THT Rawan Osman — corrected transcript English (US) 00:00:00.000 — 00:00:11.520 · Rawan Osman For the first time in my life, I was in my mid 20s. I was sharing the same space with the Jew, the enemy, and for the first time in my life I asked myself, why is the Jew the enemy? 00:00:15.520 — 00:00:36.560 · Ben Chertoff This is The Honest Take, the show that goes past the headlines to find out what's actually true about Israel and the people covering it. I'm Ben Chertoff and my guest today is Rawan Osman, a woman who grew up in Hezbollah country, a devoted enemy of the Jews and who now writes about the Middle East from Jerusalem as a convert to Judaism. 00:00:42.120 — 00:02:44.650 · Ben Chertoff When Rawan Osman was a child in the Bekaa Valley, her family kept a big, boxy television with an antenna. You had to nudge just right to catch a signal. Sometimes adjusting it, they'd stumble onto a channel from across the border. A cartoon in Hebrew. The kids didn't care about the language, they just wanted to watch. But if a grown up walked in, they'd freak out and change the channel. That's how early it starts. Before you can argue a child into hating anyone, you can teach them that a language itself is taboo. She'll tell you plainly in her world, hating Jews wasn't an opinion you were argued into. It was the air you breathed. A Sunni father from Damascus. Shia mother from the Bekaa, a secular home. French Catholic school. None of it mattered. The enemy was settled before she was old enough to question it. And there were no Jews left in the Arab world to contradict the story. Then in 2011, she moved to France to learn the wine business and landed by accident in the Jewish quarter of Strasbourg. What happened in a small grocery store? There is the hinge of her entire life. It set off seven years of relearning everything. A conversion she announced to the world on October 7th and the work she does now at the Jerusalem Center. This is a conversation about how a worldview actually breaks and what it costs to break it. We get into the model she found in Iraqi Kurdistan that she thinks the whole region could learn from, why she believes the West suffers from a fatal failure of imagination about the death cult. It's up against the gap between what the Arab media says in Arabic and what it says in English, and the reason she's convinced, whatever you're hearing, that Israel is not going anywhere. She earned every word of this the hard way, and that's why it's worth your time. Rawan Osman, welcome to The Honest Take. 00:02:44.690 — 00:02:45.650 · Rawan Osman Thank you for having me. 00:02:45.690 — 00:03:05.690 · Ben Chertoff You grew up in the Bekaa Valley, in Lebanon, in Hezbollah country. And you've said that hating Jews, there wasn't an opinion you were argued into. It was just the air that you breathed. So for somebody who's never lived inside that world, what did a child there simply know about the Jews? The way that you would know that the sky is blue. 00:03:05.970 — 00:06:51.020 · Rawan Osman So I grew up in Lebanon. The Arab world is not a monolithic group. The Syrian culture is very different from the Jordanian. They're very different from the Lebanese, very different from the Egyptian I grew up. The first 18 years of my life I was in Lebanon. My father is Sunni from Damascus, and my mom is Shia from the Bekaa Valley, from a village near Baalbek. The sheer fact that they intermarry tells you that my family was secular and they wanted the best education for us, so they sent us to a French Catholic school. That still is one of the best in Lebanon. That tells you that religion was irrelevant in my upbringing. We were exposed to various types of anti-Semitism or Jew hatred. To be more precise, we did not make a distinction between Jewish, Zionist and Israeli everything we lived in the South. Anything associated with the neighbors in the South were. The Zionist entity was our enemy automatically. Nobody challenged that notion. And as I was born towards the end of the Lebanese Civil War, as my mom is the daughter of the Lebanese Civil War, I grew up in the middle class. I opened minded, a European like society that was tolerant, especially that the Lebanese society understood what sectarianism and has done to a country that was once described as Paris, of the Paris of the Middle East. People distanced themselves from religion. So this is not why we hated the Jews, but because Israel occupied South Lebanon. That is, I think, a valid reason. And I tell the Israelis that if you were in my shoes, you would hate the Jews, too. Israel occupied South Lebanon, and when I was a teenager, I was one of Hezbollah's biggest fans because, like all my friends and family members, we perceived Hezbollah as the only heroes who dared defy the occupier. Now, nobody told us that Israel exercised a lot of restraint for more than a decade, while Palestinian armed factions abused Lebanese territory and for more than a decade trained together with supporters from around the world, radical leftist from Germany, Italy, Red Army factions, including members of Red Army factions in Japan who committed the Lod massacre. For those who remember that. So the occupation in the South was one reason nobody told us that the Israelis were fed up by those who were sent to infiltrate Israeli borders, by land or by sea, And eventually gave up on diplomacy and decided to create a buffer zone, something Israel is still trying to create until this day. This time, maybe with the help of the Lebanese Armed Forces after that, that attending a French Catholic school meant that we were exposed to a Christian dimension, European Christian dimension of anti-Semitism. Plus what you learned at school about Palestine. And it was one very brief history lesson teaching you the antagonist name Theodor Herzl, who invented something called Zionism. And according to his plan, the Jews who come from Eastern Europe were now going to be imported, come to the Middle East, take Palestine from the poor, Palestinians, etc. and whatever we were told at school, on TV, in the newspapers, by all the intelligent people you knew, whether secular or religious, Christian or Muslim or Druze, 00:06:52.180 — 00:07:12.780 · Rawan Osman was not challenged because there were no Jews living among us. Remember, more than 850,000 Jews were uprooted from the Arab world. So nobody contested the consistent narrative we were told about them. So yes, it was the default position to be anti-Semitic or 00:07:14.180 — 00:07:14.780 · Rawan Osman and 00:07:15.860 — 00:07:25.780 · Rawan Osman I wouldn't only say anti-Semitic, completely opposed to Israel because of the systematic demonization of the Jewish state. 