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The Thin Veil is a show for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of Palestine—and what Palestine can reveal about the systems shaping our world. Hosted by musician/activist and anti-Zionist Jew Ezra Lipp, who was raised in a Zionist ecosystem and is now, as always, on a continuing journey of learning and unlearning.
Through long-form conversations with historians, journalists, artists, activists, and people with lived experience, the show explores Palestine not in isolation, but as a window into questions of power, history, identity, media, ideology, resistance, and the stories we inherit about the world around us.
[00:00:00] Coming up on The Thin Veil
Riad Bahhur: The Zionist project, its ultimate goal is the elimination of Palestinians. And taking us off our land or taking the land away from us.
Coming from a reality ofa very clear and brutal colonial occupation and project of erasure, where it's clear who the oppressor is and who the oppressed is, and then coming to the US and realizing that the popular culture and the media and the general impression here is of the reverse. That the victim is actually the perpetrator and the villain.
that's a bit unsettling coming back to the U.S.
Well, hello again, and welcome back to The Thin Veil. I am your host, Ezra Lipp. The Thin Veil is a show about unlearning inherited narratives. What happens when the veil [00:01:00] lifts and those narratives crumble? And we base these conversations here on The Thin Veil around Palestine, Zionism, anti-Zionism, et cetera.
if you're a brand-new listener, thank you for joining the show. If you're a repeated listener, thank you for coming back. I would love it if you leave a five-star rating and review wherever you are listening to this podcast. Thank you for all the people that have left five-star reviews. We've only gotten five-star reviews so far.
so keep it up, If you value these conversations, it, um, really helps spread the word to others subscribe on YouTube, hit the notification bell, all that. Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Blue Sky, Facebook.
If you would like to become a monthly supporter of the show, you can join our Patreon page, or if you'd like to leave a one-off tip or donation, you can do that through the Ko-fi [00:02:00] platform, ko-fi\thethinveilpod. just a couple, housekeeping, housekeeping notes.
You might have noticed that this episode is out a day early. We are, breaking the normal Wednesday release schedule to release this episode on, Tuesday, which is because we are going to be experimenting with, adding a new segment to The Thin Veil. I mentioned in my last episode, very powerful episode with Dr.
Marc Brawner. I encourage you to listen to it if you haven't checked it out already. I was giving you some hints about a new collaborator that is going to be working more regularly with me on The Thin Veil, and you will be hearing the first of that new sort of collaboration this coming Friday.
So we will have an extra bonus episode for you this week we are calling The Thin Veil Unfiltered. So look out for that soon. But for today, we have a fantastic episode. My guest today is a Palestinian [00:03:00] American who was born in Venezuela. He is a filmmaker. He is a, professor who currently teaches at Sacramento City College.
He teaches contemporary Palestine history and culture, and,of course, I'm talking about none other than the amazing Riad Bahhur. It was fantastic to have Riad on the show. We talk about what it's like to teach Palestine or specifically how that's evolved over the last thirty years.
we get a little deep dive into, the First Intifada in the late '80s and early '90s that were happening as Riad was on the ground for part of that time, and the, filmmaking he was doing during that time. I give my own personal confession towards the latter part of the episode about, um, shedding a little more insight into my own personal evolution and how my understanding, has evolved so significantly and incredibly, [00:04:00] embarrassingly so, on the issue of Palestine and Palestinians.
and we also discuss what a, uh, decolonized Palestine might look like and what our role and responsibility is in this struggle for Palestinian liberation. thank you so much for being here. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Riad Bahhur.
Ezra Lipp: my parents were both born and raised in Palestine. and In the West Bank, as you said,they weren't displaced during the Nakba, but the Nakba impacted all Palestinians, right?
Of course.
Riad Bahhur: and so Palestine, w- where we're from in Palestine it's called El-Bireh. it's intertwined with Ramallah. and during the Nakb- the people who were expelled from Ramle and Al-Lidd and other places ne- near the coast, poured into the area, as a result of Is- the Israeli ethnic cleansing of the part of Palestine that became Israel in 1948. So the [00:05:00] society was kind of in crisis. The economy was in a shambles, and the West came under, Jordanian control after 1948.
But because of that, there were secondary, displacements, right? Not everybody ended up staying in Palestine because the opportunities were limited due to the colonization of most of country. and so the people from El-Bireh, migrated to places like the US and Latin America, and one of the places was Venezuela.
It was fairly easy for people to, um, obtain visas and go there. and
so my dad and uncles followed an uncle of theirs to Venezuela and soone of my sisters and I were born in Venezuela, and we left there when I was four my parents wanted to join other family members in the United States at the time.
and eventually they decided [00:06:00] to settle in Cleveland, Ohio. however, because they were not in Palestine or in the West Bank in particular the Israelis occupied it in 1967,they were denied the right to return. were denied the right to live there, and they, they didn't receive residency cards or
Israeli-issued
ID cards like the rest of the population that happened to be there when the Israelis took their census So that started a kind of decades-long in our family with, the, the contradiction between the desire to move back to Palestine and the inability to legally in Palestine, and they applied for family reunification which was denied, continuously for a few decades.
but when we became US citizens, we were able to go there as Americans,
as visitors,
which we did [00:07:00] and Went once when I was six and once when I was 10 years old. and both times we overstayed our visa with the intention of living there, which was kind of its own sort of stress.
