33. A Discussion with Good Shepherd Collective

Lara Sheehi: Sit komen nog die etten van lijden en van pijn. God als je vet je klappen, ontkript ze met die zin.

Speaker 2: Toch klap je glas aan glazen, onnetto's wijbelreizen, omgeet niet meer attent, zal er daar vaak.

Speaker 3: Waarom zoveel zeg je zitten?

Speaker 2: Welcome to The Minyan. We are back. Today is stupid Election Day in America. We're trying to avoid— I know Prez and I definitely are trying to avoid all news that's coming out of America and avoiding our coworkers so we're not being asked about what we think about the election. But we are here with a really special episode. We've been following Good Shepherd Collective on Twitter for years now, and they do really amazing work in bringing to light what's happening in Palestine. And if you aren't following them on Twitter, you should. We have Lara and Banna here, and if you want to introduce yourselves, let's do it. Lara, if you want to start.

Lara Sheehi: Yeah, thank you guys so much for having us. It's so nice to be here. We're also big fans of the podcast, so Yeah, really excited to be here. My name's Lara Sheehi of the Good Shepherd Collective. And yeah, I'm part of the Twitter, sometimes write, you know, snarky posts in the news. And I've been here at Good Shepherd Collective since we started. And just of all the little, you know, all the little things that our collective does, I think I'll leave it there. I'm so excited to be here with you all. Based in Palestine, I guess I should say that. I'm based in Palestine.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Yeah, thank you so much for inviting us. I'm very excited to be with Minyan Podcast today. I am also trying my best to ignore the elections as well. I muted elections on my Twitter. My name is Banu Abu-Zuluf, and I am obviously a member of the Good Shepherd Collective, but I'm actually now based in Ireland, in Dublin. Doing my PhD in international law, I've been part of the Good Shepherd Collective since 2021, and that was during the sort of May uprising during the Sheikh Jarrah campaign. Sheikh Jarrah campaign, and I've been just really like with the Good Shepherd Collective ever since. I do mostly like advocacy work. I've been also writing as well with the Good Shepherd Collective lately, just as of late really. Mostly analysis on what's going on in Gaza, but also like Zionism, anti-Zionism, just how we wish the movement and organizing spaces could, you know, learn from, you know, Palestinian organizing and things like that. So I'm very, very excited to be here today.

Speaker 2: And thanks for being here. If you guys could, can you explain who and what Good Shepherd Collective is?

Lara Sheehi: Yeah, thank you for asking. So we are the Good Shepherd Collective, as you said. Basically, we're an anti-Zionist, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, you know, pro-liberation, pro-decolonization— gotta throw some pros in there too— organization collective. We've been around since 2018, so about 6 years now. And basically, we're based here in Palestine. We've done a variety of things over the years, from stuff on the ground with communities, especially here in the West Bank, but really all over Palestine, writing reports. I think in general, over this last year, we've shifted a bit because we're all spread out and our mobilities are different, especially with the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the escalated violence. So we haven't been able to like, reach some of the places that we were visiting a lot more and, you know, be kind of engaged on the ground in that way. And we've turned to kind of writing, which I think has been good because some of this stuff is overdue. We've been wanting to write about it for a long time. But yeah, we work on advocacy. We work on— a recent project was like democratizing data because there is a lot of data Mostly about the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and sometimes Gaza. And that's like its own thing that we can talk about as well. But there's a lot of like international data or Palestinian-collected data that's used by international organizations on colonial violence in those areas. But, you know, like a casual observer or even like a researcher might not know that might not know where to access all of these different things, right? Because there's stuff on murders in Gaza, demolitions in the West Bank, imprisonment, child imprisonment, and these different elements of Israeli violence. And sometimes they're behind a paywall as well. And so basically, that was a recent project of putting together all of these different, these different, like, statistics for people to have access to. So— We do all kinds of things like that, and folks can find us at goodshepherdcollective.org, and you can find all of our social media there and our emails as well if you have any comments or compliments or complaints.

Speaker 2: Prez, did you have anything to say?

Speaker 3: Everyone knows who I am, so no, I don't. It's just good to have everyone here.

Lara Sheehi: Thanks.

Speaker 2: Are you doing okay with everything today and all the bullshit?

Speaker 3: Yeah, nothing will change. But I learned that don't tell Europeans that nothing will change because they get mad at you if you say that you don't care who wins or loses.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's been my experience.

Speaker 3: Because they are obsessed with— they equate Trump with being pro-Russia and Kamala and the Democrats with being pro-Ukraine. And it's just a mess. So I obviously failed to avoid my coworkers.

Speaker 2: What's great about Irish people is they sort of understand that nothing's going to change, but they are— don't really even— Ukraine doesn't even factor into their thinking. They're just— they're very concerned about Palestine. And I think that, like, ties into what we're hoping to talk about today, or one of the topics that we want to talk about today. And it's something that we've talked about before, about the Irish and the Palestine connection. But we're specifically going to critique, like, the two-state solution, as Ireland is— as I've said in the past, I feel like Ireland is the example of what a two-state solution looks like, and it's bullshit, and it doesn't work. The 6 counties are still under occupation. They're still harassing people who say, hey, maybe we should have the 6 counties united with the rest of Ireland and not under British occupation. So, and the effects of normalization and how that has played out in Ireland as well. And what is hopeful and encouraging to see in Palestine is that there is a fight against normalization, a fight against this 2-state solution. And all of that. So what do you all think about that?

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Yeah, this is quite interesting. I think this question really on the connection between Ireland and Palestine comes up quite often. When I first came to Ireland, I think that was the sort of, my understanding was that like we have something shared with the Irish people, right? That they've fought colonial rule and that they are also still pretty much in partition and divided, and by that sort of demarcation of the north and the south of Ireland. And I just felt like just speaking to them, I think the sort of level of solidarity was like, and the level of understanding as well of our situation was much higher. If it weren't really to talk about like these context and issues, like specifically the partition and normalization, I think it's very important to really point at how these parallels were made. And like for anybody, like really, like any Palestinian just noticing these, like just reading a little bit of Irish history, you will notice certain parallels. The first one was, is just the partition, really the idea of partition. And the partition in Ireland became legal, really was made legal in 1921.

Lara Sheehi: Yeah.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: The Government of Ireland Act, right? So it was signed between the United Kingdom and what was then the Irish, you know, nationalists, right? And so, and, and, but really how it materialized, it was actually materialized in 1922, where actually, like, you can visibly see, like, how, like, they've chosen, for example, the 6 Counties. And there's one story that maybe not a lot of You know, listeners might know about is that originally the unionists at that time with the United Kingdom government, they wanted to actually take in all of Ulster, which is made up of 9 counties. But then when they actually discussed, you know, the pros and cons, they realized that demographically, if they took the 9 counties, they will no longer be the majority. So it was important that the unionists maintain majority. That's why they took 6 counties. It's not that they were like very kind, they were like, oh, Ulster, we can't take the 9 counties, we have to take, you know, only, um, 6. It was because of that specific element of the, like, demography. And I think this is where we maybe can draw the first parallel, right, where people ask about the importance of demography for the Zionist entity, it's pretty much on the same lines of, well, why isn't the Zionist entity annexing the whole of Palestine from the river to the sea completely and occupied completely, even though it already does as it established facts on the ground? But why doesn't it just completely annex it? Because Because of this demographic question, right? That it's very important for the Zionist entity that the element of the sort of the Jewish kind of majority element of the state is the focus, right? We have to be the majority, right? So we can see the first sort of parallel, right? So we had in Ireland as well, we had obviously, as you know, 4 provinces. And then now the Ulster province, now we have 6 counties that became part of what is Called Northern Ireland. I really don't like this.

Speaker 2: I don't either.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: This wording.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: We just call it the North of Ireland or the Occupied Six.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Perfect. I love that. And the thing is, it takes a little bit because people just call it because, oh, well, it's called that. But I think it's— that also means something that is colonial. Like, we talk about the politics of naming a lot. And that the name itself, you know, has this colonial imprint. So it's very important that if you're not a partitionist, you believe in United Ireland, that you do not use the term Northern Ireland and you use North, because there is Ireland one, but it's North and South. That is it. You know, there's no northern part, you know, as if it's like an entity separate from Ireland. Yeah.

