Over the last two weeks, even in the face of state and mob violence, Palestinians have been organizing mass demonstrations on both sides of the Green Line: from Jerusalem to Nazareth to Ramallah. After decades of policy designed to keep the Palestinian people fragmented, they have taken to the streets in unison to demand radical change.
What does this new Palestinian uprising look like? And where will it go next? Producer Ilana Levinson speaks to Amjad Iraqi, a writer and editor for +972 Magazine based in Haifa.
Unsettled is produced by Ilana Levinson, Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, and Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.
Amjad Iraqi is an editor and writer at +972 Magazine. He is also a policy analyst at the think tank Al-Shabaka, and was previously an advocacy coordinator at the legal center Adalah. He is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, based in Haifa.
"Against the horror, Palestinians are still rising" (Amjad Iraqi, +972 Magazine, 5/13/21)
The Nation-State Law w/Amjad Iraqi (Unsettled, 7/24/18)
Spotify playlist: Unsettled essentials, May 2021
transcript
MAX FREEDMAN: We have seen horrific death and destruction across Israel-Palestine these last two weeks, especially in Gaza. But there has been another story happening at the same time that should not be overlooked.
Palestinians have been organizing mass demonstrations on both sides of the Green Line, from Jerusalem to Nazareth to Ramallah. After decades of policy designed to keep the Palestinian people fragmented, and in the face of daily state violence and mob violence, Palestinians have taken to the streets in unison to demand radical change.
What does this new Palestinian uprising look like? And where will it go next? My name is Max Freedman, and you’re listening to Unsettled.
Amjad Iraqi wrote about this renewed Palestinian solidarity in a recent piece called “Against the horror, Palestinians are still rising.” It was published in 972 Magazine, where Amjad is also an editor. We’ll link to that story in the show notes.
If you’ve been listening to Unsettled for a while, you might recognize Amjad’s name or his voice. We had him on the show almost three years ago to talk about the passage of Israel’s controversial “Nation State Law.”
Amjad is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, based in Haifa. He spoke to Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson last Thursday, May 20.
ILANA LEVINSON: I was hoping you could start by just describing what you're seeing throughout the West Bank and and what's on your mind in terms of these these uprisings or as you described a bit in your in your article as riots.
AMJAD IRAQI: Yeah, I mean, it's it's quite a complex picture in the end, the way that this kind of, you know, young uprising is emerging looks very different in different cities and different towns and, you know, from everywhere between sort of the Palestinian towns that are across Israel to the quote unquote, mixed cities like Haifa and Jaffa and Lydd and even to those in the occupied territories. But what these different kind of forms of these protests. What we've seen, or let's put it this way, we've seen quite a couple of common threads and common themes that go across all of them. The first is that these protests are really youth led. It's pretty extraordinary that for the most part, these young activists are really trying to almost resist or bypass the traditional leaderships, people like political parties or traditional figures or more prominent figures. They're trying to bypass them in order to assert themselves as the leaders of this movement. And it's not just about a generational thing because it's tied up with a political outlook and the political discourse, which is very present among the Palestinian youth here, which is very assertive of its Palestinian identity, of not trying to fragment itself between, you know, you know, those who are citizens of Israel or those who are under occupation. And you can feel that when you go to these protests, you can feel that vibrant youth, you can feel this desire and hunger for radical analysis of the oppression that they're facing. And the way that they're trying to mobilize these communities is really incredible.
AMJAD: This is the positive side of these protests. But, of course, these demonstrations are largely being faced by the full force of state violence. Inside Israel, for example, this is the first and foremost confrontations with the Israeli police, which are heavily militarized force. And you can see them in this full riot gear, even among even these young people, even in a city like Haifa where I'm living in, where they're even coming with horses and they're coming with stun grenades, even sort of like water cannons. You're really confronting some of the most some of the ugliest and brutal forms of state oppression. And, you know, you also have different degrees to how this is operating. But you're you know, this is like the most visual element of these demonstrations to see that kind of struggle going on in the streets and to see the youth really just go out in full force against the cops almost in a fearless way that hasn't really been seen in a long time. Young kids who've never been to a political protest in their life are showing up and are chanting these slogans, and aren't afraid to even get arrested. And these are very brutal arrests. And it's not to glorify it in any way, but that fearlessness is really showing. You can feel it on the street. You can feel it when you attend these demonstrations. You can feel it when you're talking to the people. You can tell that something's different and people are still trying to navigate it. But inside Israel, what we call like inside 48, it's been a very powerful motivator.