00:07:26.340 — 00:07:35.460 · Ben Chertoff What would happen? What would have happened socially if, let's say, 12 year old, you had said out loud like, wait, why? Why do we hate them? 00:07:36.500 — 00:08:20.150 · Rawan Osman First of all, I wouldn't say that because I there is no set up where I would question what we were told. Remember in 86. I was 12 at the time. Al Jazeera opened, was launched, and graphic video footage was not normalized as it is today. So, for example, Al-Jazeera showed a report from Qana, a village in South Lebanon, where we were told that Israeli Air Force, knowing that this building belonged to the UN, housing only women and children, 00:08:21.230 — 00:08:54.150 · Rawan Osman targeted it deliberately. And we saw horrific images. And I remember how broken my heart was. And why would you say, but did they really target that building? You were bombarded all your life with the same consistent narrative. This is what the Jews do. This is how they behave. What I mean by that is what is the most famous and influential drama in the Arab world? I know the Arab world is not a monolithic group and cultures differ. 00:08:55.470 — 00:10:24.190 · Rawan Osman But still everyone in the Arab world knows Egyptian drama. So if every Ramadan all families sit together, watch for 30 days. And the most influential and powerful series, whether you're Christian or Muslim, you watch that and you're always told something consistent about the Jews and about Israel because it sells, because it's attractive. Whether it's stories about Mossad, stories about infiltration, stories about an Egyptian spy infiltrated Israel, stories about women who infiltrated Jewish communities here and there, whether it's how the, I don't know, stories, distorted stories about wars won against the Israelis, and everybody found that topic Interesting. And add to that. Conspiracy theories. So you're surrounded by this. And there was an active situation where occasionally you hear Israeli Air Force breaking the sound barriers. And we always knew it was automatic. As children, if you hear that and the windows shake, you just have to move. Continue playing, but in the corridor away from windows. So this is what we are surrounded with. And for us, we had family in Lebanon and in Syria. So when we occasionally went for the regime for the Eid 00:10:25.310 — 00:12:20.120 · Rawan Osman to Damascus, we were also surrounded by people who told and an additional or added to our consciousness an additional layer of Jew hatred coming from a muslim perspective, from those who were observant, who interpreted the Quran or some verses to teach us that we are natural enemies. I am going to share something with you because I don't always remember, but I think it's a fascinating story. Although it happened with me, we did not live in Damascus, and once, as we were children, we went to visit our grandparents longer than the period of the Eid because of a war, some unrest during. And for the first time, we saw our cousins coming straight from school to my grandparents. And we were confused because in Lebanon, in the Catholic school, our uniforms were white and navy blue. Their uniforms were khaki, just like the soldiers, the Syrian soldiers that we saw on checkpoints in Lebanon. People forget when they talk about Israel occupying the South. They forget that the Syrian army occupied the rest of Lebanon for very long until they were driven out after Israel pulled out of Lebanon in year 2000. So we were confused because they were these were children dressed like those soldiers we see on checkpoints. And my cousin Dana happily shared with us. Yeah, of course, we dressed like soldiers because we are told at school that when the Israeli enemy comes to attack us, they shouldn't be able to differentiate between the children and the soldiers. She was happy to share with us something. Maybe she realized later in life that they were used as human shields, and they were proud of that. 00:12:20.320 — 00:12:27.200 · Ben Chertoff You moved to France in 2011 to learn the wine business, right? Because you were going to open a wine bar. 00:12:28.000 — 00:12:29.560 · Rawan Osman Damascus, in the old City. 00:12:29.600 — 00:12:42.480 · Ben Chertoff You you land in the Jewish quarter of Strasbourg and you meet Jews for the first time. What was there a moment where reality actually contradicted what you had grown up to know? 00:12:42.560 — 00:13:39.440 · Rawan Osman Absolutely. This was an instrumental turn in my life. I knew that my accommodation was in the Jewish Quarter in Strasbourg, but I did not think that Jews lived there. Why? Because there were no Jews in the Jewish quarter in Damascus. No Jews in the Jewish quarter in Beirut, except there. It was literally a Jewish quarter filled with Jews and where I lived. It was the heart of modern Orthodoxy. And upon arriving, I saw from my bedroom window a small grocery store, a store across the street. So I went there shopping to cook for the week, and I was happy to find the same ingredients I would find in Lebanon or in Syria. And then I found the same spices, and I still did not connect the dots because I did not know what a kosher store is. Now, when I was filling my trolley, I heard men enter the store, and just in the back of my head I was thinking that they're not speaking French. 00:13:40.520 — 00:13:53.119 · Rawan Osman And I was transported just for a few seconds back into our living room when I was a child in the Bekaa Valley, and we had big boxy televisions with antennas. We needed to adjust to get a signal. So 00:13:54.320 — 00:14:12.760 · Rawan Osman we were allowed to watch cartoon for 20 minutes after doing homework. And sometimes when we adjusted the antennas, we would get signals from Israel or from South Lebanon. It was biblical cartoon. It was in Hebrew. But we didn't care. We were kids. We watched. Now, if a grownup walked into the room, they would freak out and change the channel. 00:14:14.000 — 00:16:47.370 · Rawan Osman And only on that afternoon in Strasbourg, I understood that even the language was associated with taboo in my subconscious, because when I turned and I saw four religious Jewish men dressed in black and white with long hair, I had my first and last panic attack. Not only I left my shopping, but I also left my bag, my handbag with my passport. I ran out cross without looking left and right. Went up to the third floor where my bedroom was. And I locked the door. Looking at myself, I saw that I was sweaty, out of breath and red, and I was embarrassed. And I thought that was stupid. Especially that I have to go back for my stuff at least. So I realized I have to see the storekeeper for a long time. So I'm going to lie compose myself, go back and tell him I forgot my wallet. And that's exactly what I did. Now, when I went back, continue shopping as if nothing happened, went to pay. He was alone and he asked me, where are you from? So I thought, now he's going to have a panic attack. So I thought to be vague. And I said, from the Middle