution.
Now, just on the question of Zionism, just real quick for a moment, I do find the rhetoric around that word and the debates and the fights about it to be a bit of a distraction. Nonetheless, if we're going to talk about it, let's explain a couple of things. Zionism did mean different things to different people.
And when Zionism was still forming, some people's Zionist vision was coexisting with Palestinians and other people's Zionist vision was excluding Palestinians to exist on the land without them. The sad part is that the version of Zionism that won is the one that drove Palestinians out of their homes to create a Jewish state where hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed to prevent the refugees right of return.
And. Many Palestinians identify themselves as probably [00:46:00] overwhelmingly, if not all, identify themselves as anti Zionists for the obvious reason is that to them, if Zionism means the right of Israel to drive them out of their land, then of course you're going to be an anti Zionist. But then you have people like Peter Beinart, who the last I checked still identifies as a Zionist, but his view is to embrace a one state solution in which Palestinians and Israelis can live together.
So clearly that term is extremely. Malleable in the minds of very, very different people. And so I personally have always found debates about whether you're a Zionist or an anti Zionist, not to be a particularly useful one. For me, it's more about what is the policy prescription that you subscribe to? How do you expect it to see a future?
Do you want Palestinians to be free? I don't care what other labels you apply to yourself beyond those fundamental issues. And a two state solution was a huge Palestinian compromise. I think that is something that is worth spelling out. In which Palestinians in the 1980s gave up on 78 percent of historic [00:47:00] Palestine.
All of Israel as recognized by the UN. Meaning that all they wanted was a Palestinian state on the occupied Palestinian territories, the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, a mere 22 percent of historic Palestine. So, that was a massive compromise, and Israel, instead of abiding by international law and respecting the need for an end to the occupation, Spent the entire so called peace process doing the exact opposite, entrenching its occupation by building more and more and more settlements throughout the occupied territories to a point right now, where, frankly, both options seem politically impossible at the moment, it is difficult to imagine a two state solution in which Israel would leave, you know, at this point, nearly three quarters of a million settlers throughout the West Bank in East Jerusalem.
they can't, you know, yeah. Pulling them all out of there. That's you're talking about a very, very massive significant transfer of population. If they [00:48:00] leave them there, it's not clear that they would leave that many people to live in a Palestinian state. And so you think, okay, the two state solution is dead.
The level of physical integration on the ground is way too great. So one state solution is the is the is the obvious alternative. But with that, yeah. You have to basically spell out the end of the Zionist vision of a Jewish state entirely, which also seems to be politically implausible right now, given the sheer power imbalance, the fact that Israel holds all the power to convince the Israeli population about a future in which what currently is Hamas militants and, and, and extremist settlers are going to be theoretically serving in the same military.
We just seem to be a very, very long away, a long way from that as well. So it's just a bit of a depressing political moment right now. And for me, I don't care whether somebody is a one state supporter or two state supporter or an 18 state supporter, ultimately the current situation that we have is one in which the occupation itself is a [00:49:00] crime.
Us support for that occupation is also a crime and enables it and entrenches it. And the starting point. Is to say that US policy needs to change and we have to stop supporting Israeli occupation and apartheid and then how things play out from there. Politically, it's something that we will have to basically see.
And mostly for the people who are living on the ground to kind of determine, to be honest, that's really
David Sirota: well said. And I, and I want to just say, for my part, I, I Thank you. Absolutely agree with that. The paradigm of an occupation and the U. S. Backing and occupation is central to this problem, and it brings us back to the to the here and now.
And so this is obviously a set of questions. I want to be respectful of our guest time, so I'm gonna try to keep it to just another maybe 10 15 minutes. So we're on the hour here. But, um, this is a lot of people have asked this questions. And so I'm gonna reverse the order. We'll start with with Omar. What, one, two, three, four things, everybody is watching this, what [00:50:00] can they do as citizens to bring pressure for, and let's go to the really, really here and now, a ceasefire Uh, even separating out, you know, ending the occupation in the here and now, what's happening now.
If you were to name one, two, three things that everybody on this, watching this, could do to try to get to a ceasefire that limits or stops civilian, uh, casualties, what are those things?
Omar Baddar: I wish I had a complex strategy to offer. For me, it's pick up the phone and call your member of Congress and say it is unacceptable for this onslaught to continue and demand.
That they demand a ceasefire immediately. Pick up the phone and call the White House and do the exact same thing. Pick up the phone and call your local media outlets or national news networks and demand that they put on voices that represent a break from this mainstream insanity that is just cheering this war on and saying that this is not the direction that we should be going in.
Uh, beyond that, obviously, there's humanitarian relief efforts that people [00:51:00] can contribute money to. But for me, really, the number one urgency is pick up the phone, call your member of Congress, and say, this is unacceptable. And call everybody that you know, and make sure that they do the same. This is a very, very serious emergency.
