Francesca Albanese - Edward Said London Lecture (2023)

Francesca Albanese: Good evening, everyone. I'm deeply grateful to the Cattane Foundation for inviting me to deliver this important lecture, and to Professor Bashir Al-Manaheb for being the architect of this event. And my gratitude also goes to Professor Nadia Abuelhash, who came from the United States to join us tonight. And I admit, I was also thrilled to see a painting of the wondrous Malak Matar in the event announcement, It is an immense honor to be with you tonight and reflect on the enduring legacy of Edward Said, a luminary, an unparalleled intellectual statesman, whose influence has left a profound imprint on generations of Palestinians and beyond. It is my privilege to share the impact of this visionary thinker on my own professional life, including within the realm of my current role as a U.N. Special Rapporteur. Commencing with a personal reflection on my own encounter with Edward Said, this lecture will be guided by 3 assertions from Said that point to the past, the present, and the future of the seemingly forever occupation of Palestine. These assertions concern imperialism's ability to rewrite history, the potential of international law as a catalyst for change— fantasy, but still— and the role of humanism as a pathway to reshaping the political discourse. The 20th anniversary of Edward Said's passing is also the 30th anniversary of the Oslo Accords, which Said saw with rare clairvoyance and rejected. And these both offer an opportunity to think through the current reality and future prospects. So, let's start. So, my first encounter with Edward Said was right here in London, when I was a student pursuing advanced legal studies at SOAS. And I'm so glad my professor, the professor who introduced me to colonialism, is here. I know she doesn't want to be named. Thank you, Katrina Drew.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: Thank you.

Francesca Albanese: While I'm not among the fortunate who met Edward Said in person, I came to know him through his writings. Theories and compelling social literary narratives that continue to enthrall. Think Orientalism, think postcolonial theory, think the politics of the other. These interactions catalyzed a momentous shift of my own trajectory away from the international legal scholarship shaped by the persistent shadows of Eurocentrism to a more capacious one that valued and engaged a multiplicity of perspectives. This detour brought to light my own privilege as part of the world that had historically colonized, Orientalized, and legendized the other. Even though this endeavor was not devoid of discomfort, totally not pain-free, Edward Said's scholarship constituted an irresistible force to get to know the other, the colonized and the oppressed. And this implied learning to challenge, to see and challenge distortions and misinformation of certain Western traditions. In retrospect, Said's teaching expanded an intellectual landscape that had already been influenced by another giant thinker, this time a compatriot of mine, Antonio Gramsci. Despite different contexts and methodologies, Said and Gramsci converged in their critiques of power structures and the underpinning hegemonic control and cultural dominance often perpetuated through narratives that shape and sustain power dynamics. Interestingly, while I wouldn't hesitate to consider Edward Said a lighthouse in my professional journey, preparing this lecture sort of prompted me to reflect on what this means in practice. And I must admit it was a rare moment of positive self-consciousness. That's not something I frequently experience as a UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory. So, throughout his life, Said modeled the traits of a powerful witness, truthful and independent in exposing the most difficult truths, even to the most resisting audiences, and even in the toughest circumstances. And this has no doubt shaped my professional ethos. Over 2 decades as a human rights lawyer, mostly with the United Nations, I wrestled with the difficult task of aligning my critical view of international law that I had acquired, grounded on a principle of equality for all, with the harsh reality of realpolitik. And it transpired in my work in a naturally people-centered approach. It was a natural posture that I discovered I had, although I realized it the other day as I was writing my lecture. That posture was much harder to maintain in the challenging context of working as a lawyer for the United Nations in what remains of Palestine, where the actions or inaction of the international community tarnish the integrity of international law. And this is where I decided to leave both Palestine and the United Nations. In somewhat an ironic twist, one could say that Edward Said indirectly played a role in making me unemployed. Yet the restlessness brought about by the— that incongruity between legal principles and practice did not dissipate. Particularly in the case of Palestinian refugees, a group I had nominally served for years in Palestine, the application— to whom the application of international law appeared to be more of an exception than the rule. I had for years struggled to comprehend why Palestinian refugees were treated as if they were like a pariah, In refugee law, children of a lesser god. And thus I embarked on a study of the legal dimension on the question of Palestinian refugees who remain, as I write in the book, the human face of the century-old Palestinian tragedy. After 4 years, this research culminated in a book. Despite its somewhat unremarkable title, credit to the editor who is, no offense, British. The book explores Palestinian refugeehood as a tapestry of fragmentation and opportunity, where international law is at the center of both. Clearly influenced by Edward Said's insights, I emphasize in the book from the beginning through the end that for Palestinian refugees, refugee status and mind you, it's a legal, it's a legal treatise, but refugee status transcends the matter of legal determination. Palestinian refugees are orphans of a homeland that once existed and exists no more. This is what— how Edward Said put it. And legally, this underscores the impossibility of fully addressing the refugee question without resolving its collective dimension, namely The still-violated right of self-determination, which is the right to exist as a people, politically, socially, culturally, economically, in freedom, as a people. Regrettably, this reality persists even today. And this is why I devoted my first report as a U.N. special rapporteur to self-determination. Just to clear the mind of those insisting that the two-state solution as concocted in Oslo is the way to go to realize the right of self-determination. In this capacity, I strive to fulfill the role of an impartial and informed witness. The perception of impartiality remains a contentious aspect of this position, constantly drawing accusations of bias that my predecessors and I continually, continuously experience. But I once read that impartiality is a pompous name for indifference and an elegant name for ignorance. So the way I see it instead is an obligation to investigate and establish facts objectively, studying them against applicable international law, which is very rich, especially in the case of Palestine, and then advocating for justice. Reparations, and the rule of law, which is very much what I do. In the case at hand, this implies exposing the fundamental asymmetry of power, resources, and intent between Israelis and the Palestinians, and that beyond the perception of them as equal parties or rivals, the truth is that the two remain bound by an unequal and iniquitous relationship, one between the occupier and the occupied, the colonizer and the colonized. In my role as a special rapporteur, I see the occupied Palestinian territory as a microcosm of abuses, where structural and eruptive violence constitute a coercive environment where human rights are constantly violated. This is an inherent aspect of Palestinian life ingrained in Israel's 56-year military occupation, which can only be apartheid by default. In my first 16 months as special rapporteur, I've witnessed an alarming escalation in the frequency and brutality of Israel's military assaults against the Palestinians, resulting in the loss of almost half a thousand Palestinian lives. Including 96 children. And during the same period, 61 Israelis, including 6 children, have also been killed. About 9,000 Palestinians have been detained, some while simply farming their land, fishing in the Gaza-depleted waters, or resisting forced evictions. Jenin refugee camp, for instance, has been attacked 4 times this year.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: Wow.