Speaker 2: That's right. I really appreciate that. It would be similar to people just saying Israel instead of occupied Palestine. The parallels are really crazy how— I mean, Ireland was used as the guinea pig of colonialization for Britain, and then it was just passed on to Palestine. Even the Black and Tans that were killing anti-treaty Nationalists in Ireland were then sent over to Palestine to kill Palestinians. So it's just, the parallels are like ridiculous. And it's just like an ever— it's an everlasting trend of colonization of the Brits of these different places. But Lara, did you want to say something?

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: I mean, I don't have as much to say about Irish history. I have to say, I was planning on leaving a lot of that to you and Banna because I know Bana has, you know, had experience there, and I am not quite as familiar with the history, but I think it's really interesting to think about, like, some of these connections that you brought up, not just historical, but also from the people themselves. Like, I remember just like a little personal anecdote that when I was a kid, I was like Palestinian, you know, growing up Palestinian American in the US, and I had a pen pal in Ireland.

Speaker 2: Oh, wow.

Lara Sheehi: And my pen pal in Ireland, you know, knew probably more about the situation in Palestine and these relationships. And so it's just interesting to think about that now. I actually haven't thought about it for a long time until this conversation. But yeah, it's interesting to think about those connections. And I really liked what you said, Ben, about the politics of naming, because I think a lot of times those things come up in Conversations also around Palestine, right? The way that we name places, even among each other in Palestine, the way that we refer to occupied Palestine, to each other, to outsiders, you know, reinforces a narrative and a history and theft and resistance. So I think it's— I just, I was really struck by that because I haven't heard those things about Ireland because it's, you know, just not my area of study, but really interesting. I mean, there's more to get into, but I think I'll leave it there.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Yeah. And so, like, it's one thing that I also like to add is that there was a very important British official, and he worked in the British Foreign Office. He was also at some point, you know, involved in Both in Ireland, you know, as a colonizer, but also as, you know, colonizer in Jerusalem as well. So you can even see some parallels there. And his name is Sir Ronald Henry Storr, right? I'm sure you probably heard of him. But he said a famous quote, and it was like that for him, the reason why it was very important, the Balfour Declaration, was because For him, Zionism is like creating a little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism. I hope I said the quote correctly. But the idea is that—

Lara Sheehi: You did.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Yeah, the idea is that they really, like the British government in Ireland and the one that sort of made up the colonial government and mandate in Palestine, were one and the same. They were not different. And so in a way, for them, what they saw as the Ulster in the north as their loyal area, loyalists, and the loyal kind of counties, they also saw that in Palestine, that it was very, very important that Zionism sort of is created in Palestine because that is, for them, is loyalism to the British government. It's like saying that we're creating, we're implanting a government that is loyal to us. And so this just tells you so much about this sort of dynamic in thinking. And there's just the colonial kind of transcendence that we see within the British colonial government that was controlling and colonizing and brutalizing Ireland, and that in Palestine. So It's very, it's quite very interesting. I mean, they called Balfour, they had the nickname for Balfour called, what was it? Bloody Balfour, they called him. So when we speak about Balfour, people understand who Balfour is. When we speak about Ronald Storrs or all of the, speak about at least in the context of Palestine, like 1936 to 1939 revolt against the British rule and the British military, They understand that. The Irish people understand that. They understand that they have this sort of shared experience. So we share that beyond the partition. We share that experience with colonialism that is very deep. But we also share the same colonizer in a way that has now relegated colonization of Palestine to the Zionists. And now we're continuously bearing sort of the brunt of that sort of violent colonialism until today.

Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad you brought that quote up because I think it just shows Zionism and unionism, especially in here and the Republicans I've talked to here, we definitely feel that unionism is essentially fascism. It's control, absolute control over the native population of Ireland and the pogroms that they Committed. There was one that was just an attempted pogrom that was attempted on Catholics in Belfast like a couple years ago. Like, this stuff hasn't stopped. This stuff is continuing to happen and will continue to happen until the Brits are finally out. And also a little— just one more thing about the naming. When the Brits came in, they like removed all the Irish place names and then put their own little British twist on it. And so that's why there's such contention around Derry, which is called the other word, Londonderry, which is— what's great to see though is the street signs that say that, usually the London part is completely blotted out. And you see that in the Gaeltacht areas in Ireland, the Irish-speaking areas where there's English, like the English version of the town name is usually blotted out. There's still a continuing fight against the colonization of Ireland, not only in the 6th, but also in the South, where English has been used to try to destroy the Irish language. And that's a continuing fight that we have to fight against. But I can go off about that, but I will refrain myself because Lara has something to say.

Lara Sheehi: No, go off. I love that. No, I just wanted to say, I mean, I mean, there's like a few things. I'm taking notes because you're both inspiring me. But, you know, Banna brought up Balfour, and it was sort of interesting because here my ignorance of like Irish history and the connections to Palestine comes up again because I sent Banna a message just the other day sharing this thing that I had come across that was an image, like a political cartoon or something like this, of Balfour I mean, maybe it wasn't a cartoon, maybe it was just supposed to be an illustration of him playing golf during famine in Ireland at the time that I think he was the chief secretary. I think that's the word, like the colonial kind of position that he had. And this is like a few years before the Balfour Declaration, which I'm sure your listeners will know about already, but basically declared British support for a future national home, I think that's what the language is, for Jewish people in Palestine, and sort of like set in motion what would become the state of Israel. And so, yeah, so it was just fascinating to me. And I sent it to Ben immediately because I was like, whoa, I had no idea about this connection, which, again, my ignorance. But I thought that was really fascinating. And also thinking about that, Yeah. Like, we've talked a little bit already about control of land and demography, and I think we're like getting into this idea of normalization, but connected to all of these things of like controlling land and settling settlers there and, you know, having colonial like production and theft, right, from the indigenous people of their resources.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: Like, famine is deeply connected to that, right? And I think it's important to talk about where we see famine today because, you know, reflecting on the history of Ireland and the knowledge that the famine in Ireland, the famines, from what I understand, were very much like constructed, completely unnecessary colonial outcomes or colonial effects or even like intentionally constructed, you know, things that happened as a result of colonialism and an attempt to control the indigenous population, the native people. We can see that today, right? We can see that in Gaza. And again, in this case, it's like very artificial and very, I think, like absurdly clear how artificial it is in the sense that you have blockades of the sea, of the sky, of the land around the people in Gaza, where they're literally walled into this tiny piece of territory and have no access to food or clean water or medicine unless it's allowed through this blockade. So this famine is incredibly artificial and imposed by the colonial power and supported by the imperial powers that support it. And I just think this is all connected, right? Because it's all like what you said already, Taliyah, of like—

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: Controlling the people, maintaining control over the land, suppressing resistance, maintaining demography in these spaces. And yeah, I just wrote—

Speaker 2: I was—

Lara Sheehi: I'm looking at my notes here and I was just writing this idea of absolute control, absolute control over, like, even life and death, even your ability to sustain yourself when you have land.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: that should be able to sustain you under other conditions. The last thing I'll say before I hand it back over is totally different, but just about the destruction of language, because you mentioned that, like, in Ireland, that there was this kind of intentional destruction of the language. And I think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but like destruction of Even the way in which language was used between people as like that it should be the sort of default language, right, rather than English. And it's interesting because here there are ways, of course, like Hebrew is the official language of the Zionist entity and Hebrew is on all of these different documents. But it's also to think about it, it's also interesting, I think, to think about it in a different way. And I, Like, this isn't the center of our conversation today, but it's just something that's sort of fascinating to me in the ways that, like, Hebrew was constructed borrowing very much from Arabic. And today, if you watch, you know, like, we've seen over the last year so many videos, if you have a Twitter feed like we do, of genocide heirs, you know, bragging or people, you know, cheering them on and so on. And there's a lot of slang in those videos. And you can see the ways that Arabic is appropriated into Hebrew. And even though it's not erasure in the same way of preventing people from using that language or destroying that language, I think it's actually like the other side of the same coin, right? Where very much like cultural appropriation that happens here, like the appropriation of food and clothing and history. The language is also appropriated in order to erase and eliminate its cultural significance or relevance in the language that the indigenous people here speak. So I think that's just like an interesting connection that sort of goes in the opposite— maybe not goes in the opposite direction, but has a different face.

