Episode 71: Justice in the Middle East: The Struggle for Palestinian Human Rights with Peter Beinart

[0:00:07 Speaker 0] Welcome to Race and democracy,

[0:00:09 Speaker 1] a podcast

[0:00:10 Speaker 0] on the intersection

[0:00:11 Speaker 1] between race, democracy, public

[0:00:13 Speaker 0] policy, Social

[0:00:14 Speaker 1] justice and citizenship. Mm

[0:00:21 Speaker 0] On today’s episode, we are pleased to be in conversation with the journalist Peter Beinart, who is a professor of journalism and political science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of new york. He writes the Beinart notebook, a weekly newsletter and his editor at large of jewish currents. And recently had a very, very thoughtful op ed piece in the new york times, which is now called guest essays entitled Palestinian refugees deserve to return home, jews should understand from the may 12th 2021 issue, Peter Byner, welcome.

[0:01:00 Speaker 1] Thank you.

[0:01:01 Speaker 0] You know I want to get right into it in terms of what’s happening right now really over the last several weeks in Israel in Gaza, the national and global discourse about Palestinian human rights uh and and really a shift that we’re seeing culturally uh in terms of how do we sort of frame uh violence that is going on uh in in the Middle East um between Israel and and uh in Palestine and this issue of human rights. Um and for so long, I think this issue has been uh undercut by uh at times genuine um charges of operating in bad faith and people who are trafficking and anti Semitism, but then at times um sort of defensive charges where if you don’t believe a certain political line, you may be accused of being in these sort of political, darker spaces of anti Semitism and hate. So I want us to break and unpack that because you’ve written so so thoughtfully um about this, and you’ve been on CNN discussing this, you’ve been really wanted to go to people in the country um talking about Palestinian human rights and how an advocacy for Palestinian human rights does not automatically make one somebody who’s against a thriving state of Israel.

[0:02:38 Speaker 1] Terrific, look forward to it.

[0:02:40 Speaker 0] So, my first question is, you know, how did we get here? You know, um right now, uh we’ve seen the escalating violence, there’s a there’s a ceasefire, but there’s been so much um repeated recrimination is back and forth. This idea of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who are seeking uh you know, refugee refuge back in homelands that were historically, uh you know, they were part of at least uh and and this idea of the rhetoric around Hamas and and uh Palestinian violence against against Israel, How did we get here to this point today, where there’s this tipping point of global public opinion that is really, I’d say um much more willing to publicly stand on this issue of Palestinian human rights.

[0:03:40 Speaker 1] The shift in public opinion, at least in the U. S. Um is something I’m still trying to unpack the reasons for it. I think one reason is that the Black Lives Matter movement maybe also me too as well, have created a greater sensitivity I think in the media to questions of representation. Um it’s not too long ago, it was pretty typical to just have conversations about Palestinians without having Palestinian voices on. That was pretty normal, and I think, and it was also more normal to have, you know, white people talking about, you know, black people and men talking about women. And I think that because people have become in the media a little more sensitive to those issues as it comes to race and gender in the United States. I think by analogy they become a little bit more embarrassed about the absence of Palestinian voices, and once you bring Palestinian voices into the conversation, it changes things in a big way because Palestinians tend to focus our attention on issues that are often otherwise ignored in the public discourse. I think another reason that the public discourse has changed is that americans at least progressive americans have become aware during the trump era that we are in this struggle between on the one hand, a vision of multiracial democracy that aspires to equality under the law and this other vision which is of a kind of a racial ethno state in which there are these hierarchies and some people are real citizens. You know, some people are kind of first class citizens and some people second class citizens um and some people are not citizens at all. And I think that especially because of the figure of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime Minister, who has been someone who has so much in common with figures on the american, right? I think it has made it easier for at least progressive americans to see an analogy between the struggle here for equality under the law against against kind of white nationalism and white supremacy and the struggle there for equality under the law against and Judah and Israel, that that holds, first of all, holds millions of Palestinians under his control, who are not citizens at all, can’t even vote for the government that controls their lives. And then has another group of Palestinians who are second class citizens in a state that is explicitly privileges jews over Palestinians. And I think that that analogy has has had an impact.

