What The He*l are They Doing Over There?

What the H*ll are They Doin' Over There?

[00:00:00] American author James Baldwin spent most of his life outside of the United States. And during the civil rights era, he returned to the States and wrote up the juxtaposition of politics and race confronting uncomfortable truths about the state of racial politics in the United States. He wrote, if any white man in the world says, give me liberty or give me death, the entire white world applauds.

When a black man says the exact same thing, word for word, he is judged a criminal and treated like one. And everything possible is done to make an example of this bad nigger. So there won't be any more like him. James Baldwin was affected greatly by the assassinations of the Reverend Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr. Medgar Evers. And Elhaj Malik Shabazz, also known as Malcolm X, [00:01:00] Malcolm X himself said of oppression, I just don't believe. That when people are being unjustly oppressed, that they should let someone else set rules for them by which they can come out from under that oppression.

And in his autobiography written with roots author, Alex Haley, and published after his death in 1965, Malcolm X said, if you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed. And loving the people who are doing the oppressing. I've got some explaining to do. Let's get into it.

 [00:02:00] Hey everyone, welcome back for another episode of Ayanna Explains It All. The podcast that bridges the gap between current events and human behavior. The podcast is available on multiple streaming platforms, including at our website. www.ayanaexplainsitall.com. That's www.ayanaexplainsitall.com. We are also on Spotify, apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Pandora.

Google podcasts and a host of others. When you go to the website, you'll be able to find all of the streaming sites. We also have our own YouTube channel. You can find Ayana explains it all on Tik TOK, Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. We're on all the socials. All of the socials are listed on the website as well.

You can stream the episodes either from the website or your favorite. Place to listen to podcasts. [00:03:00] I am here in the suburbs of Northeast Ohio, laying low because the events of the past, how many days has it? been since October 7th have been heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy.

And you know me, I read everything. I read the news. I read articles. I watched the news, and it's just so heavy and I have allowed it to be heavy on my mind and I am tired.

I am tired. I, um. I have been putting off recording this, like, I want to talk about what's happening in the world. I want to talk about it because it's really important to flesh these topics out. And yes, you do need the opinion of a black Muslim lady lawyer on the war against Palestine. You absolutely do.

And, um, you're, you probably are not going to like what I have to say either. You're not going to like it. A lot of people are not going to like it. A lot of people are going [00:04:00] to think it's anti Semitic. Maybe you'll think it's anti Palestinian. Maybe you'll think it's racist. Maybe you'll whatever, whatever you think is what you think.

It doesn't change the fact. And my intention, my intention is simply to explain what is going on. how we got to where we are in the most simple terms possible without being too, um, broad and intellectual and sounding like I'm a, a college professor. But it's important for us to talk about these things, to have voices that are perhaps not um, usual.

Not the usual voice you would hear on these topics. It is important for black people to explore and discuss these things because we are continually the victims of racial violence and oppression continually. It hasn't stopped for us since we reached the [00:05:00] shores, the first slave reached the shores of, of, uh, the colonies.

It hasn't stopped. And so it's important for us to not only compare and contrast, but be empathetic, be empathetic. Because we've been there, we know, I mean, we've been, and, and indigenous people too, Native Americans, we've been the victims of genocide and slavery and bombings and shootings and police violence.

And I mean, it's, it just seems like so many people have been through this, so many groups of people have been through this, that for anybody to say, well, I don't really understand it. And I can't really explain it. It's To me, that's bullshit. That's, uh, intellectual dishonesty. That's infantilizing yourself, making your, reducing your intelligence to that of a baby.

Like you have degrees and you have all of this information available to you. All it requires is for you to read and understand it. [00:06:00] You can do that, at least, can't you? Well, I don't know. It's just so hard to understand and it's so complex and... Please. I hear that about so many topics. It's just people don't want to deal with this stuff.

People don't want to deal with it. People who live in a bubble... Don't listen to this podcast because I will burst your bubble every fucking time. Every episode I will burst your fucking bubble. Don't stand next to me at a party because I'll burst a bubble then too.

I Don't take no days off. No, I'm kidding. But uh, it's it's this is We're putting forth the idea in the United States that democracy is the best, right? A democratic Republic is the best, a democratic Republic, but democracy is fragile, it's fragile, and it can only be upheld if the people [00:07:00] participate in it, but the people can only participate if they are free, if they are self determined, but democracy is also easily undermined.

It's susceptible to invasions from evil extremists who only want the people to do their bidding, who only want their goals reached, who only want their way of life. And politics practice. And then there are people, the people who are in control. They don't just want to be in control, they want to control, and the only time they challenge the government is to restrict other people's rights. And then when they do that, they say, the people have decided, and if you don't like it, you can leave. That's oppression. You can have oppression in a democracy. You absolutely can. Hey, welcome to the United States. I see you're new here. But, [00:08:00] uh, I stand against oppression. I stand against oppression no matter who is committing it because oppression is one thing that is most hated by God.

God hates oppression. He hates oppressors. And it seems to be the only tool that armies and politicians and leaders and countries have at their disposal to bring change. They want what they want, and they'll have it in blood if possible. And maybe we can't undo decades of apartheid, but we can stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing that is currently happening.