Ezra Lipp: How long
Did you stay?
Riad Bahhur: we about a year each time.
And so I,I was enrolled in schools there in first grade and in grade, actually. Yeah
Ezra Lipp: I
jotted down in my notes from our last conversation that when you were six and you went to Palestine, you had some sort of awakening.
Riad Bahhur: Yeah,
I mean, there are some dramatic things that you-- a, a kid who's never been there,some very positive, right? For example, I met my grandmothers for the first time, and they were, very powerful village women who wore embroidered dresses and who knew-- in my mind, they knew everything, right?
They knew how to grow food. They knew how to prune trees. they knew how to [00:08:00] cook elaborately. They knew how to start fires. so that was already on its own, like in the experience of a child, a really powerful thing. And they imparted a lot of their wisdom me, right? It was kind of-- Palestine 101. I had conversations with them about, why there were soldiers in the street and how to act if we saw soldiers someone and w- and if they questioned us, what should we say and what should we not say, things like that.
Ezra Lipp: Questions that I'll just say no six-year-old should ever have to ask or an- have answered
Riad Bahhur: D- definitely not questions I had, had ever considered before, right? for example, I was instructed, uh, that if the soldiers were chasing someone and that person ran through our field or our yard, that we should not say that happened. We should say we didn't see anybody. We didn't... So that sort of, planted the seeds in my head [00:09:00] that,there were people we could trust and there were people we couldn't trust, and that there were people who wanted us harm. and that being true and loyal sometimes meant, doing it in a complicated way, right? and be- being part of a struggle. I also,I have some vivid memories. One of them is a funeral procession one day of, dozens of men on foot,
a casket. it was v- very somber and intense, as you can imagine, and a lot of the men had their faces covered with keffiyehs. and someone, I still don't know who it is to this day, one of them recognized me and knew that I spoke English. I spoke Arabic, too, but, they also know that I spoke English. And they came over and kneeled down and asked me in English, "Do you know what this is?" And I said, "No." And he said, "This is a funeral of a martyr who was imprisoned and was killed under torture, [00:10:00] and his body was delivered to his family in the middle of the night, and we're burying him as a martyr today."
attending
Ezra Lipp: hit you as a six-year-old?
Riad Bahhur: I don't remember how it emotionally hit me, but it's, like, one of the few memories from that period of my life that I have very vividly. I can still-- It was wintertime. The clouds were very dramatic. it had just rained. I remember almost everything about it, and I think it--
I-it sparked a lot of curiosity.
the whole issue of the prisoners was one that came up also repeatedly because, the army would raid neighborhoods in the middle of the night to arrest people, and once they banged on our door. they had the wrong house. They were looking for one of our neighbors, but my grandmother had to kind of fend them off, and she refused to open the door. and that's when I thought, you know, it's a simple thing, like refusing to open the door, but that sort of [00:11:00] act of rebellion, also stuck with me, right? That you could refuse and that, refusing and rejecting injustice is a, was a big part of my education at that time, too.
I often think about this, like the trauma that Palestinian children witness and experience. I think there's a lot of social support. I don't wanna romanticize it because I think there is trauma that people their lives trying to heal from and that kind of mess you up for life. And at the same time, there is a lot of social cohesion, Like the West Bank and Gaza in particular is kind of like a reservation, or a ghetto in the sense that it's a con-- we're confined together, and we're embraced. There's kind of a collective embrace that happens that offers a tremendous amount of [00:12:00] social support, and you end up feeling
safe in
your community even though, the occupation is not safe and that there are very real risks and there's violence that you witness all the time
Ezra Lipp: You
feel like people look out for one another?
Riad Bahhur: People out for
one another. Everyone's in the same boat. and you don't know who the violence is gonna hit. some of it is directed and some of it is quite random and collective. A lot of it is quite collect- is collective because the idea is to punish the whole community, make activists unwanted, which never succeeded. It's never succeeded in Palestine.
Ezra Lipp: Yeah. Probably
because the alternative of the status quo was just intolerable
Riad Bahhur: Yeah, the
alternative is intolerable and the, the st- the stakes are high and they are existential.
The Zionist project [00:13:00] is, its ultimate goal is the elimination of Palestinians and, taking us off our land or taking the land away from us, so I sometimes people are lulled into complacency or feel like they don't know how to resist, the enormity it, but very rarely do they not see the threat or experience it as existential.
Ezra Lipp: Yeah. all right. So
After you went back to the US and then you,
Riad Bahhur: the US.
Ezra Lipp: and, was that a, a big shift to go all of a sudden back to Cleveland af- after spending a year in Palestine and culture shock?
Riad Bahhur: That is a good question. A- actually, it was, and it always is. To return from Palestine to the US is always a bit of a, a shock.
I
think I heard somebody recently say the only real place in the world [00:14:00] today is Gaza, recently. and for obvious reasons because of the brutality of the genocide that's been ongoing. I always felt that in relation to leaving Palestine and coming back here. There's al- there was always a feeling of unreality in the US, of the diversions, the consumerism. a- again, it's a generalization, and it's not the case for everyone in the US. but I think also the very particular misinformation and vilification of Palestine and Palestinians that happens in the US, that's probably the biggest source of the shock. And of coming from a reality of,you know,a very clear and brutal colonial occupation and project of erasure, where it's clear who the oppressor is and who the oppressed is, and then [00:15:00] coming to the US and realizing that the popular culture and the media and the general impression here is of the reverse, that the victim is actually the perpetrator and the villain.