Francesca Albanese: Causing casualties, injuries, and displacement. Soldiers and armed settlers freely terrorize and brutalize Palestinians across the occupied territory. Entire villages are being ethnically cleansed in the Jordan Valley or in South Hebron Hills as we speak. 2 new full-fledged offensives were launched against illegally besieged Gaza in 2022 and in 2023. And as children were reminding me lately, and the drones never stop. So these years, these attacks have been marked by deliberate and unnecessary use of force indiscriminately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. While Israel's new far-right government may have expedited the descent into this new nadir, the current ordeal in the occupied Palestinian territory is not the result of the rise to power of figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir, It is the culmination of decades of dispossession of the Palestinians at the end of subsequent Israeli governments, even liberal ones, and of the international community's disregard for international law and granting impunity to Israel. What comes next is hard to predict. And this is where I would like to delve into 3 arguments from Said's 35-year-old text, Orientalism. The first assertion is, part of the main plan of imperialism is that We will give you history. We will write it for you. And we will reorder the past. What's more truly frightening is the defacement, the mutilation, and ultimately the eradication of history in order to create an order that is favorable to the United States. While Said references the United States, his quote reflects the overarching modus operandi of imperial powers, which today is embodied by the Global North, which continues to align with and protect Israel. In the process to justify political decisions and action, certain histories are defaced, mutilated, and eradicated. This is not a new phenomenon. The narration of violence that occurred in historic Palestine between 1947 and 1949, which Israel frames as a war of liberation at best, obscures the dispossession of Palestinians, the disintegration of Palestine as it has existed until then, and the atrocities that accompanied it. Edward Said is certainly among the most influential Palestinian voices who have strived to bring the other, the other's history to the forefront. Yet we are still in the realm of conflicting narratives. What if the global stage could hear the truth, the truth directly from lead Their Yassin, Lifta, and Salihah, or from the mass graves of Tantura, hidden beneath the parking lot of a beach resort popular among Israelis? What would liberation look like for the souls buried there and their heirs, exiled and deprived of the possibility to honor their abodes? Would we reconsider the terms aggressor and perpetrator? The only antidote to the war of conflicting narratives is just truth boldly proclaimed to set the record straight. And yet, to know the truth, there must be a witness or a truth teller. And witness and truth tellers are tragically silenced today more than before. As the imperative to broaden the discourse and amplify diverse voices becomes increasingly apparent, discussing Palestine and the rights of the Palestinians is increasingly challenging. And I insist that the rights of the Palestinians, not because the rights of the Jewish Israelis do not matter, but because the rights of the Palestinians are the ones violated between the Jordan River and the sea. In this country, which is not an isolated case, even universities, traditionally bastions of free thought, scrutiny of Israel is met with censorship and self-censorship simply to avert spurious antisemitism labels. Forcing people into silence to prevent their history being told is a distinct form of domination. As scholar Enrique Galván Álvarez argues, domination doesn't solely rely on economic exploitation or control over political military structure, but also on the construction of epistemic frameworks that legitimize and endorse those practices of domination. And indeed, to this phenomenon that Galván Álvarez terms epistemic violence, Said hinted at— hinted, sorry. Epistemic violence against Palestinian history and narrative in the interest of an alternative politically lucrative perspective is gradually entrenching itself in the West, traditionally considered a stronghold of freedom of expression and information. But growing incidents of anti-Palestinian racism bear testament to it. So when Said said the main plan of imperialism is that we will give you your history, we will write it for you, we will reorder the past, what he was pointing at in my view was epistemic violence unleashed on Palestinian history and narrative in the interest of an alternative politically lucrative perspective, as above. The outcome of these has been the gradual transformation of the Palestinian struggle in the public discourse, from one of self-determination and resistance against oppression to one of aversion and extremism. Unsurprisingly, Israeli authorities, and similarly to other authoritarian regimes, must continue to curtail truth, silencing truth-tellers like journalists and human rights defenders. About 45 journalists have been killed by Israel since 2000. Shireen Abu Akleh was one of those. And like other Palestinians, her case remains to be duly investigated by competent authorities and prosecuted. Meanwhile, even the most reputable Palestinian human rights organizations have been designated as terrorists and endure threats to their very existence