It is no exaggeration to say that history may judge us for this moment. This is a, where were you when this happened kind of moment. And The prospect of stopping genocide is something that is absolutely worth getting, getting fired up about and getting behind and getting engaged on. So. That would be the primary focus of my view.
Naomi, same question to you.
Naomi Klein: I agree with all of those, uh, calls. So I'm not just going to repeat them. I think I, you know, I would just underline the point around media coverage too, because, um, you know, we're talking about the dehumanization of, you know, millions of human beings. Um, you know, Omar started talking about the double standards of, you know, the people who get to have stories, the people who, you know, who, who we hear these absolutely [00:52:00] heartbreaking, uh, uh, you know, accounts of, uh, of losing their loved ones or not knowing where their loved ones are.
But we really are overwhelmingly just hearing one side. Um, and so, yes, call your congresspeople, but also call, you know, let, let's, let CNN and MSNBC and, you know, wherever you're, you're getting your news, know that, you know, if they're going to, Take Israeli propaganda on, uh, you know, on one side, they want to hear the other side.
I mean, and we'll want to hear stories, um, human stories. And if they don't have reporters in Gaza, which they should try to figure out how to do, then, you know, they can, they can they can talk to people who have family in Gaza. There are ways to humanize. Um,
It takes effort and we need to demand that. Um, you know, people are mentioning, uh, you know, Medi me, Hassan and, and Ali Velshi being taken off the air. I and, and Mo Moin on MSN bbc actually there was an outcry about that. And it, and it seems to have [00:53:00] worked a little bit, maybe not completely.
Um, but, you know, let them know that you wanna hear what, what people who have di some direct experience in, in some cases in the region. Like I'm in Modi, he, we. Put him on the air way more. so do that kind of advocacy. like it's clear people feel really, really passionately about this. And I do too.
I would just offer a challenge to folks, you know, on the left who have a really strong critique of Zionism. I do too. I, you know, I increasingly identify myself as an anti Zionist Jew. I want to make room for that position. I want to destigmatize that position. but I also want Us to think about what we are seeing now, which is absolutely the responses of the past week and a half show, that people are not able to think what you're seeing is like a trauma response, like a deep, deep trauma response.
Now that may seem weird and I. I, you know, because the Holocaust is [00:54:00] like the most kind of commemorated, you know, piece of history that we learn most in our schools. So it can seem hard to believe that this is actually unprocessed trauma. but the thing about Zionism is, is that it, what it did is, is it took.
Jewish trauma after the Holocaust and, and kind of brought it into this new place, this new story and said, this is the solution. This is the solution to the Holocaust. That's not a solution to trauma. It actually doesn't look at it. And so what you're seeing Um, Is, a huge is the fact that that trauma is still very much alive.
If the Israeli government has been able to whip up this frenzy is as quickly as they have this stand with Israel frenzy, which is all about this idea that the Jews are going to face another Holocaust. It shows that that trauma is still alive. And so I would just challenge folks who really do want to see change and don't just want to be right and don't just want to be cool.
to think Are you triggering people in the way that you're talking? Um, you know, is the way [00:55:00] that you're talking actually going to move us forward? Um, or is it just going to reinforce these, these trauma responses? I see a lot of ways that we're talking about this that are reinforcing those trauma responses.
And I think we've done this on the left. And the thing about Israel is, yes, it is a settler colonial state engaged in ethnic cleansing. Land grabbing, replicating the, some of the worst crimes of settler colonialism in the United States, Canada, and Australia, but it is not a one to one correlation because we have not had another settler colonial state that was born as a direct consequence or claiming to be a response to another genocide.
Okay, so that is a particular situation. And what that means. Is that it is a central part of the Zionist story that this state exists in order to protect Jews from another Holocaust. So if the way you talk about this is just [00:56:00] making Jews more afraid, you're fucking it up. You are messing it up because that is central to this story.
So we need to be. rigorous in, in fighting all forms of hate, Islamophobia, anti Arab racism, anti Palestinian racism, which is already costing lives, but yes, anti Semitism too. We need to be people who lead with our values. We need to be people who say that all life is precious.
And, you know, not give into our own anger and inadvertently shore up the Zionist project, um, with this sort of, you know, these, these ways of speaking that just makes people just unable to listen. The other thing I would just want to say, and this is partly to myself, we are in a, not just in, in, in, in a military.
I don't like to call it a war because it's so asymmetrical. but, but, but this is not just. a war. This is not just warfare. This is not just massacres. This is not just war crimes. This is an information war and both sides are playing. [00:57:00] So we all need to be really careful. And I'm saying this to myself as well, because I've shared things that I regret.