And that's always that's a bit unsettling coming back to the U.S.
Ezra Lipp: Yeah
Riad Bahhur: maybe we could start with, work in Palestinian documentary filmmaking, and how you got into that, what motivated that, and what that experience was like for you.
I've always been called to telling the story or a story or, stories, maybe that's more accurate, of Palestinian experience. And so a period of my life that was kind of-- that orientation was towards filmmaking.
one of my instructors was really influential, and he one day mentioned in class that a good friend of his...
This was nineteen eighty-two, during the Israeli [00:16:00] invasion and occupation of Lebanon, the siege of Beirut, the massacres that happened in Sabra and Shatila. of my instructors said that a friend of his was planning to go to Lebanon to make a film about Palestinian refugees. and I think
that instructor thought it was a crazy idea, right?
Said the friend had asked him if he wanted to go, and he said, "Clearly, no. I'm not going to Lebanon at a time like this." but as a eighteen-year-old, I went up to him and said, "I wanna meet your friend because I wanna go." and so he put me in touch with this friend, who was Tom Hayes, and, I reached out to Tom and we met, and I explained to him, you know, I was interested in learning filmmaking.
I was interested in going to Lebanon with him and working on the film. maybe wisely, he took one look at me and he was like, "I'm not taking an eighteen-year-old Palestinian American to Lebanon at a time like this." So he, he said,I'm not gonna take you to Lebanon, but [00:17:00] I w-would appreciate your help we return.
We're gonna have a lot of footage. I don't speak Arabic. You could help translate, and you can, help edit, and that sort of thing." so that sort of began a kind of friendship and a creative relationship with Tom. a-and upon his return from Lebanon, which ended up being a really difficult trip for him, as you can imagine, he brought back footage for a film called Native Sons: Palestinians in Exile. and so I did work on that, I assisted in the editing as part of keeping track of all that footage. And I, I helped Tom, moderate discussions at public screenings and that sort of thing.
And so eventually, I majored in history and international relations, and I left Ohio State, and I went to Georgetown University for my master's in contemporary Arab studies, between 1986 and 1988. But [00:18:00] by the end of 1987, the Intifada had broken out, in Palestine. And so,my friends and I were glued to the news.
We were following every bit of it. It was both exhilarating but also excruciating not know what kind of role we would or should have. so I called Tom and I said, "Do you wanna make a film about this?" at first he said, "No, my wife will divorce me." Lebanon was stressful enough. but then a day or two later, he called me back and he said, "Let's do it."
And so that kind of began the process of working on the, the People and the Land, which is translation of a very common Palestinian or Arab, welcoming or greeting, which is ahlan wa sahlan, which means you are among your people and you are on your-- your place or on your land. Um, wife divorce him?
she did not.
Ezra Lipp: Okay, good.
Riad Bahhur: She did
not. In fact, she was very [00:19:00] supportive. but,joking aside, it was also very stressful
Ezra Lipp: Yeah
Riad Bahhur: for her and the family, not only worrying about him,
but
there was-- there's backlash, if you're vocal about Palestine. And so they received threats and, broken glass and,
Ezra Lipp: Wow.
threats from who?
Riad Bahhur: from Zionist,unknown, anonymous,
Ezra Lipp: Yeah.
Riad Bahhur: pro-Israel folks.
Yeah.
Ezra Lipp: well, why don't you take us, a little into that time during the First Intifada? I don't think it's something we've really focused on on this podcast yet, as far as, a deep dive.
maybe orient the listener a little bit in what was happening then?
Riad Bahhur: Yeah. Yeah,there have been, from the period of the British mandate to the present, outbreaks of Palestinian like organized resistance, in addition to of like the daily resistance that individuals and families and [00:20:00] communities practice on a regular basis. So the Intifada, which means shaking off or uprising, and what's often called the First Intifada, which broke out in late 1987 and went roughly till 1993, for me was kind of a life-altering transformational thing to witness and to be a part of, right?
And w- working on the film me to go throughout that period, several times and to stay months at a time, and to visit communities in the midst of resisting Israeli occupation. it comes about 20 years into the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. the spark was Gaza when a group of Palestinian laborers who...
day laborers who went, used to go into Israel by the thousands to work, menial jobs and then were barred from spending the night in Israel, so every day [00:21:00] they would have to come back and sometimes a really long commute.
Ezra Lipp: we should just say it's, it was a long commute because of checkpoints, not because not geog-not, it wasn't geographically a long commute
Riad Bahhur: Exactly.
Ezra Lipp: Yeah.
Riad Bahhur: but so s- several were killed in a collision with an Israeli military Jeep, which the time, the Israeli military patrolled the streets Gaza, the camps and the towns and the villages of Gaza, and where have-- They had, bases in Gaza in the middle of Palestinian population centers. was the spark that sort of lit off, the protests that originally at the funerals of the killed workers, then continued. and it continued for days
Ezra Lipp: can you actually pause there for a second? Because I- I've have heard about this a number of times that, about this accident that was the spark.
What about it was so provocative, this accident?
Riad Bahhur: that's good question.