[0:06:11 Speaker 0] Let’s discuss your piece in the New York Times, May 12, and I would um implore everyone to to read this piece and to spread this piece around. It’s so well written and so thoughtful Palestinian refugees deserve to return home, Jews should understand peter you telescope so much history in this essay. I know this essay is adapted from a longer essay uh that that uh appeared um uh in jewish currents I

[0:06:43 Speaker 1] believe. Um

[0:06:44 Speaker 0] and where your editor at large, let’s talk from the beginning, you use the term um nakba, what what is that? And why is that something that both both jews and Palestinians should be sort of aware of and be willing to openly discuss even if they disagree. What is that

[0:07:06 Speaker 1] When Israel was created um in uh in 1947, um there was uh seven, more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes. Um it was commonplace often to say that most of the many of them kind of left of their own accord, but historical scholarship is pretty unambiguous that the vast vast majority of them were expelled. fled in terror um during the fighting that accompanied Israel’s creation, um and um and they were not allowed to return. Um uh in fact, even Palestinians who stayed inside the borders of Israel and then gained Israeli citizenship, we’re still not allowed to return to their homes or their lands. Um So is the uh so this, so at the at the core of the Palestinian experience, Um is this experience of mass expulsion and it didn’t end in 1948, when in the 1967 War, when Israel took over East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, another 300,000 or so, Palestinians were expelled or at least displaced from their homes. Then Israel between 67 in the 19 nineties adopted policies that basically meant that if you kind of left the West Bank as a Palestinian, you offer and we’re not allowed to return and they’re still kinds of policies like that are in place in East Jerusalem. And this is part of the reason that the spark that lit the match for this conflict, this eviction of Palestinians from East Jerusalem is so potent for Palestinians, you know, because it evokes this deep history of expulsion and dispossession. Um one of the things and one of the, it’s impossible to truly understand Gaza where Hamas is located without understanding that most of the people in Gaza are refugees in the descendants of refugees. They’re not from there originally, that’s part of the reason it’s so overcrowded. So just like, you know, we in the United States have been struggling in recent years to understand current politics against the backdrop of the deep structure, the deep history of the United States. This this history of expulsion of what Palestinians call the nakBA the catastrophe in many ways, which is an ongoing event, is really central to understanding the Israeli Palestinian conflict and it’s something that too often people in my own community and the jewish community have not wanted to face

[0:09:35 Speaker 0] Peter. What do you think of these terms that some people on the left at least have used of apartheid? And it’s not necessarily a radical left jimmy carter. Former President of United States has used that term too. Is that an accurate term? Or is that a term that uh doesn’t shed as much light on what’s actually going on as as possible? And if that’s not the proper term, what would you describe as the sort of the political situation in Israel? Is its second class citizenship in terms of Palestinians versus Israelis? Is it is it is it a non citizenship? What what is it analogous to?