every day. The second assertion I wish to reflect on is that every empire, however, tells itself and the world that itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control, but to educate and liberate. Within my mandate, instead of cataloging Israel's daily monstrosities, I try to expose its evolving nature, intent, and impact, which is often overlooked in the public discourse. The public discourse, especially in the my part of the world, in the Global North, tends to prefer siloed approaches to the question of Palestine, portraying it as a conflict resolvable only via negotiations between the parties, while neglecting both the power imbalance between the parties and Israel's legal obligations as an occupying power. The international community treats the dire conditions as chronic humanitarian crisis to manage, rather than consequences of a protracted injustice and a political situation to solve in line with international law. They also want to believe and make us believe that economic development without respecting fundamental rights can deliver freedom, and this is still better than nothing. Oblivious to root causes, international obligation, and obsessed obsessed with curing the symptoms, these approaches have all contributed to normalizing the occupation instead of challenging its settler-colonial nature. The West's inability to apply international law to the question of Palestine, of which it bears fundamental responsibility, betrays its commitment to a just peace while maintaining an illusion of its peacebrokering role or of the honesty of it. This is certainly the situation that has crystallized through the 3 decades of the untenable peace process under the auspices of the Oslo Accords. Presented as a way to liberate the Palestinians, the Accords have acted as a Trojan horse to plunder and control Palestinian society in what I recently described as a sociopolitically engineered carceral continuum, where Palestinians are detained, deprived of their liberty, both behind bars and beyond bars, through physical confinement, bureaucratic control, and omnipresent digital surveillance. This is why I call the occupied Palestinian territory a modern-day panopticon. As I read the political statements on this sobering anniversary, the international community remains poised to maintain the status quo and mimic the strategies employed for the past 3 decades, pioneering a novel path beyond Oslo while simultaneously ignoring and even reproposing its deficiencies, specifically the failure to place rights and dignity of the people at the center of any political undertaking, is what captures now the zeitgeist. The public outrage over Russia's violations of international law in Ukraine through aggression, illegal occupation, and annexation, and the prompt push for international accountability in the face of the deafening silence in Palestine reveals the cognitive dissonance that exists within the mind of policymakers— and I'm being gentle— the high priests of the empire. The disparity in treatment of the Palestinians exposes the limits of international law— I said it— contingent upon states' will to enforce it, and contradicts the universal tenets of of the human rights-based order that emerged after World War II. It is therefore at this precise moment in time that one is to insist the question of Palestinian self-determination as— is a fundamental precondition and not the ultimate goal of any peace and certainly any negotiation. The final quote I want to reflect is this. It's my favorite. Humanism is the only— and I would go so far as saying the final resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history. In Edward Said's work, humanism appears as the greatest retort against the twisted narratives of division and despair. Through a combination of empathy and justice, Said underscores the imperative of acknowledging a shared humanity, and the emphasis is really on both shared humanity, especially that of the marginalized and the oppressed. In these, I find the nature of human rights in its purest form. Rights are for all or for none. This is the deep meaning of a shared humanity that binds us all, transcending the distinction of race, religion, nationality, and ideology. Humanism is a call for empathy, compassion, reasons and creativity. It is the most appropriate response to this current moment as the world veers toward extremes and the specter of right-wing resurgence casts its shadows over the Global North as well as in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. The evidence of the persisting colonial center-periphery dichotomy is evident in the treatment of voluntary and involuntary migrants restricted from entering Fortress Europe, Fortress USA, Fortress Australia. This resurgence, unapologetically embracing illiberal and even fascist ideologies, underscored the imperative of a resolute and resounding humanistic response. Returning to Palestine, Israel and Israel's supporters have spun narratives that portray the Palestinians as the existential threat to the Jewish people and the Palestinian struggle for rights as a direct challenge to Israel's very existence. Correcting these requires a rehumanization of the discourse itself. But how to do that, I ask myself? Over and above the sterility of numbers, I keep on reminding everyone, half of the whole Palestinian population under Israel's martial rules, being them in Gaza, in East Jerusalem, or in the West Bank.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: Thank you.