Speaker 2: That was great. I hadn't realized that about Hebrew. And it just like, I literally don't think Zionism and quote unquote Israeli culture is any way unique. I think they have stolen literally everything from Palestinians. I had no idea that Hebrew was constructed mainly of Arabic words, but it makes sense because they are not creative people whatsoever. Like Zionism is just Oh, and like, we've had an episode about this before about languages, but Hebrew was essentially created to destroy Yiddish because Theodore Herzl thought Yiddish was a ghetto language and he hated it. So it's just a way to wipe out a working-class language. And I'm not sure, is Arabic even an official language of occupied Palestine? Because I know Hebrew, Russian—

Lara Sheehi: I believe it is. Like, the last time I checked—

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Okay.

Lara Sheehi: I actually, I'm not sure if it's an official language, but there is like, there are laws that in certain parts of occupied Palestine, like within the Zionist entity, where there is a significant Palestinian population, of course they don't call them that, Yeah. They do have Arabic, like, street signs, for example. But I'm gonna look that up.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: And I'll let you know what I—

Speaker 2: Oh, it's, like, really frustrating. Like, and, like, going back to the attempted destruction of the Irish language during the— it was a genocide, the quote-unquote Great Famine. It was a genocide. There was, like, a million died. A million immigrated, but there was— it mainly affected the Irish-speaking areas. So a lot of Irish speakers died because of this genocide.

Lara Sheehi: Yeah, just really quick because I forgot, like, this is sort of an interesting tidbit that Arabic was an official language because folks will know if they've ever seen like There's an old picture of a coin from the period of the British Mandate, and on it you can see Arabic, Hebrew, and English. And those were the official 3 languages at the time. And I believe Arabic remained an official language. But folks will also remember a few years ago, the introduction of the nation-state bill in the Israeli Knesset. And one of the things that it did to sort of demote the status of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and this is, I think, one of the lesser crimes among the bill, if that situates it in any way for folks, was that it demoted the status of Arabic. So Arabic is no longer an official language in the Zionist entity.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just like another way of destroying the native culture. It's just, it's, it's, I don't know. I don't really have any words. It's like, really, it's heartbreaking because I love Languages, especially native languages, are so important. And Prez, say something. I've been talking too much.

Speaker 3: Yeah, so I wanted to go based off of this languages thing and, and link it to the demography that we've kind of beefed through here. So the reason why Hebrew sounds so much like Arabic, and I'm not discounting how much it's stolen. They're both Semitic languages, like they're both from the same language family. So it's the same like Italian-Spanish kind of thing. And that is mostly to say that the whole Zionist project is mostly astroturfed. We're right now we're doing a series on Italian Jewry. And In that, early on, we discussed how essentially the Roman conquering of Palestine and the literal naming of Palestine from Judea, and that's where we get a lot of the propaganda of, you know, the Jews belonged there and got kicked out and all of that, that comes from there. But the Roman conquering of Palestine and control of it literally made Hebrew extinct. And the recreation of Hebrew in the late 19th century and early 20th century was to replace Yiddish, as Talia was saying, and as Laura kind of hinted at, as part of this wider whole demographic thing. But something that I'm kind of interested in is how, like, the Israeli state treats demographics differently than you know, the UK did when it was occupying all of Ireland, or a lot, or say South Africa, or even the US currently does. Because Israeli labor unions are very, very segregated. It's an apartheid state. We know all of this, but they use these language barriers. But they also just explicitly block Palestinians living within the borders of occupied Palestine, let alone living in, say, Gaza or the West Bank. But they block them from joining unions or having their own unions. And they also block migrants from forming their own unions. And one of the reasons why Tel Aviv became a major port over Jaffa was from essentially Zionist settlers acting as scabs During the the Palestinian revolt in the 1930s, but this is all essentially to say that there's kind of a concerted effort to astroturf a Zionist entity in a Zionist state in a Zionist culture until it takes root and begins to exist into something that isn't. So whether that be stealing a whole bunch of slang. from Arabic or just forcing unions, essentially stealing a whole port city 10 kilometers down, or other methods. I think that the whole demographic interest in Israel is similar too, but functionality is different than, say, Ireland. But I think the differences themselves are interesting to look at. And important to how we combat, say, the occupation in Ireland and the occupation in Palestine?

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Yeah, that's such a good question and just discussion point, because I think what people sometimes get wrong about making parallels is that they don't understand what function colonialism had in, let's say, in Ireland and what it had in Palestine. And it's different also types of colonialism. In Palestine, it's settler colonialism. It is in Meant to be the replacement. First of all, the elimination of the native, as Patrick Wolfe says it so clearly, but it's also the logic of elimination is also the logic of replacement, right? You have to replace the native population, right? It's because it's not like there was the home country. It's not like there was Israel somewhere and then this is a colony. Right. For that home country, right? It's establishing a new kind of thing, right? So it meant by necessity that the demographic element is not about just the numbers, it's also about the continuation of that settler colonial reality and objective and goal and purpose of Zionism. But in the context of Ireland, like, they were the home country, like other colonies that, you know, that Britain had. And we can count so many of them. Ireland functions as one of them, right? They did have the Scottish settlers, and they are very much settlers that came in and they represented the sort of Protestant Unionist loyalist class. But they were not there by necessity to replace the native. They were there as a mode of control. They wanted control of land as opposed to replacement of the native. There was no such thing. It was like, it was about a sort of administration and exploiting of the land and the native population, but not of replacement by necessity. And that's why I think it's very important to actually read the article by Patrick Wolfe, because he actually explains that not all— while settler colonialism can by necessity have the logic of elimination, sometimes it's the logic of elimination is not necessarily one of genocide, as in complete annihilation of the people, but it could also be in other forms, right? So the elimination of their complete rights and power or access to that. And that's really what happened in that context of settler colonialism in the north. It was not the logic of replacement per se, but it was the logic of elimination in a different manner. And that is by control, by having complete power and basically given no rights whatsoever, whether self-determination or anything else for the native population. And which is the same kind of logic that they carried through actually with other colonies as well. So I think that's maybe a difference that can help us sort of navigate the concept of demography. It was always, for Palestine, it was always, and it still is, the question of numbers. Are we more than, you know, are we more? Because for them, like, the main goal of Zionism is having the majority because they need to establish the Jewish state, right? The Jewish-only state means that it's a Jewish-only state. It's very, very simple. We don't even have to go further and explain it, you know, and make it complex. It's a very simple idea. The issue here is, is that settler colonialism in our context is an idea of a continuous process of settlement. They need to bring more people, right? And in order to bring more people, they have to have access to more land. And sometimes that access to more land can happen through massacres, through genocide. And it's been, in our case, it's been since the Nakba that we've been experiencing this logic of elimination in massacres, in genocide, up and from then until today. And I just, I will just flag one thing, that when I speak of these concepts, I'm not using the legal concepts, 'cause we at the Good Shepherd Collective, we're aware that legal concepts sometimes, like occupation, like genocide and legal, these concepts sometimes can limit our understanding of the scope of the logic of elimination or can take away from our understanding of settler colonialism, can root it into things like, oh, this is a question of apartheid, or this is a question of conflict. So we don't like to use that. Instead, I think it's very important that when we talk about this, we're not limited by these legal concepts. So we would use the Not as legal concepts, but as concepts that we understand as follow the logic of elimination that Zionism upholds.