ILANA: Can you describe exactly what these tactics are, what the demonstrations look like? And I'm also I'm interested in your description of them in your piece, because you you. You use the word riot, and you acknowledge the complexity of that word and how politically charged it is, and I wonder why you chose to use that word.
AMJAD: Yeah, I know it's a very controversial it's a very controversial term, but I have to really give credit to some of the conversations that have been happening, especially around the Black Lives movement of last year, which really challenged us to rethink. It's not by any means the first time, of course, nor is it only in the U.S., but it really challenged us to break this sort of narrative that we've been forced into about nonviolence versus violent demonstrations. And it's not an issue about justifying violence in any way. But this dichotomy is often being determined by forces that are outside of the people who are trying to challenge oppression. And the blurred lines and the gray lines get sort of erased by this effort to say that if you want to be a legitimate protester, you cannot even so much as lift a finger on the cop who is brutally beating you and throwing you into the car. And somehow that police brutality has more legitimacy because it's part of the state. And this has been an integral part of especially international perceptions of Palestinian demonstrations, like, oh, look at them, they're throwing stones. Therefore, somehow it's justified to fire rubber bullets or live bullets or skunk water or to arrest them violently in this way. Like there's a very strange comparison that's made that inherently justifies the repression of the state. And so in trying to kind of take this word riot, which, you know, I still debate to this day, but it's it's it's try to continue that conversation that wants to break through that very false dichotomy.
AMJAD: In the end, you know, riots have always been an integral part of any movement. Even the civil rights struggle experienced these things. It wasn't just that people were purely nonviolent and peace loving and all these things that they're out there sometimes had to be some kind of defensive force. And again, it's not about justifying or not, but this is historical fact. And we saw this again with the protests last year where, you know, you had people even like burned the police station, one of the police stations down. I've forgotten which state, but it was a very symbolic image. And there were new questions being raised like, you know, what does it mean to even target an engine of state violence in that way? And it's a very complex question with no real answers but. But this is something that Palestinians are also now re-insisting here.
AMJAD: Because for the past few decades, we've almost been instructed to say, if you want to pursue your struggle, you have to pursue it nonviolently. But the barriers of the boundaries, excuse me, of nonviolence tend to be used against us and tend to almost immobilize us. And this is why these young youth are really kind of coming out. And, yes, you have some people, for example, who are confronting the police, who have some people who are maybe like burning garbage and like a garbage canister and somehow by people is a riot or violence. But and then the focus ends up moving to that rather than what the police are doing. What is the state doing? What are these lynch mobs that are roaming the streets doing? So to kind of try to reclaim that word in a way, to put it in its historical context and to say that you can't be clean cut about it. And in the end, if you're not focusing on the injustice that these people are fighting against and if you're not emphasizing that whatever violence may emanate from them, the violence that they're confronting is far more brutal than anything that they might produce. Again, not about justification or not. And yeah this is a very complex topic, but but serious questions that we need to be asking.
ILANA: Something that's interesting that I'm thinking about in in your comparison to the Black Lives Matter movement, especially over the summer, is the conversation between. People who are witnessing the uprisings over the summer and saying, well, we agree with your cause, but you're burning burning cop cars is not how you do it. And the response was, well, we've been nonviolently protesting for so long. You're just not listening. You're you're now you're paying attention because we're burning cop cars, you know? And so I'm wondering if there is a sort of similar analysis and how the uprisings that we're seeing in in Israel Palestine might reflect similarly.