East. And he insisted, like we're from in the Middle East. I told him there was no, no way out of this one. So I said, I'm half Syrian Lebanese. And he asks me, how long have I lived in the neighborhood? And I told him, I just arrived this morning. So he smiled. He smiled and he helped me with my bags and he it was time to to make small talk just to help me just chill. And I was so embarrassed. I don't remember what she was telling me, but I knew that he wanted to allow me to save face, and by doing so, he converted me from an enemy to an ally. Now I went back to my room and for days weeks I was thinking, I'm not the fearful type and they didn't even look at me. Why did my body react this way? And I realized that for the first time in my life, I was in my mid-twenties. I was sharing the same space with the Jew, the enemy. And for the first time in my life, I asked myself, why is the Jew the enemy? Why? How do I know what I know about the Jews? We've never spoken to Jews, definitely never spoken to Israelis. It's illegal for us to have a conversation with an Israeli, even abroad. So I realized that my perception of Jews, Judaism, Zionism, Israel was constructed by former Secretary General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah, 00:16:48.650 — 00:17:03.090 · Rawan Osman who gave those long speeches, etc., a mixture of religion and politics, telling us all we knew about Israel, and always quoting Haaretz. The Jews said so. The Israelis say so. And I 00:17:04.850 — 00:17:30.249 · Rawan Osman started reading about Hezbollah. There is one particular statement that shocked me. I found an old video in black and white on YouTube back when Hassan Nasrallah was young and alive, where he said, we in Hezbollah do not acknowledge political borders, and we want Lebanon to become an extension of the Islamic Republic in Iran. So I thought, what 00:17:31.450 — 00:17:56.620 · Rawan Osman I did not subscribe to this agenda. Do people know? And of course, I was naive because Hezbollah published their manifesto in every Lebanese newspaper, but the Lebanese treated it just like the world treats Hamas today. But they don't really mean it. Except Hamas means it and Hezbollah mean it. And to answer your question, 00:17:57.820 — 00:18:03.700 · Rawan Osman I sat on my windowsill and spied on the Jews for weeks, and I was thinking. 00:18:06.380 — 00:18:52.020 · Rawan Osman They seemed normal to me. The kids are well behaved. The elderly are looked after their women strangely, dressed like Muslims because my reference was Islam. So if a Jewish woman would cover her hair and wear a long dress. I was so confused. Why? But I knew that they were nice, but they were graceful. They would greet me back and smile at me. So I thought maybe the Nasser Jews live in Israel, but as far as I'm concerned, those ones do not bite. And slowly, by reading that instigated that process a journey. Slowly, by relearning the history of our region, I realized how intensively we were brainwashed. And slowly but surely my worldview shattered. 00:18:53.300 — 00:18:54.820 · Ben Chertoff How long did that take? 00:18:57.140 — 00:20:02.940 · Rawan Osman This story happened in 2011, the first time in my life to trust myself to ask to visit a synagogue. I went back to Strasbourg with my son, who's now at university. He was young back then. I went back, I showed him where I lived. I showed him the grocery store where this happened. I wanted to tell the storekeeper how it changed my life. But unfortunately, it's no longer a kosher store. It's a cafe express, so I couldn't talk to him. But in 2018, when I did this, I took my son and I requested a tour in the synagogue that was 200m away from where I lived. And I still, after reading for seven years, I was still sure that they're going to reject my request because I'm one in Damascus. I needed to go in to see the inside of the synagogue, to be reassured that they're normal people. So it took a long time. It wasn't overnight because we are intensively brainwashed to undo that is not is not an easy process. 00:20:03.940 — 00:20:20.380 · Ben Chertoff And you've gone so far as to convert to Judaism, which is not an easy. We don't make it easy to do that. Um, it's I mean, that's that's a commitment. And how has your family reacted to that? 00:20:21.580 — 00:21:08.070 · Rawan Osman So I decided to convert to Judaism, and for many reasons, I just realized I'm Jewish. And if I realize I'm Jewish, that means if I have Jewish blood, that means my family has Jewish blood as well. Mhm. But I did not share this. Before October 7th I thought that this is very personal and it did not make sense to anyone except myself and my son, because I'm an authority in his world and I needed him to understand this was not an impulsive decision. And I was an atheist all my life, raised him an atheist, so he needed to understand other than the people involved in the process, nobody knew. On October 7th, I decided to share with the world that this is what I'm doing because it's part of my mission. I. 00:21:10.590 — 00:21:25.310 · Rawan Osman Am so fond of Judaism. I'm in so much awe that I wanted to inspire, especially youngsters, to understand that being born a Jew is like winning the lottery and you are born with a responsibility. 00:21:26.710 — 00:22:31.350 · Rawan Osman But still, whether you're religious or not, you should wear your Jewishness as a badge of honor. This is why I thought after October 7th, converting to Judaism is not my dirty secret. I'm sharing it with the world to make a point. And then of course, my family knew about it as well. And of course, they were deeply shocked because I was an atheist who ridiculed religion for as long as they remember. Even when I was a child and I was, I got in a lot of trouble. And in the Catholic school, but also because they thought working with Israelis and Jews, especially since the signing of the Abraham Accords, resulted in her becoming so brainwashed. Now she's in love with them to the extent that she wants to join the Jewish people. Nobody asked me why, and they would have understood the depth of my decision. Now I'm writing a book, and whether they ask or not, out of curiosity, a lot will understand why I made that decision. 00:22:31.430 — 00:22:49.910 · Ben Chertoff I want to move on to the regional politics which which you now research for the Jerusalem Center. Assad is gone. Is the machine that manufactured your childhood hatred still running in the new Syria, or is there genuinely an opening? 00:22:51.070 — 00:23:38.040 · Rawan Osman So I grew up in Lebanon, but your question is valid. Why? Because this toxic propaganda was not exclusive to Lebanon. I mentioned earlier a drama production in Egypt was instrumental to inciting against the Jews across the Arab world. And when we talk about Lebanon and Syria and what's happening today, does it continue or not? Let's remember that Assad ruled Syria for more than the Assad regime for more than five decades. At first it was the father, and then it was the crazy, psychopathic dictator, his son Assad, Bashar al-Assad, who, ironically received a humanitarian asylum in in Russia. But make it make sense. 