Lara Sheehi: Yeah, I just wanted, as you were saying that, Banna, I thought of a quote I saw recently that I think really underpins the point, or yeah, I don't know, it brings up this point of elimination very well. Like, it's very interesting. Or at least when I saw it, I was struck by it. There's a famous— not famous, infamous Israeli settler organization leader. Now he's in the Knesset. His name is Bezalel Smotrich, and he's been one of sort of the, like, far-right Zionist, very, like, aggressive, very genocidal in his rhetoric, and very open about it type of person. I'm sure many of your listeners will have already heard of him. In the last weeks, I don't know the exact date, but he made some kind of speech. And during the speech, he said something to the effect of Palestinians, or I'm sure he didn't say Palestinians, Arabs will either have to accept Israeli control and citizenship or leave. And I wasn't sure at the time if the context was Gaza or if it's the West Bank, because at this point, you know, The genocide in Gaza is going on. And meanwhile, these sort of large-scale land thefts and ethnic cleansing of villages and things like trying to push families off of their lands and empty communities in Area C of the West Bank have only accelerated over the last year. So it's almost not immaterial, but he could be talking about either. Anyway, I thought this was really interesting because It is like veiling a reality, which is that, as Banna has said, elimination is important because of the demographics, right? The state is always first Jewish, then democratic, and I'm using quotations over democratic anyway, but first and foremost Jewish. And that is always the phrase. Nobody ever says democratic and Jewish. It's always Jewish first. That's essential. And that requires genocide, right? That's required elimination and genocide. Even before this last year, the genocide of Palestinians has been ongoing for, you know, the Nakba and before, through elimination, ethnic cleansing, pushing people off of their lands. And so I think for anybody who knows this politician and who knows the reality that, you know, if Palestinians were going to en masse accept Israeli citizenship as a strategic way of eventually exercising self-determination, that wouldn't be like a wild thing. I think some people, you know, would see that as a strategic possibility, right? If all Palestinians, even just all Palestinians here, could take that path. But of course, that's not what they want. And so what is hidden under that statement is something eliminatory, because actually, if the offer of citizenship is not there, and practically we know it's not, right? It's not a real legitimate option that they will ever offer because of the priority of first Jewish as the descriptor of the state, then it's leave or die. And that gets to the very heart of what has been happening for the last 100 years in Palestine.

Speaker 3: All right. Thanks for coming. We can end it here.

Speaker 2: Oh my God. It's crazy.

Lara Sheehi: Sorry.

Speaker 2: You're fine.

Speaker 3: I'm joking.

Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, they're just liars. Like, they just recently said, like, oh, all, like, resistant fighters who, like, turn themselves in will be allowed to live and stuff. And I'm like, you're fucking lying. You are liars through and through. Like, uh, I don't know. Like, I can't even imagine what it's like right now over there. Like, I know this is totally off topic, but are you okay, Lara?

Lara Sheehi: That's such a nice question.

Speaker 2: Like, um, like, I am concerned about everyone that's over there, like, if they're I mean, I think it's, it's like, honestly, it's such a sweet question.

Lara Sheehi: And I think it's a good question because first, like, I don't think most of us are doing okay. Like, not even just Palestinians. I think generally, like, people of conscience who know what's going on and have paid any amount of attention to it, I think we're not okay. And I think Like, it would be wrong if we were okay, because what we are witnessing up close or from afar is horrific. It is literally the most horrendous thing that I think any of us have seen, probably, or, you know, yeah, I think that's safe to say. And probably worse than anything we could ever imagine. And if somebody had told me, you know, 2 years ago that this would be happening now, I—

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: Yeah. I don't think I would've believed them, which also maybe says something about me. But I think something that I've thought about that's— I mean, like, maybe I can pass this question on to Banna, because I think it's something I'm curious about, and I don't think I've asked about. But, like, because I've lived both in Palestine and outside of Palestine during these various periods of escalated violence against Palestinians. Of course, I never lived outside of Palestine during something like now, because I think the closest thing is the Nakba, and obviously I wasn't alive. But for me, it's always— I always feel very acutely aware that being here in Palestine There's just something different about being here, I think, and processing the things that are happening with other people who are also processing them, not necessarily from the same, like, perspective or from the same vantage point or the same, like, you know, principles or whatever, but That I think have, like, right, I'm around Palestinians, so that have a stake, that are deeply invested, that care about what's going to happen. You know, people here, like, have the news on all the time. The other day, I went into a pharmacy just to get, like, medicine that I needed, and everyone was in there, you know, from the street watching the news. And it's the same when you go to the market. It's the same when you go to the one good Chinese restaurant.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: You know, people are really thinking about what's going on here. And I think that's something that makes it not easier, but very different than dealing with this somewhere else. I mean, I don't know what it's like in Ireland, because I imagine that would be better than, like, in the US, for example, where people are just completely checked out. Or maybe some people aren't checked out, but—

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: are either suffering just like you or aren't checked out but are still voting for Kamala Harris.

Speaker 3: I don't know.

Lara Sheehi: Banna, what do you think?

Banu Abu-Zuluf: This is such a— like, this is a traumatizing point because the thing is, like, we can say, like, we've just witnessed a whole year of genocide in front of our eyes that is the sort of most brutal element of Zionism we've seen so far. And people outside have managed to sort of fail in so many ways at organizing and just sort of like, if in a way, like if I were here in Ireland and I felt like, okay, yeah, the organizing spaces are like trying, there's hope, there's, you know, these, it's, I might maybe have felt like I would've answered like, oh yeah, we're good. You know, we're—

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: We're trying our best, we're fighting our way, we're fighters no matter where we are. But it's not like that because unfortunately the organizing spaces have been just so kind of— it's become sort of a moralistic exercise for people to either just go on protests and be like, okay, yeah, we've done our part. And there's no tactical strategy, or there's no— the ceiling has been lowered. Now we're talking about, in Ireland, the Occupied Territory Bill, which is so, so, so limited. And so in a way, we're just even making the ceiling of our demands lower, and people are becoming so desensitized. And in a way, there's also the monopoly over organizing spaces, how they're being co-opted by some liberals who want to organize people away from radical politics or transformative politics or more ones that have a material ask and not symbolic gestures. So it just feels in a way like if it was not like that, the case of organizing at the moment, not just in Ireland, but around the world. And this is like a case that we hear, like all of the drama on Twitter is about these things, about like, you know, different groups, you know, isolating each other because one is like super, you know, radical, wants to actually do something beneficial for Palestine. The other is, you know, liberals afraid of talking about resistance, will condemn Hamas and all of sorts of things. So I think it's such a toxic space to be in. And I would rather, to be honest, to be right now, instead of Dublin, in Palestine, because as Lara said, being there is different. You are in the space with people that understand, that experience, that would raise the ceiling of their demands and not lower it. So I think being in Palestine has also a lot of power and hope, and it's filled with defiance. Here, I think when you see how people act and react outside of Palestine and how they see this thing as sort of an external kind of— and they distance themselves from the struggle, and they see themselves as just sort of people who are empathetic to it or support it on the margins, you can see that how it's just so dehumanizing. So dehumanizing that even though we see Zionists every day calling for extermination against us in those spaces or universities trying to disturb organizing for Palestine, or even the smallest element of it, like talking about divestment, which shouldn't be such a complex thing or shouldn't be such a scandal, for universities to commit to. And yet, at least we're seeing the face of these institutions. The problem is, is the face of the solidarity movement that's also being exposed of being so useless and so futile, if I would say. And I don't want to, obviously, like, it's so difficult to want to keep the sort of hopeful face when you look at these people and they don't also want to hear whether from Palestinians or from other people that have more radical politics and really care about, like, the goal and not the aesthetic of the movement, they don't want to listen to them. They don't want to engage with them. And so it's becoming difficult to be Palestinian outside of Palestine in this moment. Oh, man.