We can stop it. We can stop all of this. No more walls or checkpoints. No more bombs, guns, weapons of any kind, no more killing, raping, no more genocide, no more ethnic cleansing, no pushing people off their land or taking their homes, no more war and no more fighting. And if the [00:09:00] idea of no more war and no more fighting doesn't excite you, if the idea of blood and fighting and beating and killing excites you, you have to ask yourself why.

There's no justice in oppression. None. But when you stand against oppression, you're told you're wrong, right? Remember the protest after the murder of George Floyd by, um, Minneapolis police. Remember that? People were rioting and protesting. Even being told that the way they were protesting was undesirable was wrong.

They were saying the, the, the city officials and the police were saying, well, you can protest in this little teeny tiny area over here. And protestors were like, fuck that. Fuck you. We we're gonna protest everywhere. And there were protests all over the country, all over the world. [00:10:00] Chanting Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter, and what, what happened?

Protestors were arrested, protestors were beaten, protestors were murdered. And then there was the pushback against Black Lives Matter, against the slogan. I'm not talking about the organization against the slogan. People would say, but no, all lives matter. We're not saying that your life doesn't matter.

We're saying that we want our lives to matter. And when it comes to the war against Palestine, we're seeing the same thing. If you say you are. For Palestine, if you want Palestine to be free, suddenly you're anti Semitic, which is fucking ridiculous. But people equate a free Palestine with the absence of Israel.

And hey, maybe there are some motherfuckers who don't want Israel to exist and they're probably some motherfuckers who don't want Palestine to exist. But [00:11:00] that is not the point.

The point is the people want to be free. The people want to be free, not just free to determine for themselves. But free of violence, free of war, free of genocide, free of beatings and rapings and being jailed and told when and where they can travel to. Free of checkpoints, free of prisons. People want to be free, even if it means they're just fucking walking around outside.

At least they get to walk around outside. Remember the episode of my podcast that I did on sundown towns and where black people were essentially told, do not be caught in a town, a certain town at dark. Don't be caught. And yeah, we know desegregation is the law, but this city is segregated. So don't use our water fountains.

If you're black, that's not freedom. You're not free. You're not [00:12:00] free if you're restricted because of your race, ethnicity, nationality. And to say that you are pro black does not mean you're anti white. To say that you are pro Palestine and pro Palestinian freedom and pro freedom for Palestine does not mean you're anti Semitic.

It means you are pro freedom. Freedom.

But we stand against oppression and we're told we're wrong because, you know, this land belonged to whomever 3000 years ago and was promised to them by God. Listen, you're not going to like what I have to say. And if you've gotten this far and you're pissed off, please turn this off, please. I don't, I don't care.

I do not care. I don't care because I'm fed up. I'm fed up. And I keep seeing this quote over and over is that for evil to triumph. over good. All [00:13:00] it takes is for good people. It says men, but good people to do nothing. And there are a lot of people doing nothing because they can't wrap their heads around it or because they're like me.

I've been hearing about Palestine and Israel and the conflicts and the bombings. And the, I've been hearing about this since I was a little girl, I am 45 years old. And I've been hearing about this for. At least 40 years, but it's been going on since 1914.

So I get it. You're tired. You're tired. You don't understand why this is happening. You just want there to be peace on earth. Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. Like peace is a fucking black and white cookie. Remember that episode of Seinfeld where he's in the bakery and he gets the black and white cookie, but the cookie makes him sick.

You think peace is a cookie when the [00:14:00] flavors are melded together in peace and harmony. It's not like that. And peace will never be achieved by a simple handshake or a simple, uh, put your arms down. How long did the American Revolutionary War go on for? How long did the civil war go on for? It's been how many months for the war in Ukraine?

Peace is not just, okay, we're tired. We're not going to fight anymore. No, people want what they want. And they'll have it in blood if necessary. That's why war is ugly. War is so ugly. If war was fought just between armies and political leaders, then maybe, maybe you could understand war, but war is no longer fought just between armies and political leaders.

War now targets civilians and it [00:15:00] targets infrastructure. It targets holy sites. It targets places of worship and schools and hospitals. apartment buildings. It targets where people live and bombs. Bombs don't have vision. They don't have sight. They go wherever they are told to go. And if there are babies there, fine.

There are old women there. Fine. Who cares?

There are places where people have to deal with this. Kind of violence every fucking day that's been Palestine that's been the Gaza Strip that's been Palestine

I am not anti Semitic. Okay. I am not an anti Semite. I am not against Jewish people. I'm not against Christians. I'm not against the Amish. I'm not against any person of any religion or non religion. I am against people who treat others with disdain, [00:16:00] disregard, who are oppressive. I look at people.

I don't care what their religion is. Am I going to let something bad happen to you because of who you are? No. I don't like that shit either. Again, I am anti oppression. I am pro humanity anti oppression, but a lot of what I'm seeing in this discourse about the war on Palestine is so gross and so ugly.

I'm recording this on Friday, October the 13th, 2023, and it is 9 52 in the evening. And I've just been allowing this to, to, I've been ruminating and thinking about this and how I wanted to say this because I don't ever want to come off as being a person who hates someone because of their religion or their race or their nationality.