00:23:39.120 — 00:23:53.199 · Rawan Osman The Lebanon and Syria. Assad Syria belonged to the axis of resistance led by the Iranian regime, and part of the axis of resistance was also militias in Iraq. The 00:23:54.560 — 00:25:29.120 · Rawan Osman Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas, although they are Sunnis in Gaza, but also Lebanon, Hezbollah, which I think are the most effective, um, actor in this axis. This continues even now. During the funeral of Khomeini. We heard the vows, we heard the tone. We saw the attitude. Nothing changed. We still hear the statements made by whoever survived of Hezbollah's leadership. The tone hasn't shifted. And when we talk about Syria in particular after toppling Assad and the fact that it was replaced by to borrow daily, as the others term, neo jihadists. Um, we know that this leadership in Syria goes against Hezbollah also because Hezbollah helped the Assad regime slaughter tens of thousands of Syrians, including Muslim Sunnis, who were rebels, defected from the army, and some of them were jihadists. So there is a lot of revenge boiling under the surface in Syria. They want nothing to do. They are not aligned with the axis of resistance, with Iran or with Hezbollah. Does that say does that mean that Syria is free of anti-Semitism? Absolutely not. I have a problem with Sunni jihadists and with Shia jihadists. Bringing al-Julani, or known today as Ahmed al-Sharaa 00:25:30.440 — 00:26:27.520 · Rawan Osman to power is a genius, but very dangerous plan. He could have been stopped. But not only he was not stopped. I think him taking over power was a plan. It was allowed. I was only concerned about whether he can keep his part of the deal. Is he willing? Is he able to or not? So when he mobilized from Idlib and took the second biggest city in Syria, Aleppo, and within 11 days they took over, the rebels and jihadists took over Damascus. Um, I was worried because now we have thousands of jihadists on the borders with Israel, and I was worried for the minorities also, because we saw they were posting on social media, humiliating the Kurds, the Christians at the beginning. And then we saw massacres against the Alawites. But the world was not really interested because the line is blurred between. 00:26:27.560 — 00:26:29.600 · Ben Chertoff The Druze as well. If I'm not. 00:26:29.770 — 00:27:16.609 · Rawan Osman At the beginning. It was an awards, but that did not. Could not summon a lot of sympathy because people did not know who was with Assad, who was not with Assad. But then this expanded and we saw horrific, horrific scenes coming out of Suwayda, in south Syria against the Druze. And then we saw another massacre against the Kurds in northern Syria. So everybody took a step back and is still skeptical about whether he's able and or willing to get his men under control. That is, if they are all under his control. This is a big concern. That said, because his men took over the corridor 00:27:18.010 — 00:27:44.649 · Rawan Osman between Iran, Iraq, Iran and their militias, proxies in Iraq and Hezbollah is closed. So the supply chain is disrupted. That is good. To dismantle the axis of resistance. It's good for all of us. But then we will have to deal with Sunni jihadists, inevitably. Whether we like it or not. Don't forget that we have 00:27:45.730 — 00:28:09.650 · Rawan Osman a maniac leading Turkey, who is satisfied when he hears statements in Syria from within Syria, vowing to liberate Al-Quds, Jerusalem, to attack the Zionists, to drive them out of the region, etc. and so but this is a 00:28:10.930 — 00:28:38.450 · Rawan Osman this is something we have to deal with later. At the moment, what is happening pushes us in the right direction. And I say this bearing in mind what happened to the Druze, the Kurds, the Alawites, the Christians, ET cetera. The the debt we owe to the ISDs. We did not forget, however. Unfortunately, we are where we are at at the moment. 00:28:38.570 — 00:28:55.690 · Ben Chertoff You came back from Erbil in Iraq, arguing that the Kurds might be the model for a different kind of Arab future. Can you explain that? Especially for somebody who's never thought about Iraqi Kurdistan, which I think is a lot of the American audience in their life? 00:28:56.690 — 00:29:27.060 · Rawan Osman So when people talk, for example, about the Palestinians and liberating the Palestinian people, the oppressor, the right of self-determination, etc., and they forget that in our region there are many oppressed minorities because of our abundant cultural heritage. We have a lot of minorities. One of these minorities happens to be the Kurds, and they consist of only 50 to 60 million Kurds. 00:29:27.100 — 00:29:27.780 · Ben Chertoff Yeah. 00:29:27.900 — 00:29:56.220 · Rawan Osman Who, um, deserve to have their own state. This is something that would really, really upset Erdogan, but I they have my utmost respect. I was deeply hurt to see what happened to the Druze. And when this happened, I led a Syrian delegation of minority representatives of the official minority representatives, and we went to Geneva to the Human Rights Council. 00:29:57.300 — 00:33:21.390 · Rawan Osman I thought that this would be the end because of diplomatic pressure, exposing what happened, what took place. But then we saw this repeated against the Kurds, the Kurds, who hurt nobody in the region. Nobody. The only time they experimented with violence was to try and push for self-determination for their nationals project. Other than that, they've always been loyal. They never stabbed anyone in the back, and they have a rich and abundant and old culture. They treat their women and children decently. So why on earth would we betray them, throw them under the bus and let jihadis do to them? What? I cannot even describe. The videos I received were worse not to relatives eyes were worse than what I saw on October 7th. So it was an impulsive decision, and I decided to go to Erbil and to see it carrying a lot of messages from Europeans, but also from Israelis saying, how can we help? What is happening? I went there and I was really impressed because they don't necessarily need a lot of help. They needed that, um, embrace from the international community. They needed to be seen. But Erbil is wealthy, well organized. I was truly impressed to go to bazaars where I was the only women in some streets, and there was no catcalling. Nobody tried to touch me the way they do in parts of Aleppo, in Damascus. In Cairo, for example. The men are very respectful and their exchange stores