AMJAD: It's very much so. And it kind of goes two ways. It's like it's only when we cause these, you know, quote unquote disturbances, it's only when we start straying from the line of what you define as nonviolence, that A, people pay attention to the people on the ground who are facing this oppression, and B, they pay attention to the most kind of explicit forms of state violence. Like, yes, you know, the protests and clashes with the police are very visual reminders that this exists. But what about the day to day forms of violence? What about the day to day forms of pressure. And it's sort of a natural kind of dilemma that a lot of activists and struggles face, like how do you keep that momentum and that attention when the violence is so, when it's the constant state of normalcy? And it's a very difficult question and we're certainly not the first ones. And this is, again, one of those things where the where the activists on the ground are saying, OK, if this is exactly how the world is going to respond, that's you know, we don't have anything to lose anymore. We're willing to push those boundaries and we're willing to break the terms which the international community has tried to assert on us. And so and so in this respect, it's it's almost like an experimentation that's going on by the protesters. To almost use this use this against against the watchers and to challenge them to say, like, I dare you to say that, you know, this, you know, quote unquote, riot is somehow more brutal than what the state is doing to us. I dare you to say that somehow the violence ends the moment we get off the streets. It's really these Palestinian youth trying to trying to put that challenge to to the observers. And again, this is really I think a lot of people really paid attention precisely to what was going on last year, because I think the conversation in the U.S., in the public discourse, in the media and the political discourse has changed drastically because people were forced to take this seriously. And it's a sad fact that, you know, it has to be taken to such extreme levels and at such high costs to the people on the streets, to the communities that are experiencing the state's violence. But if that's the way this is being taken seriously, then a lot of people are, you know, for better and worse, willing to put themselves on the line to make that happen. And time will tell if that will work in the grand scheme. But that's really where a lot of people in the Palestinian community are.
ILANA: And of course, we're seeing mob violence perpetrated against against. Palestinian citizens of Israel. Can you talk about that?
AMJAD: Yeah, this has been one of the most alarming features of this past two weeks of escalations. So in primarily in what we regard what are commonly called mixed cities, these are essentially historically Palestinian cities, which through processes of forced expulsion and ongoing gentrification and displacement, that they eventually become turn into like Jewish localities. So Jewish majority neighborhoods and so on, so forth. This is like Haifa, like Jaffa and Akka and Lydd. And what we witnessed, especially after sort of the confrontations in Gaza, in the south between Gaza and Israel, between Hamas and the Israeli forces, was that you essentially had these far right mobs roaming Arab neighborhoods and the Arab areas of these of these so-called mixed cities looking for Palestinian citizens to beat up, looking for Palestinian property like cars and homes to damage and destroy. There are people who were marking the doors of Palestine citizens even here in Haifa, you know, to give people the signal that there's an Arab family here, you can target them. These mobs were chanting racist racist slogans, including death to Arabs. And the police tend to be either joining them essentially in some of these acts of violence by invading people's homes, by firing stun grenades at Palestinian protesters and so on, or simply standing idly by and doing nothing. And this is, you know, doubly alarming for Palestinian citizens to know that not only are these mobs coming at you, but the authorities, which, you know, pose themselves as are to protect you were in fact, doing deliberately doing nothing about it and in fact, were part of the problem. And this was and this has really gripped or the fear that gripped Palestinian citizens in these places was really tremendous. People were almost terrified to come out to the streets. It really was a fear that I couldn't explain. We were having it like my family and I had it here in Haifa that at any moment that could be the potential lynch mob coming to our homes and to our into our areas.
AMJAD: As overwhelming as this fear was. It also produced some tremendous organization on the part of the Palestinian communities. So Neighborhood Committee started emerging to basically create almost like these self-defense groups. So it's like we couldn't you know, we couldn't trust the police to protect us. So we're going to take care of it ourselves. And they helped to kind of fend off sort of the mobs. The communities got together to try to make sure that anyone who was harmed or was vulnerable, like the elderly or with kids, you know, people gathered resources. They're even looking for, for example, therapists to help kids if they witnessed or experienced some forms of violence. Like it was amazing to see how the community tried to step up. And you had some we also had a range of variation of this. You know, some were kind of very, you know, like positive, community oriented. Some got like even sort of a little dangerous with certain, like groups or gangs who maybe took to the streets and were a bit more kind of, you know, like violent in their own ways and asserting their presence. But even within that spectrum, it was this response by the community to say we can't rely on the state. The state is very much targeted against us. And so we're going to look after ourselves. So it's you know, it's one of these, you know, out of a dark moment, something very, you know, enlightening really happened.
ILANA: There is something encouraging, albeit cynical, that I'm seeing within my own community, the American Jewish community. As far as American Jews are horrified to see this mob violence to happen against against Palestinian citizens of Israel because. They have always seen. Palestinians in the West Bank and Palestinians in Gaza as totally distinct from Palestinian citizens of Israel, they are often referred to as as Arab Israelis, sort of making that very deliberate. Distinction between the sort of. Enemy population and the the non Jewish minority, that's sort of seen as proof that that Israel is a liberal democracy. And so I think seeing this mob violence of Jews against Palestinian citizens of Israel is perhaps drawing the connection. For them that. Violence against Palestinians anywhere comes from a sort of rotten place within within the the theory of Zionism, and I'm wondering if you can speak to that and how we can sort of. Use this moment to to draw those connections for folks.