But the discourse I've seen surrounding the war. [00:17:00] And Palestine is so ugly and so vile and so cruel, and I'm speaking out against it. I'm speaking out not only against the war, but also against the discourse of the war that seeks to dehumanize the Palestinian people. And for that, I am called an anti Semite.

It's fucking ridiculous. I have said nothing about the Jews. Said nothing about Jewish people. And I don't like using the word Jew because to me that sounds kind of like a slur. But if I, if it happens, no, uh, malice is intended. It's like when somebody says black. I don't like that either.

But if you were a colonist who was against the, the onslaught of violence against Native Americans, would you have been called anti Christian, hmm? Because that's why they were doing it, mainly, because they wanted [00:18:00] the land, number one, but they also wanted to force the Native Americans to be Christian.

They wanted to convert them by force. They put their kids in schools, made them change their dress, made them change their language, all done in the name of Christianity. Would you have been called anti Christian? Or would you simply have been someone who believes that all men should be free? All men, women, and children should be free.

No, you would have been called a terrorist. Number one, you would have been terrorists. You would have been anti Christian. You would have been marked for death. They would have murdered you. All because you want people to be free. All because you don't want babies to die. You don't want women to die. You don't want people to die.

You don't want people to lose their way of life and their land.

For some [00:19:00] people there is only one way. And they don't care about who they have to kill. Who they have to steal from. Who they have to rob. Who they have to push off of the land. What they have to do to get it. They'll get it in blood if they have to.

That's how important some things are to people that the Jewish people wanted a Jewish state. They wanted it. Palestine has been, you know, Palestine is like, uh, a piece of property that's been flipped a dozen times. There's so many different groups who have lived in what's called Palestine or Israel.

There are so many different groups that have lived in Israel and Palestine, spoke many different languages. It wasn't always called Israel, obviously it wasn't always called Palestine either. This property has been flipped dozens [00:20:00] of times.

It wasn't that God said here, this is yours. God is not a real estate agent. God is not the author of confusion either, and God would never order oppression. He does not order oppression because he hates it. God is just. He is fair. He is right. He expands. He expands for everyone. He does not like injustice, inequality, oppression.

But everything here, everything, every piece of land, every piece of human, every hair on your head, hairs on your arms, on your toes belongs to him. Everything, all of it. Yeah, I can be a bit of a religious nut job.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. That is not a secret. The principles of my religion, of my [00:21:00] Islam, of Islam, justice, equality, fairness, and I don't give a fuck what you see on the news, what you're reading online about people being oppressed. That is not Islam. When you see something like that, that's not Islam. Sure. People call themselves Muslims.

You can call yourself Muslim and be an oppressor. Ah! Imagine! Imagine being a bad Muslim. There are baddies in every religion. Pieces of shit, jerks, jackasses, jackholes, bastards in every religion. Doesn't excuse it for anyone. Doesn't excuse it for anybody. Where were you when you found out? How old were you when you found out that Native Americans

How old were you when you found out that black people owned [00:22:00] slaves, that blacks in Africa, some of them sold their people into slavery. Where were you when you found out? That Christopher Columbus didn't really discover America and that he was, in fact, a genocidal piece of shit.

Where were you when you discovered that there were bad people? There were bad people doing bad things and they look like you, they talk like you, and they worship like you. But that they were also victims.

They were also victims

How old were you when you finally, finally learned that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? That the reasons for putting the United States into the war against Iraq were lies.

They [00:23:00] lied to us. They lied to us. Colin Powell, one of our favorite Americans, favorite statesman, secretary of state. I remember when he got on TV on, on testifying before Congress and he was showing them pictures of bunkers and, and, and trucks and things and saying, yep, the weapons are in there.

This is what our intelligence is saying. Weapons are in there. We got to give us permission to go to war and get rid of this stuff. It was a lie. He lied. The government lied. And thousands and thousands and thousands of people died. Iraqis, U. S. troops, thousands, thousands, thousands. And even thousands more continue to suffer the effects of the war.

From PTSD to physical ailments. I mean, they got rid of Saddam Hussein. Great. [00:24:00] Wonderful. That's what they wanted to do anyway. That was their whole goal all along. They had to tell a couple of lies to get there. It's bullshit. I am anti bullshit. I'm anti bullshit. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Tell me the truth.

I feel like we owe each other the truth, even if nothing else. We owe each other the truth. I am in the United States.

I am in the live free or die United States. You know, the lift for your die that it says on the, uh, the New Hampshire license plate. What does that mean?

 Telling people how to resist when they are fighting for their freedom. And what is good resistance and bad resistance?

Why should that be controlled by the oppressor? Why should the oppressor, why should the people in power get to tell the people who have no [00:25:00] power how to resist them, how to fight back, or that they cannot fight back at all, that they simply need to take what is happening to them, what is happening to their land, what is happening to their people, accept it.

Slaves revolted in the United States. They killed people. They killed slave masters. They killed their families. They killed, you know, the shipping captains. Does it hurt to hear that babies were murdered? Oh yeah, but there ain't shit you can do about that. This is, they were resisting slavery. Brutalization.