points were wooden tables with piles of money, sometimes half $1 million exposed, open, and nobody was carrying guns. And that would be that would lead to a crime within less than a minute. In most of the Arab world. But the Kurdish culture is very different. And then I went to the Ministry of religion and and endowments like endowments and religion and religions, and I met very interesting personalities who explained to me, they gifted me like a massive book about the eight religions in, um, in Kurdistan. And they told me that this project started when ISIS attacked the Yazidis and was still very active. They proposed the project to the parliament and said, how about we recognize the eight religions that we have here and so that the world understands, but also the Iraqis understand that Iraq is not only Muslim. So let's recognize the others. And I thought they faced resistance in the Parliament. They said, no, no, no. The Parliament immediately adopted what we proposed, made it a law, opened a department, funded the project, etc., started renovating sites. And that deeply impressed me. While ISIS was attacking them, they went on the offensive and I thought, this can be a model, because when we talk about Abraham, when we talk about or about the origins of agriculture and agriculture, to feed the people settling. And when we talk about the wheel. 00:33:22.430 — 00:34:28.550 · Rawan Osman Mesopotamia. We're talking about Iraq that has an abundance of cultures of minorities. They embraced it and created Erbil, which is surprising and impressive. I invite everyone to go there. Not only they're friendly, it is safe. For example, the guy who was taking us around was carrying a gun based on my request because I did not know what to expect in Iraq and he would play Hebrew music loud when we were sitting in traffic and people were just like, wave at us, send us kisses. Everywhere I went, we went to the Citadel that is closed for renovations, and he asked them to to allow me in and they said, there is no way. What do you mean there's no way? And he told them, she's a VIP from Israel. Go open the gate immediately and they would run. I'm like, I thought, I'm going to get killed. These guys carry big guns. It's unbelievable. They're incredibly friendly, open to everyone. And I thought this can be the Middle East. 00:34:29.750 — 00:35:11.189 · Rawan Osman Lebanon has an abundance of culture. Syria has an amazing coastline, an abundance of culture. Israel. Jordan. Petra. Saudi. Why not embrace it? So I look at Syria. Why instead of the massacres, when you have the opportunity to introduce a new constitution, to create a new model from scratch after you got rid of more than five decades of Assad, why not say that our official languages are Arabic, but also Kurdish and also Neo-Aramaic? Why not embrace this 00:35:12.190 — 00:35:33.350 · Rawan Osman abundance? You have this treasure, this heritage. And instead of traveling the world to beg for donations to rebuild the country. Tourism in itself. Will grant you all you want. Just make sure there is enough stability. Embrace everyone. And I thought that Erbil is an inspiring model. 00:35:33.390 — 00:35:38.750 · Ben Chertoff I think one of the roadblocks and you've talked about this too, is the 00:35:40.110 — 00:36:37.080 · Ben Chertoff jihadist Muslim Brotherhood backed Islamist extremism in the Arab world. We had Charles Asher Small on the show several weeks ago, and he had said that one of the West's central mistakes about confronting Islamist extremism is a failure of imagination, that we can't picture an enemy who, underneath it all, is a rational person. You know, we think of a rational person who wants to prosper, live, have a family. Um, you grew up inside a world, especially with Hezbollah, that the West really can't wrap their head around. Is that. Is that a correct read for me? Is there a sincere belief that, um, you know, death in God's cause as a victory? The idea of the shaheed being a promotion and not a tragedy to avoid? 00:36:38.280 — 00:37:03.240 · Rawan Osman First of all, Doctor Small is one of my heroes. And their work exposing the Muslim Brotherhood in America is phenomenal indeed. And many Westerners and I live in Europe since 2011. Many Westerners fail to even imagine what it's like to be a radical Muslim. 00:37:04.560 — 00:37:21.800 · Rawan Osman What it's like to want death, to appreciate death more than appreciating life. Actively seeking martyrdom because you are invested in the afterlife and you are taught 00:37:22.880 — 00:37:23.560 · Rawan Osman to 00:37:24.880 — 00:37:38.000 · Rawan Osman disconnect, to loathe this material world. They are truly invested in a dimension that we do not even know it exists, and if so, how? 00:37:39.600 — 00:37:45.560 · Rawan Osman They learn stories, absurd stories that we do not always talk about because these are cliches, 00:37:46.600 — 00:37:58.880 · Rawan Osman they think. Now you refrain from sexual pleasure because once you become a martyr, you are rewarded in Paradise with a certain amount of virgins. 00:38:00.200 — 00:38:09.520 · Rawan Osman You will be rewarded in the afterlife. There, there is no suffering here. There with us. You're suffering because of Israel. 00:38:10.720 — 00:38:39.240 · Rawan Osman Not because of corruption. Not because of failed governance. Not because your leaders are corrupt. They are thieves. While they enjoy a certain standard of living. You can't even find a job. You are humiliated. You cannot feed your children, pay the rent, etc. in large parts of the Muslim and Arab world. People don't have an opportunity. They become jihadists or fighters or 00:38:40.600 — 00:39:18.050 · Rawan Osman Islamists whose profession is to fight. They have no other source of income. So it's laughable to listen to Westerners who assert is experts who are certain that Hamas will disarm or Hezbollah will disarm. These these men do not know how to do something else. Their profession is a fighter who was radicalized. And a lot of the problems stemmed from a very radical interpretation of the text of the Quran 00:39:19.610 — 00:39:53.690 · Rawan Osman that, combined with crazy hadiths attributed to the prophet crazy, I create um, an explosive and combination that often claims the lives of innocent people when a terrorist. Um, I don't know. Um, decides to detonate something in a bus, in a tunnel, in a metro, etc. we've seen the manifestations of this sick ideology. 