So I think when you [00:22:00] have systematic and structural oppression, even if it were an ordinary accident, like literally an accident,
Ezra Lipp: the pain and hardship that it taps into longstanding, And so I think there are many incidences of maybe more direct killing, soldiers fired into crowds, or prisoners died under torture and were delivered to their families in plastic bags in the middle of the night and, and beatings and bone breakings and that sort of thing. I I think it's better to think of it as not an egregious instance of killing in and of itself, but just one in a long line and, to use a cliché, the straw that broke the camel's back or the last straw.
Yeah
Riad Bahhur: the emotions were high, there's a lot of history here as well. I, I think in sort of explaining the context in which the Intifada happened, have [00:23:00] to go back to that moment in 1982 where The Israelis invaded Lebanon and besieged Beirut, and the massacres in Sabra and Shatila happened. But also the Palestine Liberation Organization was expelled from Lebanon, where it had taken root since the early 1970s after the expulsion from Jordan.
It was kind of like the end of the heyday of the PLO as the organization in exile that could accomplish dramatic feats like having Arafat speak at the UN in 1974, or rally the anti-colonial movements of Asia, Africa, and Latin America behind the Palestinians. It really did succeed in Fragmenting that movement.
I remember actually being in Palestine in 1986 feeling a lot of, like, despair, The, the PLO was gone. There was no really effective leadershipand I remember talking to my grandfather about it, and he said, "But it's not gonna be [00:24:00] like forever. There will be an upheaval, and there will be a renewal of the struggle, and it'll come from the camps.
It'll come from the refugee camps, the y- the youth of the, of the camps." And I often think back at that conversation because that's exactly what happened when that accident happened in Gaza. So f- felt that whether it was accidental or not, there's a consistent disregard for Palestinian life that manifested in all aspects of, of the occupation.
And so emotions were high, frustration was deep, and, funerals became a- as they customarily, do, they also became protests, occasions to protest and demonstrate.
Ezra Lipp: So were you around during the First Intifada? Were you in Palestine at the time?
Riad Bahhur: Yeah. So I wasn't there for the full duration, but I made maybe four or five trips, for extended kind of [00:25:00] like se- from several weeks to a few months at a time. and working on the, the film at the time meant that we were seeking out people who were impacted or involved in some way by the Intifada.
So we witnessed things like,I don't know if you know this, but during the Intifada, the Israelis shut down Palestinian schools, uh, for a f- a few years. So kids were out of school, and the response of the popular committees, was to set up popular education,
Underground
schools, basically, where people in the community, some of them were teachers who were-- who just resumed teaching in these underground schools.
Others weren't teachers. Maybe they were professionals. they had a background in science or math or history,
they
taught the subjects that they knew. But was very inspiring. And in the, kind of the context of revolutionary uprising, people also weren't just [00:26:00] replicating the curriculum, the official curriculum.
Ezra Lipp: They were questioning, what does education look like in the context of rebellion, right? what are the values of a people in struggle that need to be taught? What are the problems with formal education and the Western-style or colonially imposed school system and curriculum? Wow!
Riad Bahhur: people also developed neighborhood gardens, right?
So one impact of colonization has been to move people away from farming and growing own food and to a reliance on Israeli, produce and products, which is kind of agro-industrial farming and what we're familiar with in the United States versus the more indigenous way of growing smaller plots and locally produced seeds even, and varieties. so the boycott of Israeli products that happened during the [00:27:00] Intifada, which is, again, a classic nonviolent, strategy, as much of-- most of the Intifada tactics were, the, in the First Intifada. That was the hallmark of the First Intifada.
so people needed to produce alternative food. And, there's a film, Did we talk about this, The Nineteen Cows?
Ezra Lipp: Yeah. Uh,
uh, The Wanted 18. I'll put a link to it.
maybe you could just ex- explain the, the
Riad Bahhur: Yeah, it was,part of the
self-sufficiency around food, that was, is twofold. One was there was a boycott of Israeli goods, and, uh, Palestinian economy is captive to the Israeli economy. Israel controls all imports and exports, and also has worked, very intentionally to diminish Palestinian industry and agriculture,
to increase that dependence. So part of the uprising was to try to break that. So the cows were to provide milk and, eventually meat [00:28:00] the, the people of, Beit Sahour. They were part of the boycott effort
So we,
we were
actually in Beit Sahour where these cows were being hidden.and we found out about the, the wanted cows. It was, it was kind of like a lot of humor around it. It's not that just that people are wanted by the army, but our cows are wanted by the army, and we have to move them every d- few days to make sure they're safe. And so the unified national leadership of the uprising, issued a call to not pay taxes, to have a tax strike, basically.
And so people tried to adhere to that in different places, but Sa- Beit Sahour was, which is a, a town in the Bethlehem area, successfully withstood enormous pressure to break the town down to get somebody to pay the taxes. So they across the board, one hundred percent refused to pay taxes, but that meant that the town was besieged [00:29:00] and the Israelis went house to house, shop to shop, confiscating, food on the shelves, machinery from factories, furniture from homes, all under the guise of you owe taxes, and if you're not gonna pay taxes, we're gonna confiscate your stuff. but when the siege was over and the town was accessible again, we were, we were right there. We wanted to talk to people about what the experience was like, and people were elated. They were sitting on the floor without furniture in their houses or showing us their workshops where their tools and machines had been confiscated.