Nowadays, when we hear that, when we think about that, it's like, it's unfathomable. You don't kill babies. You don't want that to happen. Obviously you don't want it to happen. When people are tired and they're fed up, they want to [00:26:00] be free and they have asked you to get your foot off their neck.

This is what is happening. This is the madness that ensues from you not freeing these people.

And of course I condemn the violence against innocent people. Absolutely. But to tell me that I am pro violence and an anti Semite? Because I am pro humanity and pro freedom for all people is bullshit. And it's just another easy way to dismiss everything. It's a way for you to not have to deal with the uncomfortable truth about your people.

And about the place that you call home. About the thing that you love so much. People don't want to confront the truths. They want to live in the bubble. They want to have their happy, perfect, protected existence. When they are forced to see what is really going [00:27:00] on, they get scared. They get scared. And so what do they do?

They lie to maintain it. All of the propaganda that we're seeing about Hamas beheading babies. Stories that have been debunked over and over and over and over and over again, but still they're circulating all of these things that they're saying about Hamas and the Palestinians and for what it's worth, listen, Hamas is a rogue anti government movement.

In Palestine, they're called a terrorist organization because they engage in violence and they don't, they're not of the government. Apparently, anything that is not of the government, but that is fighting against a government is a terrorist organization like the Black Panthers.[00:28:00]

So by the international community's definition of a terrorist or a terror organization, Hamas fits the definition. But it's the people in power who got to say that. Because for some Palestinians, Hamas, that's their, their freedom fighters fighting for their freedom. The only people who have been willing to do so, to help them.

And people are telling, telling Palestinians, you must denounce Hamas. Motherfucker, they're trying to find where they're going to get their next fucking meal from. They're trying to find out if they'll be able to bathe that day. Where they're going to get water from. They're trying to, trying to see if their building is going to be lasting into the night.

Or if they have to flee, you all have to, you have to do all these people have put all these conditions on the Palestinians. If you want to be free, you have to do this, do that. They could do all of that. And you motherfuckers would still tell them, no, we're not giving you your land in your homes back. No, you [00:29:00] won't be free.

You're still going to be occupied because the intention is for them to have nothing. The intention is for them to not exist at all.

And are that there are people who feel that way about Israel and Jewish people? Yeah, we fought a whole fucking war for people who did not want Jews to exist and people who don't want black people to exist either. They still are present in the United States. Wish that we would go away. Wish that we would disappear.

Wish that we didn't have rights. They're trying to whittle away at all of the special protections that black people have been afforded since the civil rights era. Because oh, things are equal now. You're fine. Everything's fine. Everything's good. Look, you have a house and a job. They want you to believe that everything is okay because they just want this shit to be over with.

They don't want to talk about it anymore. They don't want to hear about it anymore. [00:30:00] Nobody wants to hear about war every day. Nobody wants to hear about racism every day. Nobody wants to hear about institutional racism and discrimination and bigotry every day. My God, can't we just have fun, relax and have like a bonfire and go camping?

But that is why these things keep happening, because we're not dealing with them. History runs in a circle. Something happens, people observe, participate in it, let it pass them by, people forget about it, don't learn anything from what happened, don't even really pay attention to what happened, and then it happens again.

And then that circle. That circle of, uh, participate in it, let it pass you by, pay attention, don't pay attention. It dies down. People don't learn anything. And then it happens again. How many times in your lifetime have you heard stories about genocide? [00:31:00] I've heard stories about genocides that, I mean, there was, um, the genocide against the Bosnian Muslims.

There was the genocide in Rwanda. There's this, there's the genocide happening against the Ukrainian people. Putin would rather the Ukrainians not exist. He would rather they just fall under his thumb, but also not exist. He would rather they had no language, no home, no way of life. He would rather they be under the Russian umbrella.

He would rather have the USSR nations back together again. Like it's a fucking Motown band.

I've read about genocide, genocide against Native Americans, genocide against, uh, the Aztecs, genocide against people living in the West Indies, genocide against Africans, genocide against Asians.[00:32:00]

It keeps happening. And how easy is it for, for genocide to happen? It is very easy, actually. It's very easy.

How easy was it for genocide to happen in the former Yugoslavia? The United States didn't even want to get involved in that. They did not want to get involved.

The U. N. had to beg the United States to get involved. They had to beg them because the Serbs were moving against the Bosnians. Killing them. Killing them. Pushing them further out. Following them. Killing them. .And the United States did not want to get involved.

They didn't want to get involved in the conflict. But it was more than a conflict. It was a war with leaders... Who were homicidal, genocidal maniacs.

They were disgusting, awful people, disgusting. They engaged in ethnic cleansing and ethnic [00:33:00] cleansing is still happening in the world. Google, Google ethnic cleansing, Google genocide.

In the year 2023, you ever heard of the Uyghur genocide being committed by China against Uyghur Muslims? People will pretend that they had no idea because who wants to speak out against China? The same way people are afraid to speak out against Israel, Israeli policies, not Israel, but Israeli policies,

because it's not the whole country. There are actually Israelis who have protested against what Netanyahu is doing. They have protested against it. It's the Israeli policies. It's the Israeli defense forces.