[0:10:15 Speaker 1] Yeah, it’s not only jimmy carter, you know, for two former Prime Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barack and I heard Omar both warned that this was where Israel was heading. Um There are obviously differences between the situation of Palestinians in Israel and the situation of black South Africans and people think of the term apartheid, they think of South africa, but really the term has a broader definition and the reason that that Human Rights Watch and Betselem, which is Israel’s leading human rights organization have used this term, is that notwithstanding those differences, there is a system a regime um in all of the territory that Israel controls between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea, in which jews are jews have rights that Palestinians don’t. Um Now the way it plays itself out is a little bit different in the different territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Palestinians live in various ways under the control of the Israeli state. And yet they cannot be citizens of that state, which means they can’t vote for the government that controls their lives. In the West Bank, a jewish settlers and Palestinians live under a different law, so if a jew and a Palestinian get into a fight, they go to completely different legal systems in which jews have due process and Palestinians live under military law, in which the prosecution rate is north of 99%. Um And even inside what people called the green line, Israel proper, where palace, where the 20% of the Israeli population who are Palestinians do have citizenship, so they can vote, they can be in the parliament, there are still very deep structural forces that I think anyone who was attuned to the structural inequities in the United States would recognize is quite profound exist as well. So I’ll give you two examples. One is, in immigration policy, i as a jew could go to Israel and become a citizen tomorrow, but it’s very essentially impossible for a Palestinian, even a Palestinian who was born in Israel and expelled even their or their child to go to Israel and become a citizen. The way Israel’s land policy works is also fundamentally reflects this deep jewish privilege and Palestinian domination. Most of the land in Israel is controlled by something called the Israel Land Council, which leases it out for these long term leases. But the Israel Land Council is allocates almost half of its seats to something called the jewish National Fund, whose mission is the development of jewish life in Israel. Right, so you almost have to have to imagine what it would be like if most of the land in the United States were controlled by an organization whose mission is for the development of christian life, let’s say, right, that wouldn’t, and that’s part of the reason that Palestinian citizens comprised 19% of Israel’s population and live on 3% of its land. So these are deep structural conditions and whether you want to use the term apartheid or not, to me is less important than that, we just understand and describe these realities and explain why Palestinians think that they fundamentally are oppressive, just as any of the rest of us would if we were in that condition. Yeah,

[0:13:30 Speaker 0] Let’s talk about Hamas in your binder notebook, you have uh a recent column from May 20 2021 that says um it’s titled if Israel eliminated Hamas, nothing fundamental would change. Um and I think a lot of people would find that surprising, because even during this recent conflict, when I would listen to um Israeli government officials, they really hammered home this idea of Hamas that this is Hamas is doing Hamas is killing Israeli citizens and sort of forcing us into this disproportionate response, because they’re firing rockets from Gaza into bedrooms and they’re killing innocence. So let’s talk about Hamas and what is the role of Hamas in this specific conflict, and why do you argue um that nothing would fundamentally change if Hamas was somehow eliminated?