But they were elated because they s- they won.
how has it been, teaching Palestine in this country s-specifically in an environment where the narratives are so often distorted,to answer that question, I, I think it'd be useful to think of it [00:30:00] over time, maybe over the last 30 years or so. because I started teaching as a grad student at Ohio State University, taught a course on contemporary Arab culture, social and political themes in literature, and that sort of thing. and I've-- just to say I've taught
Palestine in the context of all of those courses, right? contemporary Arab culture, and then later even US history, because Palestine is part of US history, world history, Middle East history, and then most recently, contemporary Palestinian, history and culture. at Ohio State, particularly in the vulnerable position of a grad student, there were people in the department,
a couple of the Yiddish professors who, unfortunately tried to get the course taken away from me, because they knew I was teaching about Palestine in the course.
but somehow, know, I, I of kept class
for duration of [00:31:00] stay there. I
think time went on, became easier. Well, wait, important thing. Even Ohio State,
and then into, my other
Ezra Lipp: teaching in Sac City College,
Riad Bahhur: students
Ezra Lipp: were
Riad Bahhur: always generally receptive
Ezra Lipp: learning
Riad Bahhur: because they don't get information about it
Ezra Lipp: There's never
context,
Riad Bahhur: or rarely
Ezra Lipp: context given for
why Palestinians, uh, resorting to these tactics, right? what is the
Riad Bahhur: PLO
does it make sense, that the Palestinians who are a region that historically
created
hasn't
Ezra Lipp: produced
Riad Bahhur: kind of antisemitism that was produced in against Jews,
does it sense
that Palestinians would become just devoted to hating Jews
no
Ezra Lipp: reason?
or
Riad Bahhur: even the idea
that hate Jews, is a
[00:32:00] manifestation
of the decontextualization. there's no-- Zionism named, if it
is named, it's
conflated
with
Judaism.
So a of
my students,
just
upon getting basic information,
right, like, well,
Zionism is
a political ideology
that you can-- that a point, and we can trace the
starting point, and we can give
the that. That's what we do, right?
What is context
for it?
both
the context European antisemitism,
but also of European
Ezra Lipp: nationalism and of European colonialism and how it
Riad Bahhur: played out
in this territory in Asia, which is Palestine, and how
settler colonialism
differs from kinds of colonialism.
And
they just generally have appreciated
the information. some
cases,
early on in particular, the striking
I
could see and that expressed was feeling [00:33:00] betrayed. Mm-hmm.
That why didn't we know
even, like, the most basic
of
this
story?
Ezra Lipp: Yeah
w this is, like, elementary, you know?
has this been kept from us, why have
Riad Bahhur: we been manipulated to support
Ezra Lipp: oppression?
Riad Bahhur: been, like,
Ezra Lipp: a very common response on the part of students,
Riad Bahhur: but also
Ezra Lipp: appreciation
I definitely f- have felt all those things and, and an immense sense of betrayal and just,
j- almost a shock too of how when you really just start to peel back the layers, much is out there, how much is covered up, how obvious it is all when you shed all these narratives you're fed.
And, I guess what I'm getting at though is, a phenomenon that [00:34:00] I, I talk about, I've talked about repeatedly on this show just it is en- endlessly fascinating and endlessly infuriating of,just you could have, in this country for instance, very smart, successful, thoughtful, well-educated people, professionals
and, most likely J- Jewish as if I'm gonna go with the generalization if you start talking about the most basic elements of Zionism as a settler colonial project and the whole expansive history, they look at you like you're crazy, or they're like, "That's just one narrative," you know, they're like basically denying reality and completely oblivious to the reality.
Riad Bahhur: And, Willfully, right? Willfully so.
Ezra Lipp: I'm, yeah, it d- well, it does and it doesn't. You know, I, I, I will say, as someone who came from that, I think at this point it kinda does,
I guess to be, like, oblivious and ignorant is one thing, but to actively trying to defend it,
Riad Bahhur: Mm-hmm. [00:35:00] maybe where the willfulness comes in.
I'll describe a situation, and then we can talk about, like, how much of it is willful and how much of it is not. More common is the subject comes up, usually reluctantly on the part of the other person. and I'm talking about liberals mostly. so when the subject comes up, I take it as kind of an invitation. do you wanna know more? do you wanna hear about, what it's like for Palestinians or what actually happened? And, the response, which is not a hostile response, but it feels hostile, is, "It's just so complicated.
I don't know,You know, there's just, like, pain on both sides." And which I'm willing to bet they would never say that to somebody, talking from a Zionist perspective. But to me, saying that to a Palestinian when I'm also willing to bet they've never had, in most cases, the [00:36:00] opportunity to hear from a Palestinian, to me feels like a willful way of saying,I don't agree to hearing any information from you I don't agree to incorporating any new information.
I'm very attached to this notion that it's complicated."
That's what
it feels like. That the saying it's complicated is a way of not engaging
Well, I'd say that's true. I'd also say that's a narrative that has been very much manufactured. that's true. It's a trope.
Ezra Lipp: it's a, it's a trope, but I would also say it's, the way that Israel and Zionism is taught, portrayed, and
kind
of like idealized in the institutionalized Jewish spaces in this country, at least I can speak of.
for somebody to, to learn the truthabout Palestine, it really creates so much cognitive dissonance where they really think, "Oh, [00:37:00] everything I thought from, you know, since I can remember is upside down." Like the good guys are the bad guys, the bad guys are the good guys.