Francesca Albanese: Bank are children, half of them. 30% of the whole Palestinian population under occupation has not even turned 15. 1 million people in Gaza are children, half of them. And no one has been victimized by Israel's settler colonial rule more than the Palestinian children throughout generations. While Israeli children are not Because all children in the occupied Palestinian territory are rendered vulnerable, it is the Palestinian children who are the most disproportionately impacted, tormented beyond what their tender age can bear. As Professors Niv Gordon and Nicola Perugini elucidate, Israel justifies its use of force against the Palestinians, including children, by presenting the entire Palestinian collective as an inherently terrorist threat. This destroys children, turning their life into what Professor Nadera Shalhoub Kevorkian aptly calls unchilding. Yet children are children, and today's children are tomorrow's adults. The necessity for reclaiming a more humane narrative is categorically imperative, both to protect them today day and the society they will soon be part of. In an attempt to contribute to humanizing the discourse, I devoted my last report, soon to be presented to the General Assembly, to children. Speaking to dozens of them, I could almost touch— via Zoom, because I'm not allowed to enter the occupied Palestinian territory— but I really, I could almost touch the vivid trauma these young souls endure.

Speaker 3: Thank you.

Francesca Albanese: It is visible in their bodies, in their speech, in their movement, in their stories. Many of them mull over, oh, if they only knew, in reference to the virtuous individuals seated in the liberal capitals of the empire. And as I pledged to them, I will endeavor to convey their pleas with honesty and effectiveness. So I will try to recount the occupation through their very eyes. For many of them, Israel's settler colonial occupation manifests in a myriad of daily tragedies, in the struggle of their parents, who, after protracted legal battles to reclaim confiscated land, must watch it cultivated by settlers coming from cosmopolitan Paris or New York. It is a grandfather longing to reunite with his olive trees sitting behind an imposing 8-meter wall built to protect the Israelis from the Palestinians. It is their parents' heartbreak as they self-demolish an in an unfinished home, unable to secure permits, of which the only legacy will be the mortgage to pay. It is their depleted school, denied building permits, perpetually at risk of destruction. It is their empty classrooms, once filled with eager students, now resting in cemeteries. It is their older brother, hailed as martyr in the camp, but labeled as terrorist by soldiers who later come to demolish their family home. Yet it is also an Israeli in uniform or plain clothes, often residing on land wrested from Palestinians, enjoying a life with abundant water, spacious play areas, multistory residence, wide roads, pristine malls, amenities and playgrounds, all in stark contrast to the conditions faced by them, Palestinians. The daily challenges that a Palestinian child faces under occupation is a complex web of hardship and injustices may seem insurmountable, and it is deeply traumatic, especially in the unsettling contrast with their privileged neighboring dispossessors. And this is what I heard and saw from afar, and this is the human story I will recount as an impartial witness amidst legal interpretation of promising norms. In conclusion, The story of Palestine illustrates how international law practice perpetuates injustice. Sorry, no, no, no. I take it back. The story of Palestine illustrates how international practice perpetuates injustice, international law notwithstanding. In today's political landscape, where states often grapple with post-Oslo anxiety, when not with amnesia or outright myopia, I offer offer this reminder: the paramount focus should be on honoring international obligations, not on determining what peace should look like once the parties are ready to achieve it. Ending occupation, colonization, and halting annexation is the imperative mandated by international law, simply to allow the other to live in freedom, safety, and dignity. And this is what justice means in its simplest form. This is what I will deliver in the hope to help conscientize my UN audience. But I also hope that I will move others to join this call for justice. I see the possibility of producing what I call a butterfly effect, overcoming our fragility as individuals standing alone. Together, we have the power to create a profound transformation in the name of our shared humanity. And in this rehumanization discourse, hopefully not to betray Edward Said's message and legacy, I convincingly include the Israelis. Like the Palestinians, the Israelis are part of an anachronistic settler colonial endeavor, of course, without unparalleled responsibility— with unparalleled responsibilities and suffering. But ending Jewish-Israeli domination will be a rehumanizing act. No one can— for them as well. No one can offer them that. No one can oppress and brutalize others without themselves experiencing a loss of humanity in the process. And in closing this lecture, I cannot quite say goodbye to Edward Said, because in the words of Mahmoud Darwish, he remains so present among us and alive in the world, ambassador of consciousness and humanity. Thank you.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: Thank you. Good evening. I would also like to thank the Qatan Foundation and my dear old friend Bashir Abou-Manneh for inviting me to respond today. My remit are short remarks. I'm not entirely convinced it was worth flying me across the Atlantic. And I really would like to thank Francesca for her work in general and for her talk today and the opportunity to respond. So I should start by saying I'm the academic. So there's a level of a different kind of abstraction. I don't mean that in that way, but from the sort of realpolitik that you're engaged in that I'm not. So, So I'm commenting on a slightly earlier draft of the paper, so bear with me on that. But the fundamental interventions are the same. I clearly don't have the chance to respond to all of it, so I've just picked out a few things from this very wonderful talk. So 20 years on, I also find myself pondering— or I find myself pondering how much the struggle for Palestine, let alone the world writ large, has changed since Said's I was at a 20th anniversary event as well a few days ago in New York. And yes, 2003 was a nightmare time, and especially perhaps in New York. In a fundamental sense, the same reality endures. No justice has been achieved for Palestinians. It's hard to imagine how anyone can hold on to the so-called promise of Oslo. And Israel remains powerful on the global stage. Stage, finding new allies among fascist and proto-fascist regimes that are proliferating globally. What's more, if long before his death Said had embraced a one-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike, that framework has gained steam, although I personally am not taking a stand one way or the other. But even if not dead on arrival, as might well be the two-state solution, a one-state solution seems at least to To me, a bit of a pipe dream. It's hard to imagine its realization within any foreseeable timeframe. So where do we stand now? I want to begin my comments by speaking to Francesca Felicitas' turn of phrase, although I think it was in the draft I read and not here, the war on narrative. What if the global stage— so in contrast to that war on narrative, what if the global stage, she says, and here I'm just You know, not quite quoting from the talk, could hear directly from the truth of Lifta or Deir Yassin? What would liberation look like for the souls who were there or their heirs? She goes on to say, the only alternative is the truth, bold and simple. And what is needed is truth tellers who are increasingly silenced today. I've thought a lot of late about questions of facts truth-telling, censorship, and the question of Palestine. And while in some ways my reading is the same as Francesca's, in other ways I think I depart from her. Now perhaps that difference is rooted in writing from the perspective of New York City and the US more generally, where 40 years ago speaking about Palestine was downright taboo. But perhaps it's not entirely a question of an American perspective. It may also be about the shifting political and as epistemological terrain in which we find ourselves today. So I want to begin briefly with Edward Said's essay, Permission to Narrate. In 1984, 2 years after Israel's brutal and widely televised invasion of Lebanon, Edward Said asked how it was possible that the premises on which Western support for Israel is based are still maintained Even though the reality, the facts cannot possibly bear these premises out. Israel's narrative about the Palestinian as terrorist, its wars as one of self-defense, and its military as committed to a purity of arms survived that war, he argued, to retain a stronghold over a Euro-American public imagination. More fundamentally, the very existence of the Palestinian as a people, remained unrecognized, unspeakable, and essentially, as Francesca notes, unspeakable in relation to the Palestinian— Western Palestinian refugees who are entitled to collective and not just individual rights. Said's analysis still resonates today. The Palestinian remains the terrorist, now cast most centrally in the figure of Hamas. Israel still acts in self-defense. The Israel Defense Forces apparently aspire to a purity of arms. Even if they cannot always realize that purity given the tactics of its enemy. As Palestinians and their supporters assert their own historical narratives and political critiques of Zionism and the Israeli state, they are charged increasingly with antisemitism, an accusation that seems to be on steroids today. And in many places is gaining the force of law. Nevertheless, it's also the case that much has changed over the past 40 years.