[0:14:30 Speaker 1] Right? So, Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist organization, it’s important to remember that throughout the Middle East, you have this rivalry between more secular versions of arab nationalism and Islamist movements associated with the muslim brotherhood. Um so, Hamas, it was the Palestinian wing of the muslim brotherhood, so Palestinians have the same kind of basic division that you see across the Middle East. Um Hamas uh in the 19 eighties, the Israeli government actually supported the muslim brotherhood, which in Palestine which became Hamas because they thought it would be more moderate than the kind of more secular Palestinian leadership with people like Yasser Arafat, that was a at a time when, you know, during the Cold War, the United States also tended to see Islamists like the mujahideen in Afghanistan is less threatening than than the leftist nationalist movements. Um um More since uh in 19 then in 1993 the Arafat and the P. L. O. Recognized Israel and and supported a two state solution. Hamas did not Hamas rejected, rejected that idea. And then ultimately Hamas came to power in Gaza after winning an election. That that the they want an election. But the Palestinian authority, under pressure from Israel, the United States refused to allow them to take the seats in parliament. And then the US encouraged the Palestinian authority to try to take control in Gaza by force, which actually ultimately ultimately led Hamas to win. So there’s a complicated history about Hamas, but I think the fundamental things to understand this, The fighting between Israel and Palestinians did not begin with Hamas. Hamas emerges again in the 1980s. The fundamental struggle, uh this fundamental struggle goes back much much much longer than Hamas and fundamentally. Um the reason that Hamas has some sympathy among Palestinians um is first of all because those Palestinian leaders who have recognized Israel and who have pursued a strategy of Nonviolence, like Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader in the West Bank have gotten nothing for it. Nothing right. I mean, the Palestinian life in the West Bank is worse. 15 years after the Palestinians started doing security cooperation with Israel and you know, 25 years after the P. L. O. Recognized Israel than it was before. So they’re Palestinians who come to the conclusion sadly that actually Hamas strategies of using violence are more effective at least. Uh then then these nonviolent strategies. One of the points I’m making these pieces, If you believe in Nonviolence as I do, you have an obligation to show the show that Palestinian Nonviolence can work instead when Palestinians try to boycott nonviolently, they those boycotts get criminalized and they get called anti Semitic. Um The second point that I that I make is that um there is a I am I am I think I’m opposed to Hamas tactics of using rockets that that that land indiscriminately in Israel. I think that that is legitimately deserves to be investigated as a war crime. Just like Israel’s behavior deserves to be investigated as a war crime. But uh um and I also oppose Hamas Islamist ideology which I think is in pretty deep ways a liberal. Um but there is a tendency to I think have a double standard in the way we talk about violence and you can talk you can acknowledge that double standard without defending what Hamas is doing, which I would not do. In fact Hamas Blew up a bus on which a close friend of mine was traveling in the 1990s. And so I think it’s it’s first of all it’s important to acknowledge that Israel’s policies are a form of violence. When you put Gaza, two million people under blockade such that the U. N. comes out and says Gaza is unlivable for human beings. The human beings can’t really live here in large measure because people don’t have clean water because they don’t have electricity. That’s a form of violence, right? I mean many of our own you know leaders in American history made this point, right? I mean that that 11 has to understand ST depression is a form of violence. So that’s important to understand secondly. Um uh that just because some faction in a movement for for Freedom or National Liberation uses violence does not delegitimize the basic justice of the movement. Right Nelson Mandela was not an apostle of Nonviolence. Far from it. He helped to found my contact lenses where the military wing of the A. N. C. Um he refused to renounce violence until he had a date for a free election. It didn’t mean that the black struggle against apartheid was illegitimate. Um uh There are people in Myanmar now who are turning to armed resistance against that horrific military regime. It doesn’t mean that their cause is unjust. And so I think that while one can be critical of Hamas methods as I am, and even critical of their ideology, it’s important to this is they are often used to delegitimize the entire project of the Palestinian struggle for freedom. And I think that’s wrong

[0:19:51 Speaker 0] and this really does tails. I love that answer. It dovetails into a question that I think people who are supporters of Palestinian human rights often get asked, and I want us to be upfront and talk about it. Let’s discuss the the rise in anti Semitism that we’ve seen, uh you know, in the United States, we saw it during the january 6th white supremacist riot at the United States capitol, they didn’t just have confederate flags, but they had anti Semitic t shirts and and and paraphernalia with them as well. How do we how do we juxtapose a legitimate rise in anti Semitism and also the historic jewish support for human rights and advocacy? Whether we think about the civil rights movement, whether we think about labour movements uh movements that were on the side of justice in the United States and globally with this contemporary um state of Israel, uh and the administration of BB Netanyahu, which is really articulated a very uh right wing, very conservative philosophy and ideology, but at the same time um tries to bathe itself uh in in the moral glories of the past, because you write uh in the new york times, you know, you talk about the morality or the immorality of what’s happening uh in in in Israel to Palestinians, but I want to just um put all that together. There is an increase in anti Semitism. We’ve seen global, not just the Pittsburgh synagogue shoot, uh, massacres, but we’ve seen global massacres that were anti Semitic, we see an uptick in anti Semitic hate crimes, um and we also know the history of of jewish support for for human rights, um, both before and after the holocaust. How do we put all that together? Because I think historically we think about the jews and the jewish state as being on the right side of history yet at the same time, um, given this history, especially in recent times, there’s been sort of an evolution.