00:39:55.370 — 00:40:01.490 · Rawan Osman It's difficult for Westerners, and I think I agree. It's brilliantly sad. It's a failure of imagination, 00:40:02.610 — 00:41:07.489 · Rawan Osman especially the youngsters in the West, sophisticated, um, university students who take their freedom or the Western model for granted, and they cannot comprehend that you will be killed. Just because somebody learns that you might be homosexual in Gaza or in Baghdad or in parts of Lebanon, because not all Beirut is Verdun and Achrafieh and downtown. If you are caught by observant Muslims in, I don't know, radicalized areas, Hezbollah areas, you will be beaten up, to say the least. They can't understand that women have no rights in most of the Arab world. So to see homosexuals and transgender feminists and liberal minds who want equality, failing to understand ABC 00:41:08.850 — 00:41:53.689 · Rawan Osman of our culture is Frustrating, especially when they attempt to Westsplain to us who escaped that model and we are sounding the alarm. I speak for myself since 2015. I gradually saw Europe changed all Europe. Germany included. I've been living in Germany since 2013. I lived in France before that, but also the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Belgian, Spain, the Greece, Italy, what is happening? And they refuse to confront and communities and to demand 00:41:55.330 — 00:42:04.210 · Rawan Osman that action is taken by Muslim community leaders. Because once you do that, the radical aggressive voices will accuse you of Islamophobia. 00:42:04.290 — 00:42:43.220 · Ben Chertoff Yeah, that was my next question. Yes. We've been careful this whole segment to separate the ideology from ordinary Muslims. But there is, um. You know, when you make these assertions about radical jihadists, the defense, as you just said, that gets thrown back is. Well, that's Islamophobia. Um, criticize jihadists or even just name the theology honestly. And you get called in Islamophobia. So where where is the real line between genuine Muslim anti bigotry, which obviously exists? Um, and using that word to shut down any actual criticism. 00:42:44.460 — 00:43:12.460 · Rawan Osman Obviously, none of us has a problem with Muslims or Muslim communities minding their own business when it poses a threat, when it infringes of our on our freedoms and and wants to change the set of values in a European or Western society. That's where things become problematic when we criticize 00:43:13.580 — 00:43:43.179 · Rawan Osman extremism, when we criticize jihadism, when we criticize a friendly Muslim who only makes public statements and transparently sharing with us that he is actively working towards a caliphate or establishing a caliphate in Amsterdam, or in London or in Hamburg. That's where a problem arises, and we have every right to criticize it. Now I'll speak 00:43:44.460 — 00:44:51.659 · Rawan Osman of Europe and what I've seen since 2015, especially due to horrific incidents like the Bataclan massacre, like what happened in Madrid, what happened in a in a concert here, there, the promenade in Nice. And what happened with Charlie Hebdo beheading a teacher in a school? People are very, very, very scared and our politicians became wimps. It is more important for them to be reelected than to call a spade a spade. And if they are intimidated and our enemy knows that, they will always push the boundaries, push the limits. And that is a very dangerous trend, especially that democracy is demography where are going to be outnumbered in the few coming decades. And I see Western values eroding. When I say this, I always get backlash from Muslim 00:44:52.940 — 00:44:54.020 · Rawan Osman followers. 00:44:55.980 — 00:45:33.750 · Rawan Osman I know that Western culture is not perfect. Liberal democracies are not perfect, but it is the best we have otherwise, and I challenge them. Why do you emigrate from the Muslim world to the west and not the other way around. We don't see traffic from Christian countries to the Muslim world, do we? Now, one argument could be economic, okay, but still, who lives or enjoys the Western freedom and then seeks the shackles you impose in the Arab and Muslim worlds? 00:45:35.150 — 00:46:55.549 · Rawan Osman I think we are just like when we are having these debates. They know like we are playing a game. They know that we know. And it's um, it's a game that we often lose because they are playing on terms such as Islamophobia. I think it's an it's an absurd invention, because if the Jews can use anti-Semitism to shut somebody up or shut an initiative down, then we are going to come up with our own term, Islamophobia, especially after 9/11. So I'm discriminated against because I wear a veil. And now you are not allowed to speak about Islam because you're treading on thin ice, because many of them tend to throw an emotional tantrum if they are radicalized. No, we have to push back against it. They aren't familiar with a different story that happened in 1986, where a Jordanian, again, a Jordanian, almost killed his girlfriend, who was pregnant with his six month old baby when he planted a bomb in her bag. And it was on a lie. She was, he told her, they're going to get married and spent their honeymoon in Israel. He put her on a flight and with a bomb. And it was supposed like the 00:46:56.990 — 00:47:16.790 · Rawan Osman bomb was supposed to detonate somewhere above Austria. Italy. He was willing to kill his fiancee and his own baby. And he was recruited by the Syrian intelligence to score against the Israelis. So how many more examples do you need to understand that there is a cultural difference? 00:47:17.390 — 00:47:44.790 · Ben Chertoff Sinwar himself has said that the civilian casualties help his cause. Um, how do you how does Israel fight that sort of ideology, where death isn't a bad thing, where death is, is celebrated because it is part of this ongoing struggle? How does that what will get to the point where they'll say, 00:47:45.830 — 00:47:47.510 · Ben Chertoff Israel is not going anywhere. 00:47:49.030 — 00:48:26.760 · Rawan Osman Israel is not going anywhere? They I think many, many in the Arab world understand this by now. No matter how much money you invest, no matter how many Al Jazeeras you open, no matter how many lies you tell and how many Israelis you kill? Israel is not going anywhere. Especially after October 7th, after this spike of anti-Semitism around the world. Jews who had nothing to do with Israel understood that they need Israel. That anti-Semitism did not disappear after the Holocaust. It was suppressed. It did not go anywhere. 00:48:28.160 — 00:48:55.399 · Rawan Osman However, what you're saying is, is real. And it's a it's a serious challenge for the Israelis. You can't beat them. Even if you kill them, you kill them. Someone else will have more kids. Give them the same name because everyone you kill is turned into a martyr. Even if you want the despicable character, even if you died in obscure circumstances, he would be turned into a martyr. But that is very tricky. And 00:48:56.520 — 00:48:59.399 · Rawan Osman the Israelis try to navigate this by 00:49:01.000 — 00:49:50.040 · Rawan Osman letting civilians know we are going to hit this particular area now. Evacuate. They try to do the same in Lebanon because they want to minimize civilian casualties. But how do they do that unless they hit their goals? Because those goals belong to Hamas and Hezbollah. Either you don't hit anyone and Hamas and Hezbollah win anyway. Either you continue with your plan or try to minimize casualties. Many can hear us and be skeptical. Don't believe us? Go online. Go on the internet. See women who rejoice. Once they learn the news of their sons being martyred. 