Speaker 3: Yes.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: Let alone the past 20 years since Said passed. There is far more space for Palestinian narratives in the global north. Palestinian voices are far more audible today than they once were in literature, in art, in the academy. The Nakba is no longer as widely denied. The brutality of the occupation is subject to debate. And the fact of Israel as an apartheid state is no longer the speech of Palestinians. Marginalized in the wild, so to speak. This is a public domain, I would argue, that is more characterized by contestation than it once was, even as it's also characterized by ever-escalating campaigns to silence politically critical speech. Nevertheless, I've also asked myself, okay, but to what end? What if the permission to narrate that Said saw as so crucial turns to sort of shifting the Palestinian struggle struggle turns out to be far less consequential than he had believed. Yes, the leaders of Israel's most explicitly fascist parties, the Smotriches and Ben-Gvir, are returning to the assertion that there is no such thing as a Palestinian. But I suggest we pay attention to more prevalent and perhaps more telling forms of speech. Yes, we expelled Palestinians or Arabs in 1948. Yes, in other words, The Nakba happened, but so what? We may have to do it again. The relationship between truth and politics is extraordinarily precarious, and for reasons more complex than conversations about outright denial or censorship, or about the post-factual world in which we have all— in which we all now live. Let me turn very briefly to Hannah Arendt. In her essay Truth and Politics, she draws a distinction between what she calls rational truths, the domain of philosophy, and factual truths that she argues exist in the domain of human affairs. Factual truths are forever fragile, she writes, for they depend on common agreement. But depending on common agreement for Arendt is not a matter or a question of truth or lies, right, of facts or post-facts. As she puts it, it's not a matter of whether Germany invaded France or France invaded Germany during the Second World War. Right.

Speaker 5: War.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: Those kinds of facts she took to be more incontrovertible. What she meant about common agreement was more profound. Factual truths exist only insofar as one agrees collectively on their political significance. Factual truths exist only insofar as they are worthy or considered worthy of public address Attention and/or redress. In other words, one can easily, from within an Arendtian perspective, say, yes, the Nakba, the facts may be self-evident, but so what? The factual truths are not self-evident. One can hear the voices of those displaced, of those killed in '48, and still one can set those facts aside. To quote the philosopher Alenka Subancic, who is theorizing the work of disavowal— and she's actually talking about Yes. —on climate change, quote, we know that we have already embarked on the train to disaster, and we know that the train in front of us is really scary and should scare the shit out of us. But as a general rule, this does not happen. It does not wake us up and make us decide to jump off the train, unquote. In short, for all the talk of needing to speak the truth of the Palestinian past and present, we might need to ask ourselves a few questions. About what we've learned about its political effects. And I want to be clear here. I'm not calling for abandoning the act of speaking out. I'm just signaling a sense I have that nevertheless, knowing may not do the work we want it to do. So who is the community of address? If it is an Israeli public, or for that matter, a Euro-American one, which I presume since many other people in the globe recognize the fact of Palestine, we might want to ask—

Speaker 6: Who is the audience?

Nadia Abu El-Haj: And especially in contrast to 40 years ago when Said wrote his essay, don't they already know more than enough? That is, if they care to acknowledge what they already know, if they care to jump off the train. Or put another way, what will it take to get them to jump off that train? So now I'm just going to switch a bit and talk about factual truths. Francesca notes, and here I'm actually quoting from a— 2022 report to the UN, which actually is an extraordinary document. I recommend it to everybody. In recent years, the concept that the Israeli occupation meets the threshold, legal threshold of apartheid is gaining traction, she writes. An achievement indeed, the report notes. Such an analysis, of course, as Francesca notes, is not new. It's not among Palestinians, of course, as in it's not new among Palestinians. But it has become a focus of public concern and action. A factual truth, perhaps, at least more widely than it once was. Nevertheless, she insists, the apartheid framework goes only so far. It sets aside the experience of Palestinian refugees, more specifically of those refugees living outside the borders of Israeli control, which, as she notes, she's written a huge book on. What's more, it leaves out the centrality of territorial control to the Israeli state project, the sine qua non of a settler colonial regime. As such, Francesca's report calls for an additional framework. The occupation, she writes, is not merely belligerent. As a forever occupation, the intent of the Israeli state has never been temporary rule or temporary administration. It is an expansionist settler colonial project. And if that is the case, She writes in the report, West Bank settlements might be better named colonies. In her call to shift nomenclature, Francesca seeks to disentangle roots causes from symptoms, which she also discusses here. This is not a conflict between 2 equal warring parties. This is not a humanitarian crisis to be managed, nor a situation that can be resolved via economic development. One needs to go back to the fundamentals.

Speaker 5: Yes.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: The fact of a settler colonial state, which is the cardinal structural reality that finds form in what she spoke about today as a carceral continuum. Everything else is mere symptom. It is, in short, the political rights of Palestinians, not merely their humanitarian suffering or economic survival, that is at stake. And that is what the— to which— sorry. Go ahead. And to which the international community must attend. This is an important critical move and one not easy to make within the framework of a UN document or, for that matter, international— the frameworks of international law. At the same time, I'm not so sure that international institutions, and including more broadly international law, can accommodate such a structural, qua epistemological shift. And here again, I want to say my position is not rejection. I am glad somebody's fighting this fight. But I also remain skeptical, as no doubt does Francesca. Palestine in UN documents, and thereby of necessity is used by the UN special rapporteur, regardless of Francesca's own political beliefs, has one referent, and it is to the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem. If the apartheid frame does not know what to do with refugees exiled from Palestine, this Palestine does not know what to do with Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship or with the Palestine that exists within the Green Line. Israel as the Jewish state, as a Jewish state, is a member of the United Nations, even if the status and rights of Palestinian refugees from 1948 remain in dispute. And that very recognition constrains other political imaginaries and possibilities, and other possible reference for the name Palestine. What's more, since Oslo, insofar as the PA acts as if it is a state that speaks for and negotiates on behalf of the Palestinians, the PA's legal and diplomatic status marginalizes, and in fact violent represses, violently represses forms of Palestinian politics and resistance that challenge its very existence and authority. Said himself insisted, and in this sense he was deeply Gramscian, imperialism wields its power in and through institutions. Epistemic violence, even the violence of rewriting history, requires those institutions to operate. And in the here and now, the so-called international order The UN, the ICC, and international law itself are essential building blocks of the existing imperial order. Humanitarian suffering and human rights violations, responding to Palestinians as victims rather than as political subjects, say as children, the children, is the most politically legible move today. How one guards against that, and I do see Francesca's work as trying very hard to guard against it, How one guards against that in support of the struggle for political rights.