[0:22:21 Speaker 1] Yeah, there’s a lot there, I guess, I would say, um we have to be able to hold two things at one time, one of which is that anti Semitism is real and it’s it’s creative which is to say it finds its way into all kinds of different movements across the ideological spectrum, you know, from far left to far right. Um and so we have seen uh anti Semitic attacks, really ugly anti Semitic attacks uh that seem associated with the Palestinian freedom movement, even though Palestinian leaders and activists have generally denounced those in very strong terms. There there have been people who is part of Palestinian marches, you know, we’re claiming solidarity with Palestinians, have attacked ooze or to face synagogues, which is which is tragic and, you know, in his eyes, as someone myself who walks down the street every day wearing a Koopa um that, you know, uh whose son does that that that frightens me. Um um but it’s also the case that there is uh that are communal leadership in the United States and in the Israeli government often use claims of anti Semitism to try to silence Palestinians and their supporters from talking about Palestinian human rights. It is not anti Semitic to call Israel an apartheid state, it’s not even anti Semitic to question whether Israel should be a jewish state after all, if you were a Palestinian, would you want to live in a jewish state rather than a state that treated jews and Palestinians equally? Of course not, it’s not anti Semitic for a Palestinian to be anti Zionist, because zionism is an ideology, even if you believe it’s an ideology that was a blessing for jews and jews, where that we can be sympathetic to our jews, might might be sympathetic design is um we can also understand why Palestinians might not be sympathetic to it, because it involves essentially jewish privilege over them. Um We have different species of anti Semitism. Again, there is anti Semitism on the left, some of it comes from a kind of a notion of a kind of a leftist notion that jews are associated with a capitalist oppressive class. Um uh you know the marks called this the you know the anti the market that was called, this is called the socialism of Fools by Karl Marx, you know, the connection the seeing, focusing on set of capitalists on jews. You see that um uh and you also see um uh you see this this right wing anti Semitism as well, that we’ve seen an upsurge of the trump era and I think that my fundamental belief is that the struggle against anti Semitism has to be part of a broader struggle against bigotry. Um these forms of bigotry are interconnected, any any any use of the claim of anti Semitism that ends up justifying the denial of Palestinian rights is um is actually a desecration of the of of the jewish struggle for dignity, because the jewish struggle for dignity and freedom and Palestinian freedom must go hand in hand. And that any, what we’ve seen the United States in recent years is that jews have been attempted some into an alliance with white nationalists, who essentially say, listen, good news, you know, we consider you, you know, so you’re not one of those immigrant groups, you know anymore, you’re, you know, it’s a Judeo christian country, i e, it’s us in you against the Muslims, you know, you can be on the winning side, look, even donald trump’s daughter married a jewish guy, right? Um, but the folly of this, is that what we see is again and again, is that bigotry, that doesn’t start with jews often ends up with jews. So when we look at what happened in Pittsburgh, it’s really kind of fascinating this guy who ended up shooting up that synagogue, He was originally focused on central american migrants. Um that’s where his hatred started. But because he was a racist, he didn’t believe that Central americans could organize themselves. So he started looking for this hidden hand that was doing the organizing and he landed on the jews. He said the jews are organizing them because the stereotype of jews historically has been different. It’s been of the kind of the sinister evil genius. And you know, this is why I think during the civil rights movement, people said, well, it’s the jewish Communists are running the civil rights movement, right? Because they were racist. They didn’t think black people could organize the movement themselves in South Africa. They used to say that joe Slovo, who was the head of the military wing of the A. N. C. And the head of the South African Communist Party was running the and he wasn’t running the A. N. C. It’s just that people the what the defenders of apartheid thought that it had to be a jew who was holding it all together. And we see that these movements that begin with racism against black and brown people often end up also becoming a danger to jews, which is why it’s in our own self interest to struggle against all forms of bigotry.

[0:27:05 Speaker 0] You know, Peter I wanted you to uh talk for a moment about your own evolution on these um these issues. You know, how did you get here? And in what ways has that evolution provided both comfort and discomfort? Because I know often in the media progressive or jews, especially jewish intellectuals like yourself and thought leaders like yourself who raise these issues very, very thoughtfully sometimes are absolutely condemned and even condemned as anti Semites. And and we think about the young woman who just was fired from the Associated Press uh for for for for some for some earlier tweets um there you know, how’s your own evolution, how’d you get to this point on this issue?