Like, and their whole worldview collapses, for me, that there was a lot of that, and Zionism in Israel was never something that I even was particularly invested in in any way.I was pretty neutral on the subject, to be honest. I'd, I just kind of had accepted the narrative that, oh, it's complicated,
Riad Bahhur: Mm-hmm.
Ezra Lipp: and I'm just kinda not gonna think about it as a political thing, even though I thought of myself as a progressive.
I was just like, yeah, I'm vaguely aware there's some weird stuff going on, but, uh, I'm gonna just think about this country and...
Riad Bahhur: Mm-hmm.
Ezra Lipp: Which is, I'm not proud of. But, but there was still that level of cognitive dissonance. So for somebody who's really invested, in this idea [00:38:00] of Jewish self-determination and this Holocaust trauma and all the ways it's, taught,
the narrative is so ingrained in us that, oh, there's just these people that just wanna kill us because antisemitism is just a fact of life, that it is, it's really hard for people to get out of that.
Riad Bahhur: y- you know, so my, my comments were mostly about non-Jewish liberals, which we can kind of go back to in a second. But what you just mentioned, I think, is very particular to how Zionists instrumentalize antisemitism and fear and Jewish history in order to keep Jews aligned with Zionism,
Ezra Lipp: Yeah
Riad Bahhur: which I don't think is going on with non-Jewish Western liberals, right?
I think if anything, for non-Jewish Western liberals, there's a fear the Zionists will land on them like [00:39:00] 1,000 bricks,
Ezra Lipp: Yeah
Riad Bahhur: That, that, that's part of it, too. Like-
Ezra Lipp: Ab- absolu- absolutely. And because they do.
And,
Riad Bahhur: there will be trouble. And so I'm gonna avoid trouble by saying it's complicated.
Ezra Lipp: that, that is completely true, and I've had many people, particularly people of color, friends that have, over the last period of time since I've been speaking about this publicly, z-spoken to me in private and said, "Thank you so much for the advocacy you're doing around this, because I don't feel comfortable doing it publicly because I feel like people are gonna accuse me of being antisemitic, and, you know, like, as a Black person or whatever , like, I just don't wanna have to deal with that."
and that's really messed up. it's messed up that they have to have that consideration.
Riad Bahhur: Yeah. And when also
people then are made to feel like if they don't know exquisite detail every [00:40:00] aspect of the history and the dynamic between the Israelis and Palestinians, then they're gonna be-- that's gonna be a vulnerability that will be exploited,
Ezra Lipp: Well, and again, it's because it will. It will, and it is because there is such an extensive Hasbara talking point playbook and, you know, all the dates and blah, blah, blah, and the UN and all, like,that really committed Zionists will know all the broad, the,broad outline of all the events, but they have their own spin on it. So it can be very intimidating to speak to someone who, if you're just like, "Well, it seems like, dropping bombs on, tens of thousands of children just doesn't seem like the right thing to do." And then if somebody's like, "Well, you know, in '94 we had Oslo, and there was a..." You know, it's like you just [00:41:00] like it, it could be like, "Okay, I guess, I guess I don't know what I'm talking about."
Yeah. Or you don't understand, these people are out to k- to kill us. I think there's also a way that sort of, discourse and those tropes fit in with American history, which is because we are also living in a settler colonial state
For sure
Riad Bahhur: its own, nearly eradicated population, and at least the intent was there,
Ezra Lipp: to take the land w- without regard to life.
Riad Bahhur: so this idea of the violent native, of the dangerous native, et cetera, that's sort of built into the settler colonial psyche.
Ezra Lipp: So as a Zionist talking point, they don't have to work really hard to get people to buy it,
because they're familiar tropes
Yeah. And, and most of us have bought it in the context of this country
Riad Bahhur: Consciously or subconsciously, right? Even, yeah.
Ezra Lipp: And then of course, there's how [00:42:00] Zionism and Israel tie in with American dominance of West Asia imperialism, and how media narratives, have been
obscured in this country.
Riad Bahhur: Absolutely
in last couple years, I've taught a course specifically about Palestine, the Palestinian-- modern Palestinian history and culture. I thought I would need to advertise it because it was a new course,
Ezra Lipp: but I didn't even get around to making a flyer for it, and it filled up, and then it was wait-listed, and that's been the case every semester it was offered.
Riad Bahhur: And that has been interesting to me because in contrast to I would teach about Palestine maybe 20 ago, most already had a little bit of knowledge this time around taking the class, and they were interested in the culture.they would say things at the beginning of class like, "Well, we wanna understand [00:43:00] the history, we wanna understand the colonization part, but we also wanna know about music, we wanna know about literature, we wanna know about food." which is really uplifting to me about, in, in a generational sense, that young Americans of all-- younger Americans of all backgrounds, and I've had some older students too, so it's not just the younger folks, they're really interested in their world, They're not apathetic.
They do have a desire to understand what's going on, and they want to know what their role is in the role of their country, and they do have an impetus towards repair, and that's been really uplifting a-and hopeful. I wish it hadn't taken this long because things are really bad on the ground in Palestine.
Ezra Lipp: Yeah
Riad Bahhur: and of Palestine are being destroyed every second, right?