Ramzi Dabagh: Thank you. Thank you very much for the talks. Ramzi Dabagh here. So you've talked a lot about the international community, international law, human rights. I think we're all familiar that, you know, the system has failed us. The Palestinian issue is not going to be solved by the international spectrum. At least that's what I've come to the realization of. In this, the world that's shifting and the dynamics that are shifting, the way in which the Palestinian cause is now being reflected and there's greater advocacy in social media, etc., what does the future look like? Where are the opportunities? Where are the real meaningful ways that we can really address and leverage power to influence the Palestinian issue and the Palestinian question and move towards A meaningful resolution, because a one-state, two-state solution at this present time is a meaningless conversation until we get to some point of leverage. Thank you.

Speaker 8: Thank you.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: I'm giving it to Roger.

Francesca Albanese: No, but shall we collect more questions? Otherwise, I mean—

Speaker 5: Like a bouquet. Let's do it. More questions?

Speaker 9: This talk, these rumors, maybe more than rumors, of normalization and deals between Saudi Arabia and Israel, have any— either of you got any ideas? Because I keep reading that this will be another force dispersal out of Palestinian territories, which, I mean, I don't even understand why there's not huge panic about that. So I just wondered what you thought.

Speaker 5: We'll do 3. 3 is a good number.

Francesca Albanese: Yes, it is.

Speaker 5: One more question for this round.

Francesca Albanese: Ah, there's one in the front.

Speaker 3: I'd like to congratulate you, first of all, Francesca Albanese, about your, your very impressive report to the United Nations on self-determination. And I'd like to ask you what has been the reaction to the publication of that.

Speaker 10: Thank you.

Speaker 5: Shall we take turns?

Speaker 9: Yeah.

Francesca Albanese: Shall I start?

Speaker 11: Yeah.

Francesca Albanese: Oh, sorry, I have the mic already. I was waiting for the mic. Sorry. I thought you were taking a moment. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm used to more rudimentary settings, you know. So, yeah. So I would start with the last question. It's true, my self-determination report seemed— It seems to have sent shockwaves across the room. I mean, I was impressed, because it was the first time I presented at the General Assembly, which is— I was joking today over lunch, but it's where people, after 3 seconds, start to doze off. So I could see— maybe it's my Southern Italian attitude, and maybe— the room was really awake. That is what I felt. And there has been a lot of coverage. There has been reference to apartheid and self-determination in subsequent conversations of the Security Council. And there has been a legal opinion sought, an advisory opinion that the General Assembly sought from the International Court of Justice. Now, is it all the consequence of this report? I think this report helped rock the boat at the right time. And that is it. I don't think we go beyond that when it comes to an international community. But what I see is also happening is that I decided, through this mandate, to really— I said during the talk, conscientize. Conscientization is very ambitious. And it's not because I have some precious insight. It's just really— it's really about the facts and the law. And it's very, very simple. But I try to bring this to a larger public, because I agree, you know, you're right, in the U.S. Things have probably changed, but not in this part of the world. I grew up in a place in Italy which was so sensitive, so alerted about what was Palestine. It has never been hostile to Israel, but at the same time was very compassionate and politically resolute in the protection of Palestinian rights. Well, now it's really— it's in ominous times. Right. To touch the Palestinian issue, if you are a politician or a journalist, whatever. And this is— so I hope to contribute to a public discourse that bring— that is attentive and is responsive to these. So I have more, and this goes— this leads me to the first question. Yeah. I mean, I appreciate— and it's not that I'm optimistic. I have a lot of energy, but I also have— I see where we are going, and it's not a nice place. I see the descent into the abyss. And there are— I think, at a certain point, this will have to stop. The monstrosity Israel has created is to stop. And I know I'm not saying the Israelis versus— because to an extent the Palestinian Authority, or the Palestinian authorities, de jure or de facto, are all entrenched in this process. And the level of oppression over the Palestinians in the occupied territory is untenable. So at a certain point, I think it will naturally stop, but it will take hundreds of thousands How many more lives are going to get lost? How much more suffering is going to take place? And this is where I blame the international community. So I do not have any golden recipe other than saying, I mean, if— we need to feel that sense of indignation that I personally feel toward the Palestinians, but also the situation that the Palestinians live. But I also believe the Palestinian situation epitomizes— The situation of the world. A lot of what people in the Global South endure, because the Yemenis, the Saudis or the migrants, I mean, are even more dehumanized. So, in a way, the Palestinians are still there resisting for their rights. They're not losing it yet. But again, much more is to come from us, from this part of the world and from the civil society. Again, I have not much hope in the, let's say, in the political policymakers' landscape, also because I come from a week in Brussels, and I'm totally depressed. I'm not sure I'm the best person to comment on the Israeli-Saudi deal. On the one hand, what— I mean, I know what you probably know, or possibly less. It's not different from the normalization that has already started to take place in the region, which is new and not new at the same time, in the sense that a lot of countries behind the scenes have had dealings— and I'm not shocking anyone, I think, in this room by saying that. So, there was a facade of not having relationship. But Israel has been selling its technology, tested on the ground, to many states, including in the Non-Aligned Movement and including Arab countries. So, this is documented by others. I don't think that the Saudi-Israeli deals is necessarily different from this. Probably what is worse it's the landscape against which this is happening, because this is possibly the most extreme moment in terms of, I mean, recognized, outspoken violence. The current Israeli government is not even trying to pretend to be humane. It's really having— I mean, there have been genocidal There have been attacks, pogroms against defenseless villages. And the Palestinian— the Palestinians and their rights are nowhere to be seen in these discussions. And what I find even more disturbing is that another term has come into play, which is concessions. So it's better not to say anything, because the Palestinians do not need charity. They have never needed charity. And especially now. So, again, it's very disturbing, this whole thing, like the silence of the international community at large. But again, once— again, it's about— I mean, it's once again upon us, the civil society, the human rights community, to rock the boat.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: Yeah, I would just say, on that note, On the Saudi deal, it's similar. I think the landscape is exactly right. And it's not just the— it's both the landscape of the regime that is being made a deal with in Israel, let alone the regime in Saudi Arabia, right? They found each other very nicely. But that's this increasing, just complete isolation of the Palestinian question. And I think that that links to the risk of Expulsion in a different way, right? Which is, you know, yeah, the Israeli right is talking about expulsion again, right? In some sense, they're saying out loud what didn't used to be said in, what is it called, polite company. But what direction Israel's going to go— now, again, what are the conditions under which you could do mass exile again? I don't know. But I think it would be really naive to think that that's off the table. Yeah. Off the table, including for Palestinian citizens of the state, which in different ways they're moving towards stripping citizenship and rights. So we're talking about this sort of rise of a kind of fascist regime that is literally in Palestinian communities in various locations and under various forms of rule that have no other states in the region willing to stand up for them. Now, on the one hand, that's been true for a long time. It's just out there. And if I can just say in response— I have no idea who was speaking in the back. The lights are in my eyes. But the question of the— to just add on to what Francesca said, I said the other thing that I think is really crucial is we have to take seriously the politics on the ground, right? I mean, both Palestinian resistance to the PA and Hamas, like, what is that movement going to be? How do you break the hold? But also internally to Israeli society, right? Yes. Right? At least in the US, I've never seen anything as celebrated as the sort of stand-up to the judicial reform. Now, on the one hand, this could be a breaking point, because truly, in some ways, I would argue that the rise of this fascist nationalist explicitly, right, is the logical endpoint of a state that can't live with its contradictions of being Jewish and democratic, of being settler colonial and based on exile. But the opposition to it, you know, in the streets, has largely shut out what they call the occupation bloc. They're not— right? The question is, what is that turning point, which is, do you recognize this is getting— this is the jumping off the train? Like, your investment in Zionism is so deep, and the need for a Jewish state, that you're going to keep on that train as it just goes headfirst, you know, full force into to outnight fascism, or is it time to jump off the train and think about the relationship between that commitment to the Jewish state and the reality on the ground that's getting more and more and more explicitly fascist? And I don't know what that turning point is.