Too quickly. we don't know. Okay. Uh, and we need to, this is part of the reason why we have to call for a ceasefire. We don't know what's going on in there. It's, we are deep in the fog of war. So let's all be careful about what we share. Um, let's go to the source. You know, it's war by screen grab. It's, it's, it's, it's just, it's wild out there.
It's really wild out there. Uh, and, and, um, I'm grateful to the lover. I'm grateful to anybody who's doing rigorous journalism right now. I'm grateful, grateful to you, Omar, for being in conversation with me. And, um, yeah,
David Sirota: and I, you know, I really want to echo that, that part. And, and, and, you know, I don't want to both sides it here, but yes, the rhetoric on both sides.
is dehumanizing and triggering, right? I mean, I, I, I can just say, you know what, and, and I'm speaking just from my own personal perspective, right? I'm Jewish. Anytime the, [00:58:00] you get the sense in your mind at the reptilian brain level that somebody Is invoking Jew hating and anti semitism and a lack of regard for the trauma that the Jewish people went through.
It's like you can't hear anything else, right? And you have to be incredibly mindful, uh, inside of your own brain to not let it shut you down. And I, I, Presume and I'm certain it's the same way on the other side, that when any Palestinian or anybody in solidarity with the Palestinians hears any hint of sort of mass Islamophobia, dehumanization of the Palestinian people, it is the same triggering thing.
So I would add to when I, to asking my own question, you know, what can be done, I would add one other thing. When you are talking to other people. When I'm talking to when I'm talking to people at my synagogue, when I'm talking to people in my city here in Denver, [00:59:00] when you're talking to people about this, and a lot of people want to talk about it, just be mindful of the language that you're using to try to not get people to shut down, because ultimately this is where I get so, when I go back to the resolution that's being proposed, I've talked to the, about that resolution to a couple of folks, And you can see that people aren't necessarily even reading the ceasefire resolution.
They're seeing the context where, Oh, who brought it? It's, Oh, you know, it's the squad. I don't like the squad because I think they're anti Semitic and, Oh, but it's, you know, brought by people who don't care about the right. And the point is, is that we're not paying attention to. What's actually at issue because because there's so much triggering going on on all sides.
So my request of everybody watching is to do everything that Naomi and Omar just said. But also, as you talk to people, keep in mind how to actually [01:00:00] communicate to people in a way that meets them where they are to bring them to. The place of humanity, which, frankly, that resolution again, a two page resolution that says minimize civilian casualties so that we can at least all agree that that is a goal that's kind of universal.
That should be a universal goal, but it's not going to be because everyone's being triggered on all sides and to speak to the propaganda system. In a sense, probably the, the, the puppet masters of the, of the propaganda, whether it's, uh, the Netanyahu government or Hamas or whoever else, the, the chaos agents in this, they want it polarized.
They don't want people talking about the central, uh, uh, things that should be They want everybody triggered, uh, because it serves their particular political agenda. So I want to be respectful of Naomi and Omar's time. Naomi and Omar, first I want to thank you both for taking time tonight. We really appreciate it.
I want to thank [01:01:00] everybody, uh, for joining. I'm sorry we didn't get to everybody's questions. I tried to, I tried to give, uh, uh, to ask as many questions, uh, as I, as I could in, in kind of composite form. I want to remind everybody, if you're not a subscriber to The Lever, go to levernews. com. Please subscribe.
And if you want to pitch in to help us do these events, uh, use the link lever news dot com slash donate or lever news dot com slash tip jar. You can pitch in. It helps us do these events. Uh, and I want to thank everybody for their interest in this. And again, I want to thank Naomi and Omar. Thank you both for I felt like, you know, this is a hard topic to have, like a discussion where it feels like a safe space where we can ask tough questions and go over tough issues.
So I really want to thank both of you. Uh, for being willing to do that, uh, because as you can tell, I I'm thinking through these things in real time, as I'm sure you are. And I think the only way we're going to get to something better is if there are few, there feels like there's more safe spaces for us to, to really try to talk about these things in ways that don't feel like [01:02:00] an attack.
So thanks to you both. I really appreciate it.
Omar Baddar: Thank you so much.
David Sirota: Thank you. Thank you. And thanks to all of our subscribers. Uh, we will do another one of these live events very soon. Everybody have a great night.
Frank Cappello: That's it for today's show. As a reminder, our paid subscribers who get Lever Time Premium get to hear next week's bonus episode, an interview discussing the recent sale of the online music platform Bandcamp. To listen to Lever Time Premium, just head over to LeverNews.
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It's hosted by David Sirota. Our producer is me, Frank [01:03:00] Capello, with help from Lever producer Jared Jacangmayer.