AMJAD: This question really hits the nail on the head, like as you're alluding to, you know, for a long time, the American Jewish community and even Jewish Israelis, you know, for them, the dilemma of Zionism, like you said, was along the green line was along that 1967 occupation. But what most people either did not realize or refused to accept is that the border, the borders of Zionism do not go along that sort of geographic armistice line of 1948 to 1967. The borders of Zionism and insofar as this land is concerned, is between every Jew and every Palestinian. Like there's a reason why the mobs were very confident and assertive to put themselves in Arab neighborhoods in these in these so-called mixed cities because they knew where we were, they knew who we were, and they were there specifically to assert themselves as supremacists. They were there on the streets to remind Palestinians that you are here at our mercy. And if we wanted to, we could crush you and we could remove you. And this was specifically a response to the fact that Palestinian citizens were making themselves heard, were going out into the streets alongside of the Palestinians. And so the state and the mobs and the media and all these authorities were literally telling Palestinian citizens, get back into your cages. That is what Zionism is today. It is the forced expulsions of people like in communities in Sheikh Jarrah. But it is now also the manifestation of the supremacist ideology against people, even with Israeli citizenship, saying, stay in your place, don't think of yourself as a native. You're here as a guest. And this is in the context, of course, in of Israel as frankly, a settler colonial state, which Zionist leaders knew very well. And yet somehow today and many Zionists are somehow allergic to the very word colonization and of settler colonialism, even though that's exactly what the founders envisioned, envisioned explicitly. That's still in continuity today.
AMJAD: And, you know, for American Jewish audiences, this is absolutely fundamental to realize. Yes, Zionism has a wide ideological spectrum. Yes, there are different streams. But at its premise, the way and especially the way it is manifested, it requires Palestinians to be inferior. It requires Palestinians to not allow their native-ness, their indigeneity to be recognized. And as we're seeing today, you know, from state to society to law and to public discourse. That Zionism will never allow equality, it can never allow full liberty, liberty for anyone who's outside the core ethno racial religious group. And Haifa again is the prime example of this, where this so-called, it's prominently known as a sort of coexistence city, which Jewish Israelis are surprised that this you know, that this outbreak has happened. But you can ask most Palestinian citizens and they're not surprised at all. They know the racism they see on the street. They know that their areas are being deliberately and racially gentrified. They know that there are absentee properties belonging to refugees back from 1948. And they know that at any moment's notice, someone come knocking on the door and say, get out. And someone can come knocking on the door, as they did last week, and arrest them. Or that these mobs can come back again and say, you better stay in your place and never say the word Palestinian. This is a Zionism that Palestinian citizens experience. Palestinian citizens of Israel. It's even a more extreme manifestation in the occupied territories. But here it's just as it's very severe. And this needs to be grasped by American Jews. And, you know, I understand the complexities and I understand the long history of this affinity to Zionism and what it means. But that is not what Zionism is today. Zionism is inherently and is being practiced as an oppressive force of racial domination, of apartheid, of colonialism, whether you're on this side of the Green Line or the other.
ILANA: And so how can. How can Palestinians? On every side of the Green Line. Fight this. This segregation from one another in order to be in solidarity right now.
AMJAD: We're discovering this as we speak. Again, what's been amazing about these these popular demonstrations is that. You know, there is much trying to challenge their traditional leaderships as they are challenging the Israeli state. They're trying to reimagine and and channel power differently to the communities that are on the ground. And, you know, with the kind of neighborhood groups that we're seeing, the grassroots activists sort of leading these protests, the discourse that they're articulating, they're trying to create this new path forward. And it's still in the very early stages. So there's still a lot of conversations going on about, you know, how do you channel this into some form of a leadership? How do we sustain this uprising? And these conversations are happening in person. They're happening over social media. The Palestinian speakers are coming out in local international media outlets. They are they are formulating almost like the groundwork for this new vision, for this new ecosystem to guide the path forward. And like I said, it's both to make sure that the Israeli state doesn't kind of go back to normal, but it's also to tell their national leadership that we're not doing things your way anymore. And that includes among Palestinian citizens of Israel, where it's been fascinating to see how grassroots activists are really pushing back against the traditional political parties that are running for the Knesset or the High Follow-Up Committee, which is an umbrella group that represents multiple kinds of groups in the Palestinian community in Israel, but which many see as sort of having a bygone politics, as being mostly like these old men who don't really have connections to the streets or to young people. And seeing this grassroots movement say it's no longer your turn, that now we're taking the mantle of this leadership. And time will tell if that can be channeled positively. Time will tell if that can really be fused into some kind of organizational movement that takes people forward. But already the victories happen just by restoring the consciousness. For the past few years, the fragmentation among Palestinians has been truly severe and it's been imposed by the Israeli state, it's been imposed by geography, and has been imposed even by the national leadership. And just the very fact now that Palestinians in Lydd are re-intertwining themselves with Palestinians in Ramallah, are re-intertwining themselves with Palestinians in Gaza and with the diaspora, it cannot be overstated that that that reawakening and Palestinian national identity across all the green lines across every border is something that I think will have very long lasting effects to come.