00:49:50.120 — 00:49:50.800 · Ben Chertoff Yeah. 00:49:51.800 — 00:50:16.840 · Rawan Osman You just lost a child. I'm. I'm a parent. I can't. I couldn't fathom this before. When I became a parent. Even when I hated Israel, I couldn't understand, comprehend. How can anyone receive the news of losing a child and celebrate it? But especially. And it still gives me goosebumps every time I talk about it. How do you celebrate the news of losing a child? MEMRI 00:50:17.880 — 00:50:33.720 · Rawan Osman has a very good job in documenting extreme statements. Yeah, by crazy women who say, no problem. I lost this child. Or more than one child. I give birth to many more. And they're all I say. 00:50:34.920 — 00:50:36.600 · Rawan Osman They're all, um. 00:50:38.680 — 00:50:57.360 · Rawan Osman They're willing to sacrifice anyone. All of them, for the cause. What kind of human being prioritizes a cause and ideology over the life of a human life, but also that of their children? That is an ideology difficult to beat. 00:50:58.520 — 00:51:01.570 · Rawan Osman This is why Israel develops 00:51:02.730 — 00:51:04.930 · Rawan Osman different mechanisms, for example 00:51:06.130 — 00:51:15.850 · Rawan Osman the Palestinian Authority until today. They say they stopped the pay-for-slay system, but they only try. To replace it with a different 00:51:17.250 — 00:51:22.770 · Rawan Osman system, still rewarding terrorists, whether you 00:51:24.250 — 00:51:50.810 · Rawan Osman were a terrorist were part of a sophisticated terror attack, something such as an October 7th, or a simple act of trying to stab a soldier on a checkpoint. They are rewarded. And if those are dead, the person who carried out the attack are killed. They are turned into martyrs. And then the their families receive a stipend. 00:51:51.970 — 00:52:11.650 · Rawan Osman So the Israelis have to add another layer to that. If you are rewarded and then your family is going to receive a stipend even if you go to prison or get killed. There must be a different way to sway you to stop you from doing that. So the Israelis will demolish your your home. 00:52:11.930 — 00:52:12.730 · Ben Chertoff Right? 00:52:13.010 — 00:52:15.810 · Rawan Osman And it is. This is 00:52:16.850 — 00:52:33.930 · Rawan Osman sharply criticized in the West. People forget the context. The Israelis do not want to demolish your house. They want you to stop committing terror attacks. And this is one way the Israelis have to be creative. What can you. What else can you do? 00:52:33.970 — 00:53:08.490 · Ben Chertoff You just mentioned MEMRI, which does an amazing job of of translating Arabic media into English, which is something that, um, doesn't seem to be happening. When when you see Western journalists who are covering the region who don't necessarily even speak Arabic. Um, What? What are they missing? Can you talk about the differences between what media, Arab media says in Arabic and what is translated to English? 00:53:09.130 — 00:53:41.050 · Rawan Osman Thank God for AI. One excellent example would be whether you speak Arabic or not. Whoever listens to us, please, I suggest this simple exercise. Go on Al-Jazeera websites and look at what they publish in Arabic and what they publish on the same topic in English. Look at the difference. I'll give you one example. Look up Theodor Herzl on Al Jazeera's website. See what they write about him in English and what they write about him in Arabic. 00:53:42.170 — 00:53:43.490 · Rawan Osman A lot of what you hear 00:53:45.370 — 00:54:25.540 · Rawan Osman by outlets who are already biased and anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic, and if it is produced in English, it is designed for Western ears. And Western journalists fall for this. If this is what they are following, they fall for this. They think that the average Arab is someone who is balanced and they have no beef with the Jews. They only want equal rights for the Palestinians. So the motivation, there is no underlying a layer of hatred towards all Jews. They don't know that most of the Arab world treats the protocols of the Elders of Zion as serious literature, 00:54:26.940 — 00:54:46.580 · Rawan Osman that most of the Arab world still circulates Nazi propaganda, including Mein Kampf, or at least a translated parts of Mein Kampf. Not that. Not like the parts that talk about the Jews, but not necessarily of the Arabs, who are classified way lower than the Jews. 00:54:48.660 — 00:55:36.140 · Rawan Osman That said, because when I say this, I make the Western journalists sound ignorant. Many of them know this reality and they play along because they are anti-Semitic themselves. Or they think it's fair play because they sympathize with the Palestinians to the extent, well, it's okay sometimes to exaggerate something or tweak it in order to advance the Palestinian cause against the mighty Jews, against the Israeli army who is committing a genocide, and nobody can stop them. And they are supported by the Americans who let them get away with murder, literally. Now it's neither a genocide, nor do they commit murders and get away with it. Nor do they like war, 00:55:37.260 — 00:55:50.460 · Rawan Osman because remember, they sent their sons and daughters to these wars. Nobody knows when they kiss them goodbye before they go to Gaza, or to Syria or to Lebanon, if they're going to come back. 00:55:50.540 — 00:55:50.940 · Ben Chertoff Right. 00:55:50.980 — 00:58:08.990 · Rawan Osman So nobody nobody likes that at all. And many politicians that are depicted as demons also have children fighting these wars or lost children in these wars, so it's unfair. But it's easy to speak from the comfort of New York or Toronto or Sydney and lecture us. I happen to be one of very, very, very few privileged Arabs whose mind, whose eyes were open to truth. And this time I'm speaking to you from Jerusalem. This this is maybe my 25th visit to Israel since October 7th. And reality in Israel does not correspond to what is circulated around the globe. What I hear from Muslims and Christians, Israeli Arabs who are proud of their Israeli identity does not correspond to what's circulating in the West, but nobody's interested in giving them the mic. The BBC won't talk to them. CNN Talk to them. Al Jazeera won't talk to them. They will talk to the crazies who bash Israel, whether they're Muslims or Christians or even Jews, who will tell you Israel is not a democracy. You are bashing Israel from Tel Aviv, from Jerusalem, and you're not arrested. You've been doing this for 30 years. You've been a rock star on Al-Jazeera. Nobody arrested you. So Israel is a democracy. Women are treated much better. Women who escape domestic violence in the so-called West Bank find safe refuge in Israel. Homosexuals who escaped from Gaza, from the so-called West Bank, found a haven in Israel. Those people cannot afford speaking up because they are afraid of an Arab, a radicalized Muslim, who would stop them eventually. It's such a crazy reality, and an honest journalist who is truly invested in truth, who wants to understand why Israel carries on As is. We'll spend more time in Israel to understand the recipe, to see the truth, and to understand that Israel, this tiny, tiny speck of land surrounded by so many hostile neighbors, is not the problem. 