Speaker 2: I got thoughts. There's one major organization in Ireland, in the south, well, in the north as well, and they are just liberal as fuck. And it's all like, just, oh, go sign this petition. Yes, go sign this petition. Hey, we're going to do a national march. Once a month on Saturday to Lenster House, which is empty. So who's gonna be there? It's just like, what? Who is this for? And you, you hit the nail on the head when you said it's just about the aesthetics. Like, I think the marches are good for middle-class people who have the weekends off to go and feel like they've done something and to wear their little badges and not actually do anything. I give big props to the people who went out and tried to shut down Shannon Airport. Shannon Airport is where the US stops their military planes to refuel and to go over to Palestine to give more weapons to the Israelis. And there's been a lot of work on trying to stop this from happening. I really want to stress that the Irish Free State government does not really represent the people on the ground. They don't represent what everyone I've talked to, they do not represent their views. They're a bunch of West Brits, in my opinion. But yeah, like, and also, if we want to like go off about this, is that in March, they, this organization had a No Shamrocks for Genocide Joe thing, saying, demanding that none of the political parties go over to Washington, D.C. And meet with Biden and all those awful war criminals. And in the north, in Belfast, it is Sinn Féin. In Belfast, Sinn Féin, who say they are committed to Palestine, well, they're not. They're for a 2-state solution because that's what Gerry Adams got after he sold out the Republican movement here. He went and tried to sell it out. He sold it out in multiple countries. I hate Gerry Adams. I'm not going to get into this, but I definitely view Sinn Féin as the— like the PA, the Palestinian Authority, who also sold out Palestinians. But yeah, they— like, some lady invited Sinn Féin to talk at this rally against the people going over, like Sinn Féin going over to DC to meet with Biden. They invited invited fucking Sinn Féin to speak at this. And I'm just like, what the fuck is going on? And I think part of it is in the South with— this is the problem with normalization, and this is what Palestinians absolutely need to resist 100%, is the idea in the South is they start to think, well, the North is just a separate country and there isn't an occupation going on. And it just makes them feel a lot better to think that way, when in reality, Republicans are being stopped and searched 200, 300, 400 times because they're saying, we want the Brits out. We want a united Ireland. Republicans are still being arrested and detained without trial. And the South just doesn't think about it. And they could just call them terrorists because it's easier to just put that label on people who say, you know what, I want these colonizers out. They don't think of the similarities of Sinn Féin and the Palestinian Authority. They're all sellouts. I'm going to be done. I'm really sorry. Brett, go on. I'm sorry.

Speaker 3: No, it's fine. I just wanted to go off of an issue that I've been having since the Since October of last year, which is this link between complicity and collaboration that people always draw, but then never follow through on in all the organizing circles over here in Holland. And then whenever I hear people talk in speeches in any other protests, or whenever there were encampments or anything else, It's always about whatever university or company or whatever's complicity in genocide. And it could be fucking Lockheed Martin or Boeing or Google. And at what point, really? And this kind of ties into the wider strategy of how do we Organize and mobilize people. Because, you know, it sounds nice to say that, oh, well, we're not really collaborating with the Zionist entity, we're just complicit in all of their crimes. Which is all well and good if, you know, you, you just happen to have a pension fund. Like, there's levels of removal. But if you're actively working on a computer program that is being used in drones, That is like a level of collaboration. But there seems to be a huge level of resistance to actually acknowledge that parts of, you know, institutions, and therefore certain workers, do actually collaborate in this ongoing genocide. And part of that leads into A lot of issues that we saw with the university encampments, that was the major center of organizing activity in a lot of the countries in Europe and most of the US. That's starting to be taken up by the labor unions in the US. But I can tell you that in the Netherlands, all of the pro-Palestine rallies are essentially dead after the universities kind of dropped it. And it was very effectively repressed. But there is not really a very effective organizing capacity for pro-Palestine or really just any kind of anti-war or anti-genocide rally or rallying around anything. And this speaks to, you know, the weakness of the left, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, there are a lot of failures of organizing tactics and kind of an unwillingness to examine, you know, what works in certain countries and what doesn't work in others. So for example, we always see those wonderful videos of people sabotaging production plants in the UK. Please don't think about doing that in the US. You will get shot. I don't think that has to be said. Like, PAL action, you can get away with that in the UK and maybe parts of Europe. Probably not Germany. But if you go to a Lockheed Martin plant in the US, you're not going to get away with that. Well, I'm talking about when they break into the plant itself, like they do in some of the PAL Action videos in the UK, not blocking the entrance or stuff. I'm also referring to people in the who are listening don't know I'm referring to the chat. But yeah, there's like PAL action, actions that where they like actively break into the facilities and do stuff, and that will result in very, very different retaliations from the state based on the country you're in. But also, you know, kind of just how do we respond to the level of repression the usage of repressive technologies? How do we actually actively discuss the level of investment the different trade unions have? I think right now the ACLU right now is fighting with their union where the ACLU is saying that we can't divest from Israel because too much of our retirement package is based in Israeli bonds.

Speaker 2: See, that's just fucked up.

Lara Sheehi: Oh my God.

Speaker 3: But there's so much complexity to how labor organizing and just organizing in general has to go that I don't think we were prepared for come October of last year. And I think we're just starting to realize. And I think the complicity versus collaboration discussion is part of it. But I think it speaks to something much wider and systematic.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Yeah, thanks, Chris, for that. I just got reminded when you were speaking about this thing, when you're speaking to people about like the issues, they sometimes bring capitalism as like the third, a third, oh yeah, yeah, and capitalism again, it's really capitalism that's the problem. They bring it as like the third last thing or like the third thing on the list of things that they think is bad. But I think this also follows through with the idea of collaboration versus complicity. Is that we've adopted this language of complicity the same way as we've adopted, you know, the language of like individual accountability, the same way that we've adopted the language of solidarity not being based on the collective but the individual. And all of these things are rooted in capitalism. So in the same way that like even now, like trade unions being absolutely, you know, useless Because they're pretty much intertwined with the system. The trade union bosses and bureaucracy really creates a system whereby it makes it so difficult for workers to strike. Instead of unions being the space where strike is made possible and there's protection of workers in that space of the union, it becomes the opposite. It becomes even more difficult to strike. Because of that, so like I feel like in a way this this whole system of like yeah yeah we can't really divert because when we can't really stop sending weapons because and it's always been because capitalism and capitalism is not about complicity capitalism is the problem capitalism capitalism is is the goal of these you know and and it the tools. Of maintaining capitalism are tools of violence, tools of destruction, tools of genocides, massacres, military industries. Even the media industrial complex is also tied to capitalism. Everything is really tied to capitalism. So like, I hate how people just make it seem to be like a third external thing that is there that's just Maybe like it's in the background, but it's pretty much that, that we've adopted the language of complicity so we don't talk about the intrinsic sort of reasoning behind capitalism and how it works. There's nothing ethical about capitalism, so why would they care about divestment or about not selling weapons or about— there's no such thing as You know, the morality of capitalism. And so, and so that's why, like, when we talk about institutions, when we talk about government, like the Irish neoliberal government, they're very much like that. You know, all they care about is, again, increasing profit, increasing the government surplus year by year so they can invest that in military, so they can, you know, increase The profits of the elite class. And so the world is not, like Palestine is also not separate from that. The fact that like weapons are being used and you're having to like, you know, having Palestine Action having to go to these and, you know, and stop that sort of process of capitalism from continuing, is them understanding that? Is them not thinking capitalism is a third thing? Yeah. And that's why, for example, when we see protests being useless, because they're not disrupting that process. And that's why we think any discussion, whether with trade unions, whether with the power, really the power is in that disruption, whether it's by workers in strikes or in the physical actual disruption of stopping the production of the weapons and military and And maybe it may be some sort of cycle of reproduction and cycle of, you know, capital that flows between the Zionist entity and the outside world. It's very important. And I think that's, for me, maybe that's a very kind of one-side look into it. But I think it's also our fault. We need to stop using the word complicity.