ILANA: Do you have a sense of what it is about this moment that's. That's so different, that's that's causing these these mass popular uprisings.
AMJAD: As always, there are many, many different factors. You know, I mean, in the end, this movement really originated in Jerusalem, where you had almost like two parallel and interconnected movements. One was around, of course, the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, whose Palestinian families are are being expelled by the state and by settler groups. And who have really been playing up an amazing fight to defend their homes and garner solidarity and attention to their struggle. And at the same time, there were these kind of attacks and infringements upon the upon Jerusalem's Old City at Damascus Gate and particularly the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. And so, like these two things combined really helped to kind of reconnect Jerusalem's neighborhoods in a way that hasn't been seen for a very long time. And that kind of reinvigorated Jerusalem's centrality as a political force in the Palestinian community. This, I think, was one of the most sort of fundamental shifts that we haven't seen in a very, very long time. And it really mobilized in a way that hasn't been done in arguably like two decades. And so to have Jerusalem at its core and Jerusalem leading that movement, I think was the most powerful aspect that really boosted boosted this movement.
AMJAD: Now, there are obviously in many other interconnected factors. I mean, in the past few years, the Palestinian cause has really kind of gone off the radar for most international actors. Israeli apartheid has essentially been entrenched in such severe ways. There were supposed to be Palestinian elections this summer, which were canceled even ostensibly over Jerusalem, even though it was more like internal political dynamics within the ruling Fatah party. So all these dynamics certainly had a role to play. But I think this restoration of agency on the part of Jerusalem, which has been facing some of the most severe practices of Israeli violence and Israeli fragmentation and an attempt to de-Palestinianize the city. And to see, again, these young people, to see these new neighborhood committees, to see even Muslim worshipers for Al-Aqsa, for Damascus Gate come out in such full force, really powered this in a way that it hasn't been seen in a long time. And again, time will tell if that will continue to persevere, if the sort of grassroots collective institutions can keep people or keep the pulse raised among Jerusalem, Palestinian Jerusalemites to keep moving that movement ahead. But, yeah, I would say that that's the most core factor.
ILANA: I'm hoping I can end on a part of your piece that I. That kind of got me. Maybe I'll read one line of it. You're talking about moments of beauty and you're talking about, there's a video of. This line says, "Another one showed a Palestinian man breaking into a smile when his daughter, oblivious to the fact that her father was being arrested by police in his home, impatiently inquired him about her doll. Even in the midst of this chaos, these moments of beauty and resilience should not be forgotten." So. So maybe you could talk about what why it's so important that we not forget these moments of beauty.