But people will act as if, well, you are anti Semite because you said that Israel is killing Palestinians. I could say the same thing about [00:34:00] some Islamic states too.

Does that make me anti Islamic? Does that make me anti Arab or anti Persian? No, absolutely not. You all really need to, um, regroup when it comes to that. You really need to get over your fucking selves. Get over yourself. And it isn't just, well, I criticize Israel too. No, you actually have to say the thing out loud.

They are committing genocide and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians as we speak. As I am saying this right now.

The IDF and Netanyahu ordered the evacuation of the Gaza Strip. Over 1 million people had 24 hours to leave. Some of them were not able to get out and now they're dead. Babies, [00:35:00] children, men, women. And not only that, not only were there bombings, but Israel Defense Forces are using phosphorus, white phosphorus, which on contact with the human skin causes physical burns.

They're burning people alive. They're burning them alive and they'll say, Oh, but this is because Hamas, Hamas is, you know, and you don't know who is in Hamas and you don't know who supports Hamas and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're burning people alive. You're burning them alive. You people who are descendants of Holocaust survivors, you're burning people alive.

You're burning babies alive. Now this, we've actually seen, right? That shit about the, uh, the, [00:36:00] the beheading babies didn't happen, didn't happen. Nobody's seen it, didn't happen. But this shit, Human Rights Watch, you know what Human Rights Watch is, the, uh, the human rights organization that puts boots on the ground to monitor conflicts and elections and whatnot.

They're using, they've observed and confirmed that the Israeli defense forces are using chemical weapons against Palestinians.

That's just one of the reasons Saddam Hussein was executed. Was disposed from power because he was using chemical warfare against the Kurds and against his own people.

It's apartheid. It's apartheid. And we know what apartheid is. Apartheid is segregation that's not based [00:37:00] on race. This is an apartheid. It just is. And I tell you what, whenever Palestinians decide that they want their shit back, what happens? The entire Western world falls to the defense of the Israeli forces and the Israeli government, saying, We got your back!

We got your back! And nobody is telling Taiwan how to resist China. Nobody's telling Hong Kong how to resist China. Nobody's telling Tibet how to resist. They're allowed to resist how they wish with the backing of Western governments against China and have their land and their people protected. We have international agreements that guarantee a group's right to defend itself by any measure.

[00:38:00] You just don't like the motherfuckers. You don't like them. And who suffers, who is suffering in all of this? People are suffering. People are suffering. People are suffering. It's not just, Oh, babies are dying. No people have been suffering daily, like living through war. Daily bombings and shellings and killings and harassment and being told that you can't go fishing.

They're on the fucking sea and they can't go fishing except in this little teeny tiny area. And there are certain areas, certain parts of Al Aqsa mosque where people under a certain age are not allowed to congregate. Can you believe that? They're telling people who are under the age of 70 that there's this particular area that they cannot be.

In at their holy site,[00:39:00]

free Al Aqsa, how about that? Is that anti Semitic?

In February, 2022, Amnesty International wrote of Israel that is that Israel's intent to create and maintain a system of oppression and domination over Palestinians through territorial fragmentation, segregation, and control, dispossession of land and property. And denial of economic and social rights amounts to apartheid.

It's apartheid. Now they also recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. You have a terrorist organization and you have an apartheid state, but wasn't Nelson Mandela considered a terrorist when he was going against. South African government and apartheid state FWD click,

They put him in prison. They didn't want him to be free [00:40:00] because he was leading the opposition. He wanted and believed very strongly in self determination for all human beings. And you know who else supported that for them?

The Palestinians because they knew all too well, they knew all too well the cost of freedom. The cost of a denial of freedom, they knew all too well,

Richard Boyd Barrett, who is in the Irish parliament, made this statement in March 2022. These are his words upon learning Amnesty International had declared Israel an apartheid state, he says, Now, we called for this debate prior to the barbaric invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, and all of us have rightly condemned the crimes against humanity that are being committed by Putin in Ukraine.

And the government has moved instantly [00:41:00] within five days to sanction Putin's regime and take urgent action. And the strength of language that was used rightly against Putin as a barbarian, as a thug, as a murderer, as a war monger, all of which are true. All of those things, all of those things applied, applied.

to the state of Israel in its treatment of the Palestinians. And yet the government is concerned about its use of language and doesn't feel it's appropriate to even use the word apartheid when Amnesty International, the most respected human rights organization in the world and human rights watch within a very short.

period of time issue these damning reports saying that Israel, since its foundation has been built on a system of oppression and domination and apartheid and racism involving the murder of unarmed innocent civilians on a regular basis. Arbitrary [00:42:00] detention and imprisonment, land annexations, the displacement of people, the denial of basic fundamental rights to 6 million Palestinians who are displaced outside of Israel in the occupied territories, to their rights of return to their homes, to the illegal blockade of Gaza, which is left, as they say in the report, Gaza is in a permanent state of humanitarian crisis, denying people access to food, to water, and treating the Arab population as a whole, the Palestinian population as a whole, as an inferior population. Race,

when it comes to describing Israel's treatment of the Palestinians when it is now being documented and detailed by two of the most respected human rights organizations in the world, and indeed has been alleged by dozens and dozens and dozens of non governmental [00:43:00] organizations. And to be honest, anybody who looks honestly at the decades of brutal, inhumane persecution of the Palestinians, successive assaults on Gaza, the annexation of the land and territory, the systematic application of apartheid rules, you don't want to even use the word apartheid.