[0:27:57 Speaker 1] I think it really began when I started spending time in the West Bank with Palestinians, you know, which only happened when I was an adult, you know, like many jews, I have been to Israel a lot as a kid, a family there, my father worked there and I had a you know had a very visceral and still do a relationship with the place, you know, it’s it’s hard to quite describe, but when you’ve grown up as a small minority, you know, even if in a place like United States where you’re treated pretty well um and you go to a country which where you know, most of the people are jewish and where the public life and culture is jewish um uh and you walk around, you see the street signs and they’re all named after figures from jewish history. It’s a it’s a very remarkable thing to see, very powerful and moving and it was for me, like so many other people. Um and I, but but you know, later on in life, I went to, I went to see what Palestinian was, Life was like under Israeli control. And you know, when you see what lives are like for ordinary decent people who are just who live under the control of a state that is totally unaccountable to them, you can do whatever it wants to them throw them in jail, take their land, deny them water, demolished their houses and their their powerless because they can’t vote, they’re not citizens. Um It’s just, it’s just brutal and shocking and I went back and it was not easy for me to figure out what to do with that. Um but over a period of time it began an evolution for me. And and in addition to a lot of reading I did um by Palestinian writers and others, I began to try to find, I began to move to a position where instead of believing as I had from my entire life that what you needed was a Palestinian state alongside the jewish state, I came to believe that actually that it was not likely there ever would be a Palestinian state and that the fundamental issues were deeper than that they really had to do with the question of whether it was right to have a state in which jews were privileged over Palestinians. Uh and that the fundamental vision should be a binational state in which you had to communities being able to be autonomous, running the schools in their own language and that kind of thing, but in a situation of equality under the law and that journey has been, you know, not just intellectual journey, but uh an emotional and personal, even, you know, spiritual journey. For me, it’s not the central metaphor. One of the central metaphors and Judaism is the metaphor of extended family. In the book of Genesis, book of Genesis tells the story of a family and then the book of STD’s this family becomes a nation, and we use this phrase Bene Israel, the Children of Israel. So I do see our people as a kind of an extended family and anybody knows it’s not easy to be in opposition to your family, um People don’t always take it very well. Um um but for me, the struggle is to be a critic who is also who is also who is also shows love and to say to my critics, you know, you can disagree with me as vehemently as you want, but I’m here in our community and I’m not going anywhere and that my commitment to Judaism, the depth of my commitment to it and the depth of my commitment to the jewish people is no less than yours

[0:31:21 Speaker 0] in your new york Times piece. You you use the word um tash uva, can you tell us what that means and in the context that you use it

[0:31:32 Speaker 1] sure to have a means, repentance. Um so it’s a it’s a religious term. Um um but it also, actually the literal definition is return, it essentially means essentially to return to some better, better self that you had. Uh and I I use this term, which will be a term that for many jews would be familiar from jewish religious ritual to talk about the process of repentance that we need to undergo in regard to these acts of mass expulsion of Palestinians. Uh and that ironically, the term Ceuta is actually means return, which is that to argue that Palestinians have the right to physically return and we need to go under undergo a process of kind of moral return. Um a return to the highest ideals of the jewish tradition um of a you know, we ourselves know the experience of being refugees, of being exiled, of cultivating that memory of return and that are, it is not consonant with our highest ethical ideals to telling other people that they just need to deal with it if we expelled them or their grandparents and grandparents, great grandparents and told them they can’t return. And one of the things that I learned thinking and learned a lot, a lot about over the past few years, reading the writings of people like to nazi coats and Adams were and many others was just being reminded of the of the fundamental truth that if issues in a nation’s past are not dealt with are not faced, they re occur. Um and that was the part of the argument I was trying to make as well, is that if we don’t address and make uh and and and repent for what was done, uh Palestinians, then we’re going to keep doing it