AMJAD: Yeah, I mean, that video really encapsulates almost always that double edged sword of being a Palestinian under Israeli rule. I mean, in the end, you know, that that father was being arrested in his home by the police. And yet even somehow that still create that, you know, that beautiful moment of the daughter, you know, still just casually asking, "Where's my doll? Have you seen it?" It's. And that mixed feeling is very much the defining, it really defines, you know, that concept of like like Palestine suffering and resilience. But that's the way that we just have that we have to keep going through and keep, you know, surviving and maintaining our humanity as best as we can. You know, in the end, the Israeli regime is very intent on removing any sense of humanity among us. It's trying to crush us so much. It's trying to break us from our families like that, like that, father. It's trying to impose this trauma on children deliberately so that they're intimidated to even speak up about their identity or to even demand their rights, they need to fear the state. And this is really what we've been seeing over these over these past few weeks. It's this a full throated attempt by the state and its supporters to to restore terror in the minds of Palestinians? And this is why those you know, as hard as it is to have to crack those smiles, as hard as it is to kind of crack those dark jokes, which is a very Palestinian, very Palestinian feature, it's an absolute must. And, you know, that video, which was just one of many where, you know, like I even mentioned like another of like a kid who, you know, who threw his shoe right at the face of a helmeted officer. And I know that there are a lot of people who will say, like, well, that kid shouldn't have thrown his shoe at a helmeted officer. But for us, it's like, yeah, that kid definitely threw that shoe at that officer. And in many ways, he's absolutely justified to do so. And this is, again, this kind of. There's a new unapologetic ness. It's not a new one, but it's. There is a more assertive, unapologetic ness to say, yeah, if we're doing anything that you think is impolite, we we require that moment. We need that sort of catharsis. And again, it will never be anything compared to what the state, what the cops and what these mobs do to us. And so that beautiful moment is catharsis. That beautiful moment is being able to say that no matter what Israel has done to us, that we can still feel that humanity and we can still have those laughs and we can still have our little, our little jabs at at the state when we can. And it's vital. And you've seen it across the protests. You know, and I want to emphasize, especially for people abroad, because.
AMJAD: So much of Palestinian identity, the way it's perceived by people outside, is of this darkness is of suffering, and that is of this feeling of helplessness. And these really do exist. They're very present. And most of all, in places like Gaza, where the horror of bombardment, the horror of blockade is really a constant that consumes life so much. Even, you know, to fear lynch mobs in the neighborhood, in the neighborhood in Haifa can't begin to explain how how terrifying that is. But they still wake up the next day and say, I'll get back at that state. Like I'm not going to let them get to me. And I will still have a laugh with my friends and I will still love my family. And I will do whatever it takes to get our minds off the state, not to deny it, but to still keep that normality, that humanity. And so I want people abroad to really remember that. There is Palestinian joy, there is Palestinian beauty, and it will always, unfortunately, go hand in hand with that darkness, with that suffering. But that's also a key fundamental element of our Palestinian identity. [68.6s] And we hope that, you know, the movement that we're building now and wherever movements may come in the future, that those sort of tilted more to make sure that Palestinian joy and Palestinian happiness and Palestine fulfillment is the more dominant feeling rather than darkness and suffering.
ILANA: Hm. That reminds me of I don't know if you've seen this picture. There's this photograph of of. These men in Gaza sitting on. On couches in a home where the where the walls have been blasted off the building and they're just sort of sitting and some of them look sad, but some of them are smiling at each other. And it's it reminds me of what you're talking about. There's there's the sort of it's a dark joke like what you're talking about.
AMJAD: It very much is. And just to even give like a personal example in my neighborhood over the past few days, you know, despite the fact there's been the war down in Gaza and despite the fact that, you know, mobs were almost threatening to come to our neighborhood, we still had a wedding, like with loud Palestinian music, you know, a live band that was singing full throated in Arabic and there were cheers and everything. And and a lot of people were you know, we always had these, like, mixed feelings, like on the one that's like, what are you doing? You know, there's just absolutely no violence, there's chaos, there's, no one feels safe. And, you know, are you calling these lynch mobs to our neighborhood? What are you doing? But then there's the other hand where it's like, you know, either bravely or foolishly or whatever you want to say. You know, these families and these people are saying, we're not going to let these people intimidate us, you know, we're not going to let these mobs take away even the most basic essence, you know, of two people getting married, families getting together, because, you know, you can put in many different lenses. But to say that we're not going to let that get in the way of the way we want to live our lives, and we can't let the state and this colonial context rob us of those most basic experiences. So there is always kind of, again, this back that mixed, double edged things exactly like you said, that there's a dark joke that you have to absorb in order to get by. And it's it burdens us, but it's also the way that we thrive and it really toughens up our skin. And it really I think it makes, you know, Palestinians like many other oppressed groups, it really makes us extraordinary in incredible ways. And, you know, I really hope that down the line that, you know, that yin and yang of our identity, that in the yang of our experiences, which will always be part of it in some way, but that, again, we can make that lighter part just a little bit stronger. And that's really what Palestinians are asking for. We don't want the dark side to keep consuming us so much. And if it does, we need the support of people outside to back us up, just to remind everyone that we do have that light side and we are fighting for our lives. In order to bring that joy and happiness, to make that the dominant force.
MAX: Unsettled is produced by Ilana Levinson, Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, and me, Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.
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