Nevermind sanctions, five days sanctions against Putin and his thugs, 70 years of oppression of the Palestinians, and it wouldn't be, what was the word you used? It wouldn't be helpful to impose sanctions. End quote.

It's apartheid. It's apartheid. It's apartheid.

Apartheid is an unequal, unfair, and unjust practice and must be rooted out, [00:44:00] not capitulated to. Systemic abuse of a group of people is unlawful. And currently Palestinians in Gaza are living in an open air prison, although not anymore because they were told to evacuate.

How did we get here? People will say it's the Nakba as it is now called, which refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab Israeli war. And this information is from the United Nations. The NACBA as it is now called refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab Israeli war. He goes on to say that before the NACBA Palestine was a multi ethnic and multicultural society. However, the conflict between Arabs and Jews intensified in the 1930s with the increase of Jewish immigration driven [00:45:00] by persecution in Europe and with the Zionist movement aiming to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.

And the truth is though that prior to this, Britain, which controlled Palestine was giving pieces of Palestine away to Jewish populations because they had been promised a Jewish state. And so piece by piece by piece, they were giving it away and giving it away. And they were watching tensions mount between Jews and Arabs and doing fucking nothing.

They were doing nothing. And then in November, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution partitioning Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab with Jerusalem under a UN administration. The Arab world rejected the plan. I mean, I can't, can you blame them? Arguing that it was unfair and violated the UN charter, Jewish militias launched attacks against Palestinian villages, forcing [00:46:00] thousands to flee.

The situation escalated into a full blown war in 1948 with the end of the British mandate and the departure of British forces, the declaration of independence of the state of Israel and the entry of neighboring Arab armies. The newly established Israeli forces launched a major offensive. They're still doing that.

They've been doing that. They've been doing that all year. They were doing it all last year and the year before that and year before that. I don't, they haven't stopped. Okay. They have not stopped, but the result of the war was the dis was the permanent displacement of more than half of the Palestinian population.

A lot of them were driven out of Palestine and into other countries and they have not been allowed to return. Even though as early as December, 1948, the UN General Assembly called for refugee return, property restitution and compensation. However, 75 [00:47:00] years later, despite countless UN resolutions, the rights of the Palestinians continues to be denied.

Imagine, you only like the UN resolutions that give you what you want. The ones that are telling you to give shit back, you're like, no, no, no, sorry. Get someone else to do it. According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, more than five million Palestine refugees are scattered throughout the Middle East.

Today, Palestinians continue to be dispossessed and displaced by Israeli settlements, evictions, land confiscation, and home demolitions. And that is from the United Nations.

But you know, when you have your foot on someone's neck, eventually they will fight back. So yes, they haven't, they've been displaced and, and, and moved off their land. And they've been fighting back. The United States has been siding with the [00:48:00] Israeli government. The U. S. sided with Ukraine defending its land and supported the Free Syria Army against Bashar and the anti Ba'ath party against Saddam Hussein.

They also funded Al Qaeda in order to rival Russia. The U. S. bankrolls anything that serves their interest. They provide water and food to Palestinians, but not support in their fight for freedom.

And people are saying that the attacks on the Israeli, uh, defense forces, the attacks on Israel are unprovoked. They're unprovoked. They're saying, Oh, they're provoked. They're provoked, honey. They're provoked. And I'm not saying that anything is right. War is not the answer, obviously. But what the fuck do you expect?

What do you expect? Here are these people living here and piece by piece, house by house, their land is being chipped away, chipped away, chipped away until it's just a sliver on one [00:49:00] side and then an occupation, a small occupation in another. Everybody is crammed in there and told, this is where you can live and you can leave when we say you can leave and you can come back when we say you can come back.

What do you expect them to do? What would you do? Okay. Let's, let's answer this question. What the fuck would you do? I know what I would do. I would fight back. I would fight back. I would, I don't care. I don't care who the fuck you are. I'm fighting back. I don't care. When you have your foot on someone's neck, eventually they will fight back.

 Nobody's going to let you have what they have, what they've worked for, what was given to them, what was, what's been in their family. You all are thinking like colonizers. You're thinking like fucking colonizers. You're thinking like colonizers This land [00:50:00] belongs to us because God said it in his book and it's ours Like I said, God is not a real estate agent.

He ain't century 21, honey. All of this is his everything He's wiped out civilized civilizations shitheads

It could happen to us, could happen to anybody since you believe in God so strongly. Why are you disobeying him? Why are you being disobedient? Why are you killing innocent people? Why are you stealing from people, taking from people, fighting people, committing genocide, committing ethnic cleansing? Why are you doing it?