[0:33:28 Speaker 0] in your latest piece for the Divine Art notebook, which everyone should check out and subscribe to. You say progressives are comparing Palestinians to black americans, black americans, that’s good. Uh Talk to us about the uses of that analogy and even um what are the limitations of that? Because certainly I’ve seen that as well from Blm activists, but there’s a there’s a history there that goes back to the 19 sixties and and black power activist Stokely Carmichael Kwame Monterey, others talking about Palestinian human rights and the connection with with black struggles domestically. Um, talk to us about those comparisons and where they work and and and what if any are any limits to those comparisons?

[0:34:16 Speaker 1] Yeah. And then there’s a there’s a lot of literature about the historic relationship between black american politics and Palestinians, Michael fish backs book, Black power and and Palestine robert kelly has written about this. You know, Marc Lamont Hill has written that a lot of people have written about this. And so the analogy is not new, but I think it has gained new force because we are in a kind of a new age of of of uh you know, black activists in the United States with black lives matter at a and I the point I try to make my pieces that obviously the situation of black americans in the situation of Palestinians is not exactly the same. Um uh that that you know Palestinians uh were expelled, you know, in in very very large numbers. That’s a kind of core part of that experience in a way that’s different for black americans. Also Palestinians. Um the dominant Palestinian tradition sees sees Palestine Palestinians as a nation as a separate nation. While of course there are elements of the black tradition that that that see that the black experience in that way, there are also strong elements that imagine black americans is fully american and part of an american national identity. So of course there are differences and of course there are differences between jews and white americans in the sense that jews were oppressed in a way that white americans were not and that also many Israeli jews are actually by american standards, not exactly white in the sense that they come from the Middle East, you know, they come from Morocco or Iraq, or Iran or Yemen or whatever. But my point was that an analogy analogy by their nature are not between two things that are that are the same in every way. And if an analogy, what analogies supposed to do is to highlight one some fundamental similarity and then offer something that some something to, some kind of invite you to react in a certain way based on that particular fundamental similarity. And there is a very basic fundamental similarity which is that um black americans have not had equal rights in the United States and that Palestinians did not have equal rights in Israel Palestine. Um and that is why again and again, you see that black americans who go and see the situation of Palestinians um have an identification that’s often deeper than the identification that white americans do um because they, in their own lived experience and their family history kind of have this intimate understanding with what it’s like to live under a state that doesn’t see you as fully equal, doesn’t see useful human. Um And uh and so I think that, you know, people, there’s been a lot of people who kind of been afraid of that analogy, but the truth is that I think it’s a very healthy thing. American foreign policy is often based on analogies. Um um all kinds of different analogies that are often made to help us explain what’s happening in the rest of the world. But oftentimes, those analogies tend to come much more out of the experience of white americans and their sense of american history rather than the experience of black americans and just like the black american experience. And the that analogy was crucial to powering the anti apartheid movement in the United States in the 19 eighties. I think it’s not surprising that it is in a critical element of the movement for Palestinians rights and freedom in the United States today.

[0:37:39 Speaker 0] Yeah, well, my my final question really is um really a two parter one, where where do we go from here? What can the biden administration, what can nonprofits activists, organizers, citizens, both in the United States, but especially also around the world Due to bring justice to this situation. I know some people have called for um

[0:38:08 Speaker 1] uh

[0:38:09 Speaker 0] holding back american foreign investment in in Israel or weapons cachet zor or or some kind of policy way to push back against what’s happening to two Palestine. I mean it doesn’t seem like that’s in the offing, but what can be done? What is is there a strategy where we say in five years and 10 years? Uh, not to say this issue has been solved, but we’ve made much more progress on the front of justice and repatriation or return home for for for Palestinians and really an end to this this violence.