Ezra Lipp:
that is really hh to hear [00:44:00] and Also very relatable in some ways, umI mean This is somewhat of a, an embarrassing thing to even acknowledge, but it also just shows how far my personal evolution has been, and I guess what people are capable of. But even, after October 7th and the genocide started, a friend of mine put out this mixtape compilation, Mixtape for Palestine, raising money for MECA, Middle East Children's Alliance, and raised over $15,000.
I've since partnered with her, and we've just a few months ago put on, like, the first Mixtape for Palestine concert. So now we are, like, working together and raised,$5,000 in in one night, in the Bay Area. But, but at the time-- And I was on this mixtape as a musician. I contributed a song. So I was already empathetic enough and sensitive to the horrors that were unfolding in Gaza to [00:45:00] at least feel somewhat aligned with the Palestinian cause. But this is the part of the story that is kind of uncomfortable for me. But I remember I, I listened to the mixtape, and One of the first songs on the album was, like, talking about... I mean, it was very anodyne. It wasn't even... It was just, like, basically saying Palestine is, just a-appreciating the culture, just saying it was a beautiful people and a beautiful culture, just nothing even very specific. And this is how different my mindset h- was at the time. I remember getting I, I don't think offended is the right word, but I was liter- I was, like, confused.
I was like, "What are they even talking about? What, Palestine culture? what... I thought it was just a bunch of terrorists and, like, anti-Jew hating antisemites," or, like I, I d- I l- I literally didn't... and it is, it sounds absurd to even mouth that now 'cause I've learned so much, and my [00:46:00] headspace is, couldn't be further from that now.
So it's hard to even put myself back there. But I do remember being slightly, yeah, I think slightly like, this is kind of a bullshit song. what are they talking about? 'cause these were the narratives that were passed down to me.
Riad Bahhur: And they're in our, they're in our head, right? they take up space even after you start
expunging
them
Ezra Lipp: Well, yeah.
I mean, and,and if you never challenge them, if you never question them, if you've never have anyone teach you about it, and the only thing you hear is that this is,kind of a sick culture of at, you know,at best,helpless people under, theocratic, crazy fundamentalist rule, and at worst, like,entirely brainwashed culture that idolizes violence for the sake of just Jew hatred, then yeah, it's...
I'm not proud of it. But, but also that is part of the reason why I'm [00:47:00] doing what I'm doing now, because I l- I recognize the level of how much I had it wrong,
Riad Bahhur: Mm-hmm.
Ezra Lipp: you know, and how, and how betrayed I feel. How betrayed I feel,a whole, generations and a whole culture of Jewish people have been,
and,
and l- not to say anything about the betrayal of the Palestinian people.
Riad Bahhur: Yeah.
Ezra Lipp: so yeah. So Zionism does erase culture, so I'm glad people wanna learn about it.
Riad Bahhur: I I appreciate that, confession. the cultural element is interesting. So Zionism erases culture, but it also steals our culture.
Ezra Lipp: Yeah
Riad Bahhur:
Like, our
culture is so embedded in the land and the place, that in order to claim the land and the place, that they kind of have to steal our culture
Ezra Lipp: Yeah
Riad Bahhur: And it's erasing it at the same time, right?
Because it's theft without ... It's not sharing it.
Ezra Lipp: can you talk more about what that looks like to you, this theft of culture?[00:48:00]
Riad Bahhur: Oh,
across the board. I mean, food maybe is the most obvious one, right? Like this idea you can't be from a place if you don't know how to eat what it, what the land produces, right? So everything. So even, we even have today, settlers, colonists growing olive trees and producing olive oil and claiming it as part of their culture, right?
and their biblical heritage and that sort of thing. at the same time that Palestinians are prevented from reaching their olive trees or for gra- from grazing their sheep, you have settlers sort of performing these quintessential Palestinian acts of relationship to the land while denying Palestinians from physically, kinetically reaching their own trees and their own land. but even music or even embroidery being, Palestinian embroidery being presented in exhibits as [00:49:00] Israeli culture or Israeli embroidery. it's shameless. It's not just hummus and falafel.
nothing is, off-limits I think for the really diehard Zionists, even Palestinian speech is intolerable. even, the assertion of our own narration, like narrating our own experience, our own story, is intolerable. across the board.
from speech
to
armed struggle, anything that challenges, the Zionist project is not to be tolerated
Ezra Lipp: Yeah
I'm glad that, there is
so much interest in Palestine these days from a younger generation, and it is also endlessly tragic and horrific that it has taken so much horror and suffering and oppression in order for this to be a issue on the global consciousness and--
Riad Bahhur: Yeah
Ezra Lipp: or Western consciousness.
Riad Bahhur:
Ezra Lipp: Can you imagine what [00:50:00] a fully decolonized Palestine could look like and how we could get there? I
Riad Bahhur: How we can get
there?
Ezra Lipp: Yeah. I, I mean, I know, I know it's it's somewhat of a absurd of a question in the midst of a genocide, in the midst of just,every day more and more settler violence and ethnic cleansing, and then the expansion into Lebanon and Syria, and
Riad Bahhur: Yeah
Ezra Lipp: you, have hope for it?