00:58:10.070 — 00:58:42.670 · Ben Chertoff It's unfortunate because the the the solution I you know, the fantasy you always have when you hear somebody talking about Israel and saying these things that are preposterous is I wish I could, you know, blindfold you, put you on a plane and bring you to Israel so you could see what it's really like. We can't do that just logistically with everybody. So what what is the solution? How do you take the transformation that you went through and scale it to, to a much bigger population? 00:58:43.430 — 00:58:58.470 · Rawan Osman I have good news for you. We already did it. How? I cannot bring millions of Arabs for many reasons. They may not as security threats concerns, but we can bring Israel to them. 00:58:59.750 — 00:59:11.190 · Rawan Osman How? Thank God for social media, I said earlier, thank God for AI. Now for social media. In the age of technology, everything is possible. For those who don't know, 00:59:12.470 — 00:59:16.630 · Rawan Osman since the Arab world could not defeat Israel in 1948, 00:59:17.870 — 00:59:46.870 · Rawan Osman the Arab world introduced anti normalization laws and policies to boycott Israel, to turn it into a pariah state, at least in the Arab world. And until now, these anti normalization laws and policies are actively forbidding citizens of those countries from communicating with Israelis, even abroad. So Lebanese and Algerian and Iraqi, a Kuwaiti, cannot speak with an Israeli, even if they met them in America or in France or in Australia. 00:59:47.910 — 01:00:19.110 · Rawan Osman And the consequences for breaking those laws and policies can be severe. You can be fined. You can spend time in prison. You can also be executed. Who gets executed? Not those who collaborate with the Zionists. Not those who necessarily gave information to the Mossad. But political dissidents, conveniently, especially in Iran. Once you are accused of collaborating with the Zionists, you get executed. Whether you spoke to Zionists or not. 01:00:20.310 — 01:00:56.640 · Rawan Osman In today's world, you can no longer do what these laws did to Israel. You can no longer omit the Israeli narrative from the existence of the Arabs and the Muslims, because that was the purpose of these laws to dehumanize the Israelis, to the point where on October 7th, the Arab world saw what Hamas did because they broadcasted what they recorded. And many Arabs could not summon any sympathy for the Jews because they were systematically demonized, dehumanized. 01:00:58.200 — 01:01:13.920 · Rawan Osman In the age of technology and social media, you cannot arrest. Even in Tehran, an Iranian who watched a reel on Instagram of a hostage telling their account of what happened to them in Gaza. 01:01:15.040 — 01:01:57.239 · Rawan Osman You can no longer contain information. And even in China, they will use a VPN to go around censorship. So today, many in the Arab world woke up and many sent me direct messages telling me, I'm proud of you. I wish I could do what you're doing, but in Beirut, I'll get killed. In Tehran, I get executed. I'm writing to you from Cairo. I wish all people think like you, etc.. I'm in a privileged position where I'm not afraid of being fired from my job, my husband divorcing me, someone arresting me. I have the freedom to do what I think is the right thing to do. And there are many, many, many Arabs. Let's end on this positive note 01:01:58.320 — 01:02:50.360 · Rawan Osman who understand that the axis of resistance is not invested in the well-being of the Palestinian. If they wanted to liberate Palestinians, they would allow the liberation of their own people. But if you are willing to do to Lebanese, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenite and Iranians what you've done. We no longer believe you. Our enemy is not Israel. Our enemy is the axis of resistance and a sick ideology, a death cult that caused more than enough damage to all of us in the region. Luckily, on October 7th, this axis of resistance committed suicide. And they are falling one after the other. So we are going to suffer a little longer until we can experience a different reality once and for all. 01:02:50.560 — 01:02:54.320 · Ben Chertoff Rawan Osman, thank you for all you do and thank you for joining me today. 01:02:54.440 — 01:02:56.560 · Rawan Osman Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. 01:03:01.560 — 01:04:41.890 · Ben Chertoff So where does this leave us? Rawan Osman crossed a line. Almost nobody crosses and she paid for it. A shocked family, a whole identity rebuilt from the studs. But listen to what she actually did with it. She didn't come out the other side bitter. She came out the other side with a grocer in Strasbourg who showed her one act of ordinary kindness, and in her words, converted her from an enemy to an ally. That's the whole argument. In a single moment. Contact beats propaganda. Reality does the rest, if you can just get people to it. If there's one idea to carry out of this conversation, it's her answer to the question everyone asks how do you scale a transformation like hers, when you can't put millions of people on a plane to see Israel for themselves. Her answer you don't have to. You bring Israel to them. The anti normalization laws that spent almost 70 years erasing the Israeli from Arab life can't survive a phone with a VPN and a hostage telling her own story on Instagram. She thinks the wall is already cracking after what she's been through. I think twice before betting against her. If this gave you something to chew on. Do me a favor. Subscribe wherever you're watching or listening on YouTube, Apple, or Spotify so you never miss an episode. Leave us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify. It genuinely helps people find the show and find us on social. At Honest Reporting on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. I'm Ben Chertoff. This has been The Honest Take and we'll see you next time.