Speaker 5: Some more questions? There's one here. One here, and there's one here. Should we start here?

Speaker 3: First of all, thank you for the very interesting talk. What I'd like to ask is, there seems to be very little or no interest in the media about all the crimes that happen in Israel, Palestine, or even, you know, Yemen, as was mentioned earlier on. Right. So first question is why, and how do we change that?

Speaker 5: We'll take another one here. Hi.

Speaker 12: Hi, thank you very much. Amazing lectures. Thank you very much for those. Francesca, huge fan, and thank you for the work that you're doing on behalf of everyone who can't reach you to say thank you, for everyone who thinks that it's just It's not just another report that won't be seen, or everything's taking a nosedive. You've said, or quoted, imperialism is about writing the history or rewriting histories, but it's important to write the truth part of history, and someone can point to that report and say it's there, and it's all in one place, and it's hugely comprehensive. But I just wonder how— what about the role of money? Because— in the mix, as it were. And I'm referring to things like, things that actually make us possibly unconsciously complicit in apartheid or discriminatory practices, perhaps, for example, PayPal. And they reported, I think even Congress in the States perhaps earlier reported that they took an issue with it where they don't allow Palestinians in the occupied territories to actually use PayPal for businesses, whether it's mobile phone or whatever, things that are bigger than countries, arguably. I mean, we've seen Elon Musk, for example, getting involved in the Ukraine war, but Amazon, for example, who have been reported to be funding, I think, military operations and things. And these are our almost inextricable daily conveniences, a daily sort of personal conscious or a personal imperialization of our commoditization and our daily lives, and how far that we actually are part of that, and how are they approached as well? Because I think, yes, we can use the mechanisms that we've got in the international community and international law and everything, that's great, but there are things that appear to be bigger than countries at the moment, and I think the role of money is a huge thing. And just very lastly before I carry on, I'm sure there was a report at the time of a lot of the forced evictions as well, where I think America were quite— the Congress or something, they were not about to pass a bill of finance that would have funded that round or something of the Israeli government because of a lot of the forced evictions that were— that I think CNN reported on as well. And that made a huge difference. And when they thought the money wasn't coming, it did make a difference. So I think the role of money is a huge undercurrent as well. I'm just wondering about that. Thank you.

Speaker 5: There was another one here.

Speaker 13: Oh, thank you for the talks. I just had a question regarding the— I think it was mentioned how Western hegemony is connected to Israel's status on the international world. And I was just wondering, hypothetically, if say Western hegemony is to be challenged or if we were to enter a world which is more multipolar, how would that affect the Palestinian resistance in terms of, say, lessening the US's influence in the world and how that connects to Israel's status on the international community? I was just wondering your take on that.

Francesca Albanese: I'm not sure I understood this question. I'm sorry. Better I say now. I didn't understand the question. I'm so sorry. Can you please repeat?

Speaker 5: The question was about Western hegemony in relationship to international law over Israel.

Speaker 3: Is that—

Speaker 13: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Okay.

Speaker 13: And like how, like the challenges to Western hegemony on that. How would they affect?

Nadia Abu El-Haj: How would a multipolar world respond?

Speaker 5: How would a multi— okay, great. So 3 questions.

Speaker 10: You take this.