Lara Sheehi: Yes, I completely agree, Banna. I think this is such an interesting point to bring up, Prez. Banna's framing, I think, is essential. And I'm so glad that you went first, Banna, because as I was thinking about what Prez was bringing up, I was thinking like, yeah, none of us exist outside of our different contexts, and we have to sort of respond to the context that we're in. And I think, Prez, this is what you're bringing up, right? That the tactics that call action can use in the UK very effectively might not translate as well to like the US in general. Certainly not like I'm thinking of where I grew up, the US, you know, the South in the US. I don't— I remember when people, you know, started talking about those actions and talking with my partner about how we felt worried. And I think like, just to be fair, the people who have done some of those actions are very brave and taking on serious personal sacrifices. But yeah, we have to think about the context that we're in, and the context that we are all in is capitalism, right? And we have to address that. And I think that this unwillingness— I mean, I think I made a lot of notes, so I'm trying to think about Can I get through all of this coherently? Because I think all of these things are connected, like the things Taliyah was bringing up before as well. You know, the ceiling is getting lower, people are going to these protests or not going at all. And when they do go, it's sort of this outlet more than like moving towards material asks. And I think, I think some of this is a difficulty grappling with our role in genocide and our role in stopping genocide. Because as we talk about, and as I think a lot of people talk about, and even like in JSC, we had this conversation internally a few days ago about like the role of sacrifice in solidarity. I think it's really important for folks to internalize this idea that solidarity, you know, solidarity should be rooted in this understanding that, like, our futures are interconnected, justice is interconnected, like, we cannot be separated from each other. And at the same time, when we think about, like, materially supporting decolonization somewhere that we are either, like, passively or complicitly or collaboratively maintaining that colonization or profiting off of that colonization in one way or another, that real solidarity does include sacrifice. And I'm gonna just shout out my friend, if it's okay here, because a friend of mine from Twitter officially had his Israeli citizenship, like, he renounced it and officially got the, you know, like, notice that it has been annulled. He's no longer a citizen of the Zionist entity. And that is also like part that, I mean, for me, I think that's an important, like both material and symbolic sacrifice, right? Material in the sense that you are literally giving up something. Yeah, Nadav, I should say Nadav is his name. You're literally giving something up. You're divesting from a settler future. And investing in something, right? It's not just negative that you're telling people, and I think this is really meaningful, that I'm not only gonna, like, refuse to continue to benefit from this, but I'm investing in the future that I think we all deserve, you know, that I think you deserve as well. And that process isn't, like, easy or quick or short, and people are giving up real things when they do that.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: And that is part of what makes it meaningful as well, right? And so I wanted to bring that up because I think that at least having been in the context of organizing a little bit in the US, both here and from here and in the US itself, I think there is a real difficulty of people Like mapping material, you know, what it means to like materially disrupt or to divest or change from where they are. You know, sometimes things feel so far away when they're not. They're like so close, right? They're so close. And you were giving so many examples of that. I have to say, like, I think Part of this as well, like, what I was thinking of when you're bringing up complicity versus collaboration is that, like, so often in the US context, but I think everywhere, we see people be like, oh, well, you know, the US, the UK, Germany, France, they're all complicit. And it's like, no, they are collaborating in genocide. They are collaborating in genocide. You can map the sending of weapons, the moving of Airplanes, the sharing of intelligence, and people have, right? So it's not, it's not like some symbolic abstract thing. We know the facts and we have them. And also people are collaborating in genocide when they decide to airdrop aid and kill children with the airdropped aid, right? People are collaborating in genocide when they provide cover for genocide. And it's not even just like Western imperial states that have been doing that, right? We see how Jordan has been complicit in different ways— sorry, collaborative.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Collaborative.

Lara Sheehi: Let me catch myself as well. In different ways. And Egypt has been collaborative in different ways. And so, like, these are really important things. But yeah, I mean, I don't want to just go on because I could, but I want to say—

Speaker 3: Go for it.

Speaker 2: I definitely have, so go for it.

Lara Sheehi: No, not this one. This is going to be like the longest podcast episode.

Speaker 3: No, I think once we maxed out at like 4 hours, you're good.

Speaker 2: It was 5. Oh my God. 5 hours.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: Okay, so I—

Speaker 2: we don't do those anymore.

Lara Sheehi: Then I will like just a couple things more. I mean, I want to shout out like, I think the encampments were really important and that, like, this was something, you know, folks were really thinking about, like, what they could do that would be a material impact. And we saw the ways, like, people sacrificed their safety, their freedom, their scholarships, their enrollment at schools, their jobs, you know, their, like, careers in a lot of ways. And I think that was really meaningful. And I don't— I also don't think it's right that it should— that it always falls on, like, young students and young people to be like the vanguard of these sort of, you know, like radical movements that are aimed at doing this. One of the things that like Jesse talks about a lot is our critique of these NGO systems. And I think, you know, NGOs generally, I can, like, I can talk about the US context because this is what I know the best, but I'm sure in Ireland—

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: You have the same problem one way or another. You know, that people are like making money being NGO workers, but really like sort of lobbyists who work, I mean, only for the Democratic Party's benefit, really, because the slogan will be that they're in solidarity with Palestine or that they're anti-Zionists or that, you know, whatever. In reality, they focus on these campaigns that are largely protests with no material ask that take like, you know, that make people feel good and take their anger away, or signing petitions and sending petitions to your representatives who aren't going to vote in your interest anyway. And I'll come back to that in a second because they, you know, historically haven't and don't change their minds. And, you know, what do they do with those petitions? They collect your emails so they can ask you to help them fundraise for the next year of them asking you to send petitions and go to protests. And meanwhile, in Palestine, the situation's getting worse. And what happens when you have those things of no new tactics, you know, people increasingly, people outside increasingly upset and angry, and things here getting worse? You don't have material change, as we've seen, like from these NGOs Who control this space in the US, at least over the last years, you see like a change in rhetoric where they make new declarations about themselves and the ceiling gets lower because there's desperation, right? So I won't like say the name, but, you know, there are Palestinians who are really well respected, like Palestinian, you know, community leaders who are engaging in public conversations with people who are Zionists, you know, and we can talk a lot about what's Zionism and what's not. But I think this is part of the problem when we don't address the context that we're in, that we think, oh, well, we can keep lowering our bar and things will get better, right? Which has never worked. And I think like, What this has led us to at GSC, and this is a conversation that started even before the genocide, is that this shows us that we needed to go back to the basics. Because there are so many people saying things, like I saw today, people are like, oh, Mehdi Hasan isn't a Zionist, you guys. Of course not. He opposes Zionism. And it's like, okay, explain to me what you think Zionism is. Explain to me what you think opposition to Zionism is. Explain to me what you think normalization is. And a lot of people can't do that, you know? And I think there were institutions that people expected to be able to define those things, right? You would expect that Jewish Voice for Peace, which routinely claims that it's anti-Zionist on every single Instagram post it ever makes, to have a coherent definition of what it is. And you can look it up, they don't. And you would expect, you know, Palestinian organizations like the BNC to have, you know, clear definitions of what normalization is and consistently call that out. And that also doesn't exist, right? So we're living in this context where people are dying every day, people are being murdered every day, and we don't even have the language and the terms to talk to each other and understand what we mean, right? Or talk to each other and understand what Palestinians have meant. And so I think those things are really important. And I hope I didn't go too far from your question, Prez. But I think those things are really important when we're getting to those questions of like, what is collaboration? Because how can we know what collaboration is if we don't know what Zionism is, right? If we don't know that Mehdi Hasan Peddles Zionism every time he hosts a Zionist, every time he questions, you know, someone critical of Zionism, every time he talks about, like, Israel as a future, as a legitimate state, or as a state that should continue to exist, or not as a colonial state. Like, if we don't know that these things are Zionism, then how can we know what collaboration with Zionism is, you know?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: So, um, I have more to say about the material thing, but I'm gonna shut up because I think I just talked for 20 straight minutes.