Why are you ignoring these UN resolutions? People only follow what benefits them. That's the fucking truth about all of us. But all of us, if it benefits me, sure, I'll go along with it. Sure. [00:51:00] Absolutely. If I can get a big slice of the pie,

but religion, this isn't, you know, this is not a religious matter. This is not a religious matter. This is not Muslims versus Jews or Jews versus Muslims or. Whoever versus Christians is not a religious matter framing this as a religious matter. In fact, erases the other religions of Palestinians, including Christianity, but it also erases the efforts of anti occupation Israelis who are anti occupation and Jewish people across the world who are anti occupation.

They exist. They are also called, not anti Semites, Palestinian sympathizers. Why do you sympathize with them? Because you're committing genocide against them.[00:52:00]

And I don't care if you all don't want to call it genocide. That's what the fuck it is. I don't care if you want to call, if you don't want to call this apartheid. That's what the fuck it is. That's what it is. Your opinion does not change the facts. Your opinion does not change the facts. You can feel how you want and think how you want.

That does not change the facts. And this is not an issue of how people believe in God or what they believe God told them. This is a matter of racial supremacy, removal, extermination, eradication of a people, eradication of their identity, their history, their culture, their existence. And yes, it is a multi layered issue, but we do ourselves, we do ourselves an injustice by playing it as a simple matter of religion or let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.[00:53:00]

Earth by design. Once humans arrived, peace was thrown out the fucking window. Once humans came to earth, there was no more peace. And there's never going to be peace because we are here because we are imperfect, because we are selfish, because we are disobedient, because we are evil, because we are disobedient earth by design, because we are here, there will never be peace, never.

But can there be justice? Absolutely. Can there be fairness? Absolutely. Can we do what's right? Abso fucking lutely.

You can't have peace and have bigotry. You can't have peace and have prejudice. You can't have peace and have racism.

You can't have peace and have sexism. You can't have peace [00:54:00] and have, have classism. Those things are not consistent with each other.

As long as we promote inequality, as long as we ignore genocide and ethnic cleansing, all over the world, mind you. We will never know peace. We will never know anything even close to peace. And I'm just going to say it, if Hamas is a terrorist organization, well guess what? So are the Israeli Defense Forces.

Period. The Palestinians want to end the occupation. The illegal and inhumane policies of the IDF is to usurp Palestine. To take this land away from these people. I mean... Do you understand how awful this is, how you could be sitting in your house and somebody shows up, walks into your house and said, this is mine.

Get the fuck out. That's what's [00:55:00] happening to Palestinians. That's what's happening to them. A Jewish person could go to Israel automatically a citizen of Israel and be given a house where people are living in. This is what the Israeli government is doing. Whether Israelis like it or not, this is what your government is fucking doing, taking people's homes, taking their land, taking their businesses,

whether you like it or not, this is what your government is doing. What are you going to do about it? You're going to participate in it? You're going to ignore it? You're going to fight against it? What are you going to do? If anybody is in a good position to stop it, I would say that it is Jewish people,

but Netanyahu can actually count himself as a reason that Hamas rose in Palestine. Yes, yes, I know, I know, it's hard to believe. It's hard to believe that the United States would be [00:56:00] responsible for Al Qaeda but here the fuck we are. Here we are. Netanyahu can count himself as a reason that Hamas rose in Palestine.

As one journalist writes, it is, it has been Bibi at every turn since the early nineties, who has empowered Hamas as a foil he can both act tough against and a weapon he can deploy to diminish the Palestinian authority and Fatah. He specifically does this so he can claim that Fatah and the Palestinian authority are too weak to be allowed to form a government for an independent Palestine and therefore not worth negotiating with while Hamas cannot be negotiated with at all.

What is happening is as much the result of Bibi's cynical strategies to manipulate and exploit the various Palestinian factions as well [00:57:00] as the U S to achieve his own objectives. One, never having to give up power to stealing everything that isn't nailed down.

He is a fucking crook by the way. And C, never facing any consequences for anything he does or any decision he makes.

And the Israelis protesting, by the way, the Israelis who were protesting the occupation and protesting having to serve in the army. Mandatory service. Yeah. Benjamin Netanyahu threw them under the bus. He said that the army, the defense forces, the security was weakened. And that's how Hamas was able to, to, I don't parachute in and blow shit up.

That's how they were able to get in. He said. They were weakened because reservists were protesting [00:58:00] blamed his own fucking he blamed his own His own people for why Hamas was there he'll never admit that him that he plays a role in Hamas being present anywhere anyway He'll blame his people and then he'll use this conflict to get the rest of the Palestinians off of what he considers to be the rest of Israel, not the Palestinian land.

They're using this as an excuse to get all of the Palestinians out of Palestine. And make it all Israel. He went to the United Nations a couple of weeks ago back in September and showed a map of the new Middle East. Guess what wasn't on the map? Guess, guess, guess, guess, guess. Palestine. Palestine wasn't on the fucking map.

He's standing at the UN General Assembly giving this speech [00:59:00] and he's holding up this map and it's, it's green. It's highlighted. No, Palestine. Palestine is Israel. Fascinating, right?