Riad Bahhur: so the, the how of it d- I'm not sure about. I think that's what we're trying to figure out. but the inevitability of it is I'm pretty sure about,
Ezra Lipp: I think un- unless the planet collapses due to the other pressures of, global cl- climate change, environmental degradation, and
etc., which is very possible,
Riad Bahhur: I don't think You know, there are already more Palestinians than Israeli Jews between the river and the sea. it's very expensive to maintain the system of injustice, particularly in the face [00:51:00] of resistance. I don't wanna n- romanticize
what's happened in Gaza and what's continuing to happen in Gaza and even the, the killings of the West Bank and the potential to escalate that to, same level of, genocide is very real.
I hope the pr- the price will not continue to be so painful and so horrible. but I just can't imagine... in history, no oppressive system has lasted forever. Nothing lasts forever, right? if you were to ask me what would it look like to me, I think we've learned from a few examples, like the, the South Africa example. learned, things can go well, and we've also learned maybe from mistakes. we've learned that people can-- when the s- oppressive system changes, [00:52:00] people can be co-citizens of a nation state, without there being, retribution and violence. but we've also learned in South Africa, as in the United States, that without addressing the material conditions of oppression, questions of property, questions of wealth,restitution
of properties and accountability, then you're just moving into a not a fully decolonized state.
Like we're not decolonized in the United States. we haven't embraced reparations for African Americans. We haven't embraced reparations and restitution for Native Americans.We're attached to systemically inequality. So that would need to happen in a decolonized Palestine.
it would need to recognize the right of return. It, would have to. It's not justice if it doesn't. and I think Israeli Jews would also have to [00:53:00] realize that they will be a minority, like a sizable minority in a decolonized Palestine. But, That's complex that they need to work through and I don't know if they'll do it voluntarily.
I don't know what it will take, for them to do it, but that it's a- actually also, an act of generosity for Palestinians to consider a decolonized Palestine with Israelis, people currently known as Israelis in it.
Ezra Lipp: Yeah
Riad Bahhur: and I also don't think Israelis are in a state that they can grasp that at the moment.
Ezra Lipp: yeah
Riad Bahhur: don't know what work has to be done
Ezra Lipp: I don't wanna put words in your mouthor presuppose your position, what do you think? is that what you think is the most kind of equitable solution, for Palestine?
Riad Bahhur: A decolonized one-state solution. I think no solution is fully restorative. but in my mind, [00:54:00] that's the solution that has the most benefits and the least,amount of turmoil or conflict, but unfortunately, even that is, like, generous towards Israelis because it's the least amount of displacement for them while we continue to experience mass murder, right? so it's gonna, it's costing us no matter what,
But in terms of pragmatically, there's a scholar named Salman Abu Sitta who has studied the sites of all the destroyed villages, destroyed and depopulated villages, and most of them are still not built on.
Ezra Lipp: I think his premise is Palestinians could go back without displacing
Israelis
Riad Bahhur: maybe not com-completely displacing, but the, there are plenty of houses that, belong to Palestinian families that are now occupied by Israelis, right? And so those would need to be litigated, we're not talking about [00:55:00] 400, 500 years.
We're, talking about people who, some of whom are still alive and have memories, right?
Ezra Lipp: Yep. Yep
Riad Bahhur: maybe in ten years that won't be the case, but we're not far removed
And part of,part of
the how involves the US because as long as the US continues to provide this sort of unfettered support, even in
current moment where you occasionally hear kind of cracks in that
unconditional support, Israelis are still getting unconditional support from
Nobody in the US is exerting any pressure for Israel to act differently or any meaningful pressure. So I don't know how long that support is going to continue to be to serve the US elites.
But as long as it does, it's a problem.
I think part of our job is to kind of undermine that support as much as possible on a popular level. the centrality of the United States in the conflict is [00:56:00] important to recognize that we're not just, um, a bystander or observer. We're actually part of the conflict, and so far there's been a bipartisan commitment to the oppression of Palestinians.
It's couched in kind of like, bipartisan, love for Israel and commitment and loyalty to Israel, but it really is a commitment to the oppression of Palestinians. And so until that changes, I think it's just gonna be hard to see our way through the current apartheid colonial system. And, and that's gonna involve changing ourselves to, like, decolonizing US society, supporting struggles here, supporting Native people, Black people in the United States.
Making this a more just society is gonna help in the long run, right?
Ezra Lipp: Absolutely.
Riad Bahhur: Thank
Ezra Lipp: you so much for coming on the show
Riad Bahhur: Thanks having me
Ezra Lipp: Thanks for this podcast
Yeah.
Riad Bahhur: All right. Thank you so much for listening. Riad, [00:57:00] thank you for coming on the show and sharing your stories and wisdom and experience with us. It was such a pleasure. You are welcome back anytime. thank you all for tuning in. Leave a rating and review, like and subscribe to the show, support us on Patreon, on Ko-fi, on all the social media.
We really appreciate it. And stay tuned for this Friday, the first segment of The Thin Veil unfiltered, and that will be, I'll say it now, that will be a collaboration with myself and returning champion Chacham Esther Azar, Rabbi Esther Azar. So stay tuned for that on Friday, and then we will have another amazing episode out the following Tuesday.
So just things moving right along for The Thin Veil. a lot of work goes into making this show and keeping it rolling at this clip, so any support you could offer, is truly appreciated. Keep doing what you're doing. I wish you a very free Palestine.
Thank you for being here.
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