Speaker 3: No, I think it's good. I think the, like, the central thing is just that we overall don't— we have a lot of organizations that don't directly confront the issue at hand, which is what Zionism is for, you know, the variety of reasons of propaganda. material interests in having a colonial station in the Middle East. But, you know, I think that brings us to kind of what do we do about this? So, as you said, the encampments and all these protests were important in kind of bringing, having kind of a tone shift after a certain point. But, you know, there were limits to them.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: And, you know, not everyone is a college student, like you said, and no one— not everyone should be. College students shouldn't be the only ones organizing. So what is our role, and how do we keep building this into an effective movement? Because one of the major things that I've seen people get most frustrated with here is, you know, just essentially People going, why is no one listening to us? Like, we have all of this proof, we have all of these things showing, demonstrating that a genocide is happening, but that doesn't change the world. If we could get things to change just based on quote-unquote truth and reality, So many things would have changed by now, and you know truth. What is truth? And all of that leads to a billion other questions. But you know it's it we still have the same issue of how do we actually fundamentally get to a place where some kind of actual anti-Zionist movement can have enough power. to affect change in some way, whether it be ending what's going on now or preventing something from happening when it gets worse, or so on and so forth?

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Such an excellent question, Fred, because like, I think this is something that we grapple with as the GSCs, like how do we How do we go forward when it comes to organizing? What are the best ways to organize? And we just noted that this is— that we noted some issues with organizing spaces. And I feel like before we are able to talk about how we move forward, we need to grapple with these issues. The first is that right now, the Palestine solidarity kind of movement worldwide has been very big, right? It's been like sort of like resembling a form of a mass movement, right? And unfortunately, in mass movements, there are limitations, right? So one is that often those movements would have a lack of ideological coherence, right? So like there's no kind of like clear set of principles that guide that. And sometimes the, like, what they are, what they stand for principally is very kind of muddied and mystified. The second is a lack of structural coherence, right? So they're not really, they don't have the sort of structure of accountability or structures that, you know, sort of create a more coherent leadership that can be the ones that can take responsibility and accountability when parts of the movements don't work, or when there are issues that are met, or with drafting and organizing, thinking about tactics and things like that, and leading the movement. And we've seen also a lack of you know, a concrete goal. So sometimes, like, people would just not really know what they're asking for, what the demands are. They're just going to protest, or like they think boycott is the final goal, but the goal is not the boycott itself. There's something further than that. So I think a clarity on what the goal is. And one thing as well that we found in those spaces where like there is a movement for solidarity and things like that, like especially in the Palestine solidarity space, is there are layers and groupings of whether different smaller groups wanting to be part of that, that want to suddenly take over. They want to have more prominence, have more power, and it becomes a source of a conflict over who is leading the movement. And so even though you might think, oh, this is a mass movement, everything is horizontal, we're all equal. But at the end of the day, what happens is that layers of the movement will want to control or be more in control. There will be issues with— between that because of the different other layers that I spoke about earlier. And so for me, this type of movement is easily co-opted by liberals, right, and liberal Zionists. Because what happens is that if you're not clear about what the targets are, you're not clear about what the goal is, you're not clear about what your ideology is, you're not clear about the structure of your movement or the strategies and the tactics and et cetera, et cetera, you're not really doing anything really. You're just kind of like, I don't know if you, I don't know which bird it is, but there's a specific bird that kind of keeps going in circles. I forgot the name of the word, but it keeps going in circles, basically. So it's, it's an exercise in futility, right? So for us, like, we have to be able to grapple with these issues. We have to be able to, to understand these, like, dynamics and avoid them, like, avoid that, uh, incoherence. And most importantly, I think, for me Which I found to be the problem, is that people, like, you know, and I might say something really controversial here, but I feel like people keep saying, like, oh yeah, we're boycotting McDonald's. Like, first of all, who would eat McDonald's anyway, right? So, like, I just question anybody that, like, would go and eat McDonald's. That's already on you. But the fact that this is your main goal, that this is your main campaign, like, people are being massacred right now in Palestine, and your main, like, thing is about like boycotting a brand or boycotting. I understand that it's very important for us as a human to not be, you know, buying, you know, certain products that are connected. But there are bigger, bigger, most important, you know, targets. And I think I've, I've once even opened this idea and I've had a conversation with a friend. And the conversation was with like Oh, like he was saying something about like, oh yeah, um, I don't know why people keep talking about like Meta being complicit and Meta participating, uh, in, in gathering intelligence and even in the like massacre with like WhatsApp basically being completely at the hands of the Israeli military intelligence. And they're like, why aren't people just talking? Why aren't people just boycotting Meta? Why are people like not Like, boy, like stopping using WhatsApp. And to be honest, I looked at him and I was so ashamed of myself because I was like, I can't believe that I, for once, it was difficult for me to say, oh, actually it's very difficult to now cancel, like stop using Instagram, stop using WhatsApp, stop using Facebook, stop using, you know, all of these Meta products and Google and whatnot. Like, it's very difficult because our lives are so intertwined with these things. But then you start understanding that the element of solidarity, which is sacrifice, we're not ready to make that. So as a movement, if we're not really ready to grapple with these very difficult questions of actually, we're not even talking about the targets that we should be talking about, we're not even actually being honest with ourselves about which ones are being mostly what we call the collaborators, As opposed to complicit, as we discussed earlier. I think if we don't do that, I don't think we're going to be able to move forward at all. I think we're just going to be going in loops and we're going to be throwing moralistic arguments and virtue signaling at people. That's all what we're going to keep doing. Oh, don't have Coca-Cola, don't have McDonald's. That's not the main thing. It's a boycott, yes, but it's not the main target. It's not the one that will hurt You know, the Zionist entity the most. And so we have to be also very clear what is the target, but also what is the goal? Is the goal the boycott itself, or is the goal liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea? And that is the real question.

Lara Sheehi: I'll add something if it's okay. I think that was great, Manam. A couple things I want to add. I mean, I think part of— I think there are like a few things going on when we think about Like the lack of material focus sometimes in organizing. I will say, like, from my rant before, that I think part of, like, that we exist in a capitalist economy and that we exist in the context around us, that sometimes what's frustrating from Palestine is seeing how people will say, like, for example, it's Election Day. I'm so sorry to remind everyone, or it's US Election Day. Yeah. today. And so people are saying things like, okay, after we elect Harris, then we'll push her left. And the thing is, part of the reason why endlessly writing letters to your representatives doesn't work and that Harris isn't going to be pushed left on Palestine is because of the financial investment, right? Even if we don't think Like, even if we set aside American imperialism in the Middle East and all of these things, like, there's a whole industry making weapons and selling them and making billions of dollars. Their stocks are up this year because of this ongoing genocide, right? And this is all connected to, like, lobbying and who is, you know, donating money to campaigns and things like that, right? So sometimes it's frustrating to see that people continue to take these same tactics that have been proven to be not so effective, whereas there are other options, right? And I think this is what, like, having grown up in the US context, but I think this exists in other parts of the world, I'm sure. I think there's this, like, deep desire for something different. And I think a lot of people, especially right now, feel that very strongly, that this is not the way the world should be and that things could be better and should be better. And I think maybe like the genocide has thrown that into really sharp relief, but probably people have been feeling that, right, in the US context, at least for a while. And so, but I think there's also this like disbelief that people have the power to make that happen and that maybe that has something to do with The return to these, like, either protests without an ask or same tactics as let's push someone left when we have no concept of how we're going to do that and it's never worked before. And so I think, like, part of what needs to happen is that, and this is what I thought was really meaningful in the case of some of the encampments, is people seeing themselves succeed. Because when you can see yourself succeed in something that maybe felt impossible, that really changes how you see yourself and the people around you, right? And that's part of the resentment that, like, speaking for myself only, that I feel towards some of these NGOs because they're co-opting people's energies toward things that they know will lose, right? Whereas there are things that can win. And so to give an example of that and like, Some specifics. I wanted to just, like, really quickly, if it's okay, talk a little bit about this ongoing case, because I didn't mention this yet in this podcast, but I'm based in, like, the Bethlehem area in Palestine. And a bit north, there's this— a bit north of Bethlehem, there's this valley called al-Maqrur Valley. And there's, like, families that live in this valley that have cultivated it. It's actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been now for about 10 years. And it's also been a target of Israeli settler colonialism, like an escalated target for the last years, and especially since the genocide. So there's a family that we've talked about before that has land that used to have a home and a business on this land in this area, called the Qaysiya family. They're a Christian Palestinian family who, like I said, they own this land. And I believe it was even as long as a couple decades ago, this Israeli settler organization called Hemanuta, which is a subsidiary of the JNF, the Jewish National Fund, which the Jewish National Fund has had this Like, kind of quasi-fake. Okay, like, we can talk about the role of the JNF in the colonization of Palestine forever, but they've had this, like, you know, alleged policy that they don't get engaged in land theft, but land purchases, they would call it, in the West Bank. So they have this subsidiary, Himanutah, which has been involved in very heinous cases against, like, some of the most vulnerable Palestinian communities in the West Bank, Over years, they hire people from other settler organizations. Like I mentioned, Bezalel Smotrich earlier, he had founded an organization called Regavim, which is very aggressive as well. They hired someone from that organization to work for them, this Hemanuta organization. Anyway, just the point is that this organization, which you can imagine is secure and well-funded because, again, subsidiary of the JNF, Has been targeting and harassing this family for years, for years, has had their home demolished multiple times, their restaurant, their guest house, everything destroyed. And like, this is not a unique case, right? This is like one of maybe hundreds of cases like it just in the West Bank. But this is really important. And by the way, it's important because—