War costs lives. It costs livelihoods. It costs people. It costs homes. It costs infrastructure. It costs governments. It is not easily undone. It is not easily ended, but it can be stopped. All it takes for evil to triumph over good. All it takes for evil to triumph over good is for good people to do nothing.[01:00:00] You must want. For your brothers and sisters, what you want for yourself and for yourself, you would demand justice if you were wronged. You would want justice for yourself. There will be no peace without justice. You cannot pray for peace and not demand justice for Palestinians. You cannot pray for peace and not demand justice for the oppressed. And justice would be the return of these people to their land, to their homes, to restore them. That's justice. You cannot pray for peace and ask for peace. Ask God to be kind and merciful and giving and caring, but only for you.

People are not apt to hear the words of Palestinians, to see their cries, to hear their tears, to see their bodies lying in the street. [01:01:00] People are not apt to listening to them when they cry for help, when they cry for freedom. So perhaps The words of a Jewish person will persuade you

I'm closing my show with an excerpt of an editorial from the periodical The Nation. It's by Stephanie Fox, published on October 13th, 2023. And it's titled Jewish grief must not be used as a weapon of war. She says, I am writing to you members of my Jewish American community with more urgency and fear than I have ever felt. I do not say this lightly. I say it knowing everything it means to our community and to the world.

Right now, the Israeli government is building toward a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. This week, so many of us are [01:02:00] grieving in the wake of the massacres, the displacement, the kidnappings and injuries, including so many Palestinian and Israeli children and civilians. Life is infinitely precious. Our bodies simply cannot cope with so much loss.

Many of my, many of my loved ones are mourning friends and family. I ache with the anguish of so many families in the face of atrocious violence, massacre, unthinkable loss, and ongoing uncertainty. It is in our tradition to sit Shiva for seven days, to pause, to reflect, and to mourn.

But I cannot sit back while Jewish grief and trauma is weaponized by the Israeli government to destroy Gaza. As I write this, Israel just announced that the 1. 1 million Palestinians in Northern Gaza, half of them children will have 24 hours to flee, which the UN has already deemed [01:03:00] impossible. The U. S.

government is beating the drums of war, rushing to send more weapons to the Israeli military to wreak utter devastation. We do not need to choose between grieving and acting. As our forebears taught us, we must mourn the dead by fighting like hell for the living.

Make no mistake. The Israeli government is using genocidal rhetoric against Palestinians. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu asserted, what we will do to our enemies will reverberate for generations. The Israeli minister of defense announced the complete and total closure of Gaza saying no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel.

Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly. The Israeli [01:04:00] president is refusing to distinguish between Palestinian civilians and Hamas fighters. We as Jews know all too well how dangerous this rhetoric is, the way in which the unthinkable becomes acceptable when we deny people their humanity.

The United States government has coalesced to back the Israeli war machine. President Biden has already begun sending weapons and has promised more in the days to come. Members of Congress are rushing to declare their ironclad support for the Israeli government and cheering on Israel's criminal declaration of war against a civilian.

population. The only Palestinian American member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib, is facing vitriol and hatred from her colleagues and the media. Our only option is to move into action like millions of lives depend on it because they do. [01:05:00] Pick up your phone with me, call your representatives, and call them again an hour later.

Organize protests. March. If they hear from us enough, our elected officials can be pushed to de escalate the situation, not fuel violence by sending the Israeli military more weapons. We have to act now because the war on Palestinians in Gaza is already underway.

My dear friends are desperately trying to find generators to charge their phones so that they can say goodbye to their families, worried that they won't make it through. Another night of the constant missiles leveling buildings, streets, and whole neighborhoods. Hospitals have stopped functioning. My friends are thirsty as they cradle their babies against the deafening shake of bombs.

The drinking water is almost gone. One third of the dead in Gaza are children.

We must remain committed to truth telling. As mainstream [01:06:00] journalists opt to tell a singular story, reality is shaped by when you start the clock. Palestinians have been living under the daily violence of Israeli occupation for the last 75 years. And for the last 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under an air, sea, and land military blockade.

Every night, the Israeli army raids Palestinian cities and villages, invading families homes and arresting their children. Israeli apartheid. The systematic valuing of Jewish Israeli lives over Palestinians is not only the root of this violence, but also shapes the very way we are conditioned to understand it.

Just consider the shortage of Palestinian voices in mainstream media as their homes are bombarded. At this moment, when so many Jews feel our worlds [01:07:00] torn apart by violent death, consider how much pain and grief Palestinians are forwarded as they hold their murdered infants.

Our tradition teaches us that we were all made in the image of the divine to point out Palestinian oppression is not. As so many commentators have alleged to justify the unjustifiable killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas. It is simply another way of asking that we treat Palestinians with the empathy and decency that we ourselves long for and to actually take the steps necessary to ensure the only real and lasting peace, the kind that will come with Palestinian freedom, justice, and equality.

It's never more important to do the hard work of talking with our people, with our parents, our siblings, our friends [01:08:00] from synagogues, our rabbis. In the midst of our grief and pain, let's remind each other who we are. We are people committed to the repairing of the world, the Israeli government are justifying massive atrocities, tearing the world further apart, and doing so in the names of our beloved families. When we say never again, it includes Palestinians, and it means right now.

When we say never again, it includes Palestinians, and it means right now. And this has been Ayana Explains It All, brought to you by Facts, Figures, and Enlightenment. Take care.