[0:38:51 Speaker 1] I don’t necessarily think that America can solve this problem, but I do think that America can have an influence on the power balance and that America can address it’s complicity. And I think that starts with just asking ourselves basic questions, which is how do we feel about american tax dollars being used to demolish Palestinian homes? You know, something Israel does fairly frequently, not because the Palestinians have been accused of anything, but just because they can’t get permits to build homes, because again, if you’re not a citizen, why should the government give you a permit frankly? Israel doesn’t would rather have those in place like Jerusalem? Israel would have rather have those Palestinians leave Jerusalem, So people build homes and then Israel demolishes those homes. Um Israel imprisons Palestinian teenagers um uh and treats them in a way that they would never treat Israeli jewish teenagers. How do we feel about that? We think that’s a good use of our tax money. Um uh and so I think these are the basic questions that are addressed our complicity. And and you know, we can also ask across the question, do we think that it’s right for the United States to shield Israel from any international accountability? International institutions? We have this institution called the International Criminal Court. The United States seems quite willing and sympathetic to the International Criminal Court, bringing people to justice in africa. Most of a lot of the international Criminal Courts work has been done in africa. And yet our position is that under no circumstances could the International Criminal Court investigate Israel? I think if the International Criminal Court were to look at the question of war crimes committed by Israel and by Hamas as well, that would have an impact on the behavior of Israeli leaders. So there is a tradition, you know, in the United States um of us asking these questions about whether the use of our money and our weaponry Um was was was going to further human rights or going to deny people basic human rights. And I think when you start to ask that close questions, I think you end up in a place where it becomes pretty indefensible to say that we should be giving Israel $3.8 billion dollars in unconditional military aid a year at a time when they hold millions of Palestinians without the most basic of rights.

[0:41:05 Speaker 0] Do you feel hopeful about this? This situation? Is there is there any hope light at the end of the tunnel?

[0:41:13 Speaker 1] Um I guess I would, you know, I think hope and optimism are two different things, you know, in the jewish tradition is not necessarily is not necessarily a tradition. I would say that emphasizes optimism, but it does have a reservoir of hope. Uh and uh and I think that where I take my hope from is the Palestinians, you know, my friend Fadi Karen in Ramallah, who who organized freedom rides and basically got Palestinians on buses in Ramallah to try to go to Jerusalem, which they’re not allowed to travel on because Palestinians generally can’t go to Jerusalem and it’s not just that he did that, but he invited american jews and other jews to join him because he said, I I have so much respect for the role of jews in the civil rights movement, other freedom struggles that I want you to join our struggle as well, you know, and it would be a struggle for for our freedom and your freedom. There there are a lot of people like that um who give me a lot of hope and a lot of them are living under really, really difficult

[0:42:13 Speaker 0] circumstances

[0:42:14 Speaker 1] and it seems to me that as long as they’re struggling and they’re maintaining a vision of an Israel Palestine that respects the dignity of all people, then people like me have an obligation in our small way to try to support them.

[0:42:28 Speaker 0] Thank you. We’ve been talking to Peter Byner who is a professor of journalism and political science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of new york. He writes the Beinart notebook, a weekly newsletter and his editor at large

[0:42:43 Speaker 1] of jewish

[0:42:44 Speaker 0] currents can follow him on twitter at Peter Beinart in his latest new york times op ed. Guest essay is entitled Palestinian refugees deserve to return home, jews should understand

[0:42:57 Speaker 1] Peter, it’s

[0:42:58 Speaker 0] been great talking with you.

[0:42:59 Speaker 1] I really enjoyed it, thank you.

[0:43:01 Speaker 0] Thanks for listening to this episode and you can check out related content on twitter at Peniel

[0:43:08 Speaker 1] joseph, that’s p E N i E l

[0:43:12 Speaker 0] j o S E p H and our website CSR d dot LBJ dot utexas dot e d u.

[0:43:21 Speaker 1] And the Center for

[0:43:22 Speaker 0] Study of Race and Democracy is on facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal Arts Development Studio at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of texas at austin. Thank you. Yeah. Mm