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: The land belongs to the family. This is like a known fact. Even the Israeli courts acknowledge that the land belongs to this family. And so it's ongoing, but I think, you know, they will be successful in the end. But this is important because like in this case, we can see very clearly like who are the actors that involve— that are involved, right? And there are like so many more things that I could say about this, but Hemanuta is not like a unique organization. Maybe what's most unique about them is that they're connected to the JNF, but there are so many little settler organizations that have little budgets that are making big waves like this against very vulnerable communities because, like, as actually we haven't talked about it in this podcast, but—

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: Like, one of the things that's important in settler colonialism is the role of the settler themselves, right? And actually, maybe I'll just tell the story quickly because I think it reflects that. The other day, this family that I was talking about in the north of Bethlehem, they went out to visit their land. It's their land. You know, they're trying to get it back because this is also their livelihood. And one of the women was attacked by a settler.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Lara Sheehi: One of our members happened to be out there. And the settler, either the settler that attacked or someone later, was saying, you know, they were a policeman in this context, and basically trying to, like, get the family members arrested and close the area down and do all of this stuff. And I was seeing the video live. And at the time, I was thinking to myself, well, there's no way this person is a police officer because they're not dressed as a police officer. And even if they are, what's the relevance, right? If you're not acting in your role as a police officer. But it's immaterial because here we are in an area of the West Bank. They're surrounded by settlers in the sense, I mean, like people actively settling this specific land, surrounded by military. Everyone has a gun. This person's claiming to be a police officer. It doesn't matter in that space if he's a police officer or not because he's representing all the power of state in that moment against these people who, it's not just that they're unarmed, they're Palestinians in their land that's being stolen. And so we can see very clearly in this instance how the settler is the state and the state is the settler. And so when you have all of these little organizations, it's very easy for them to create very, very big problems for tiny communities with many, with less resources maybe than some of these families, because the state is behind them. And so I bring that up because at the same time, a lot of these organizations receive foreign donations. Okay? And so a few years ago, we had launched and shared this campaign, the Defund Racism campaign, along with like many other Palestinian organizations. And part of the idea was just to suggest like a campaign that people can have where, you know, you can disrupt the funding of these organizations because most likely there's a charity in your area of the world, right? Whether it's like your state in the US or your city in Ireland or your country or whatever, where there's a charity registered that's sending money to an Israeli organization doing some kind of violence against Palestinian communities. And like I said, a lot of these organizations don't have huge budgets. So imagine, like, okay, I don't think any of us are, like, making huge money from any organizations, but okay, like, personally, a listener can imagine that 20% of their budget is gone all of a sudden, right? That's, like, not an insignificant thing that you have to all of a sudden adjust to. And so these are ways that people can really impact the lives of Palestinians who are dealing with the everyday violence of settler colonialism that's really serious, whether it's the destruction of your access to water, a drone over your head, somebody trying to sue you for your land or have your home destroyed. These are real serious things that people can interrupt. And so it doesn't have to be this campaign. I mean, I encourage people to look into this because it's It's very much in your control, even just to submit a complaint about this. And you can look at the website defundracism.org if you're interested. But this isn't the only way, right? People can find other ways that they can materially disrupt settler colonialism from where they are that they can win, because that's the important element, right? You can have the best idea for a campaign, right? We're going to stop the—

Speaker 2: Right.

Lara Sheehi: Just as an example, the flow of arms from the US to Israel, or we're going to stop the flow of, you know, finances. And that's great. But when you take on a campaign like that, you're not just taking on something that's in your immediate control, right? You're taking on an entire infrastructure or several infrastructures that are at work that are huge. And have been existing for a long time, right? And so, as I think Bana was saying, talking about these mass movements and these, you know, there's opportunity for a lot of disorganization and a lot of interruptions and difficulties, whereas there are other things that we can do that can help us get to that point where we can have a difference on the ground tomorrow.

Speaker 3: Yeah, that was great.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a really good place to wrap it up. But I just really, really appreciate all the awareness that you guys have done on Twitter and how committed you are against normalization, against the two-state solution, and the support for people who are resisting against colonization and occupation. You guys are super solid.

Speaker 3: To end the episode, do you want to remind everyone where they can find you? What are your socials that you definitely did not just say?

Speaker 2: Sure.

Lara Sheehi: Yeah, folks can find us at— folks can find us at @ShepherdsForGood on Twitter, @GoodShepherdCollective on Instagram. And if anyone is still using Facebook, Good Shepherd Collective, you can find us there.

Speaker 3: Okay. And are there any— is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap up?

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Just one thing. We have just recently released our new website. Our new website has really amazing data that you would not be able to find anywhere else. We have stuff on demolition, stuff on just generally on death numbers and things that researchers would have to look really hard for. We have analysis as well on that data. So do, if you're a researcher or if you're interested in compiling or you're looking for data and numbers on what's going on in Palestine, do visit our website. But also if you have sort of other data that you're interested in, we might also have it. So do email us at info@goodshepherd.org.

Speaker 3: Yeah, the website is really pretty. I don't— it's very rare you see a website that's designed for data and actually looks good.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really nice.

Lara Sheehi: Thank you so much. I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna tell our member that designed our website that, and he's gonna be so happy.

Speaker 2: It's really good. I was really impressed by it.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I, I'm actually— I do actual, like, data science and research, so I dig through all of these kind of data websites in a miserable 90% of my life. So it's actually very pleasant to look through. So it's a lot of hard work.

Speaker 2: Yeah, the data is depressing though, but it's a very well-designed website.

Lara Sheehi: We can't do anything about that, right? That part's out of our hands.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Lara Sheehi: At least for now.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: But yeah, thank you so much for coming on, and we'll hopefully talk to you again soon.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: So bye.

Lara Sheehi: Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 3: Bye.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: Thank you.

Lara Sheehi: فلسطين حر من البحر للنهار.

Speaker 2: شد فابن بالين وربيع كرك توبة إن يفند غياب را الشلوف مريض.

Lara Sheehi: I love you. I love you.

Speaker 3: Listen.

Lara Sheehi: Listen.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: A wheel arena vert go wekken, mannen meen jou in de jeaak schachten.

Lara Sheehi: Graan je wel, is meer dan gaske jou.

Banu Abu-Zuluf: Ik volg het van erg houden.

Lara Sheehi: O rochedo van Hawaïa, o rochedo van Hawaïa.

Speaker 2: أوروش دو با هوایا، اوروش دو با هوایا، اوروش دو با هوایا.

Lara Sheehi: کن نشیر حق دم تاریز؟ استین حرم للبحر للنهار.