Francesca Albanese: Oh, well, the business— I mean, how complicity trickles down a different level, it's something that really fascinates me. And I hadn't thought of it as I started working as a special rapporteur. I need— when people said, yeah, but you should Really look into this. I said, this is not my cup of tea. I've never dealt with human rights, business and human rights. So, it doesn't matter. There is always an opportunity in life to learn. And indeed, it's really deep. So, my next— not this current report, which is going, as I said, to be on children and the impact of the settler colonial carceral occupation that Israel has put in place on children. The next one is going to be about businesses and human rights, because there are so many— actually, on the responsibility of business enterprises, which comprises financial institutions, insurances, pension funds. So this is on the civilian side. But then there are also the security services, the digital surveillance services and the military services. So there has been some scrutiny over it. And there has been also an attempt to set up a database on the companies, both Israelis and international companies, investing in the occupied Palestinian territory. And then everything got stuck, because, of course, there was pressure over the UN office administering this database not Not to publish it. In fact, what has happened is that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was so much under pressure, and it didn't give up, that eventually its office was just expelled, kicked out of the occupied Palestinian territory. This is the price you pay. And still, frankly, that database is not even that groundbreaking. That my— so I decided to write a report. Important to focus on, first of all, because I think that everyone should know how they contribute as individuals. People putting their money in a pension fund thinking that so they are securing their future, they need to know that they are destroying someone's present, and especially when this someone, again, is constituted by mostly children. And so, this is why I decided to to focus on this. And— but there is another layer, that we— there is so little space to advocate for change that there is really need for reactivating a pact of solidarity with the people under occupation. This has gone lost. And I— again, I've seen this. It's more anecdotal than research-based, but this has been my own experience. And I connect— I would like to connect this to the question you asked about the media.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Francesca Albanese: Now, am I a media expert? I do not know. But I do know that in the past 30 years, the discourse has changed. And there has been Oslo, which has sort of diverted the attention. All of a sudden, the parties were negotiating. So, there were— and there was also this tendency accompanied by the UN, not to disturb them while they were negotiating. And while they were negotiating, the colonies have doubled. And the colonies are crimes, are war crimes in and of themselves. So, there are 300 colonies, and back then there were about 80, 30 years ago, 80 or 90. So, there has been Oslo, which has been— which has changed It's really the grammar to discuss the situation. But there has also been 9/11, and there has been the Second Intifada, which was fought in a totally different way, out of despair, many mistakes made. Terrorism has never— never leads to anything positive. So there has been a change of attitude toward the Palestinian— the Palestinians.

Speaker 9: Right.

Francesca Albanese: And this is to be undone. But we cannot turn the clock back. So, it's all work that needs to be— to start again, I would say. And on the multipolar, I'm not sure I have something really intelligent to say about that. I would like to see a multilateralism. I'm more comfortable to speak about multilateralism. But this is not where we're going. Right. That we are going back to an even uglier phase of a bipolar order, because if we look at it from a human rights perspective, I often say, yeah, but human rights are a human conquest. Yes, but they got ratified in 2 wondrous international treaties on civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights, and other treaties. And then this is also because there was a bipolar order, so they were also fighting on who put out the most relevant human rights treaty. This new bipolarism— bipolarism, yeah— it doesn't look conducive to anything good, because it's more unruly. And I wish there was hope for a new multilateral order. I simply don't see it. Thank you.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: Yeah, I don't see it either, particularly sitting in the U.S. I just wanted to add one thing about the complicity question. I mean, of course, the whole BDS movement is all about, right? I mean, they have a big database about corporations and businessmen, but the whole BDS movement is about complicity. And it's interesting because, you know, again, I'm sure most people in the room know this, but the Israeli government has declared it the second most The second most dangerous threat to Israel next to Iran getting a nuclear bomb. So, I mean, if you think about that, but why, right? And having been involved now 2 rounds in the American Anthropological Association voting to boycott Israeli academic institutions, we finally won this round by 70% of the vote. But when this started 8 years ago, all I could think of was, why don't they just ignore us? Like, most people— no one in the U.S. knows who an anthropologist is or cares. Honestly. But they did not ignore us. And there's a whole— right, there's an incredibly sustained campaign that is backed by a lot of money, this whole— right, against boycott movements and divestment. And it's because of the risk of changing the conversation at a much more popular level, right? I think that— I mean, and there is a risk of that. Now, how that translates into shifting government policy is complicated.

Francesca Albanese: Right.

Speaker 8: Yeah.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: In the U.S., if you look at polls, the public opinion has shifted, but the stranglehold on the U.S. government, both state level and federal, is almost unbreakable, and it's an alliance of all sorts of things. I mean, obviously the major Jewish organizations, established ones, but also evangelical Christians, etc. So how you translate that upward, I think, is complicated. It's complicated, but that movement is entirely about complicity. And I just want to say one thing, sorry, very quickly about the coverage. Again, I agree. Like, Italy, parts of Southern Europe have always had a different conversation, or long ago did, I remember from my childhood, although not Germany and France. But again, in the U.S., I think what's interesting is a lot of the crimes are covered at this point. I mean, you know, then there's always the caveat of why Israel had to do But it's not a total absence anymore. It's not even— even the New York Times, it's not even close to a total absence. But it's just not clear to me that it's having the effect. And that— it's that disconnect that I think we now need to really think about and struggle with.

Francesca Albanese: Can I say another thing?

Speaker 9: Certainly.

Francesca Albanese: Because, again, I do think that there's been a perverse effect of the constant dehumanizing of the Palestinians that has rooted somewhat. And this is why it's important to tell who these Palestinians are, because surely there is— I mean, I'm not condoning any acts of violence that these Palestinians have committed, might have committed and might commit against the Israelis, no matter where they are. At the same time— But especially civilians. At the same time, this is not— when thinking Palestinians, let's be honest, one doesn't necessarily think of the child whose school is demolished. Maybe the special rapporteur does, but I'm joking. But the average American or European wouldn't think of it. And it's interesting, because I— In Italy, for example, recently Israel arrested an Italian researcher of Palestinian descent. He's been held in solitary confinement for 3 weeks. And he has suffered abuses, of course, no trial, no charge. And there has been almost 4 weeks of silence, where the government, instead of protecting his constitutional rights—not just international but his constitutional rights—was siding with Israel. And there have been parliamentarians, which I find outrageous, saying things like, "I don't know what happened in this case," because then eventually civil society made possible—I mean, managed to to break that wall of denialism—and and they had to start. And the— there were politicians on record saying, I don't know anything of this case, but Israel has the right to defend itself from terrorism, and other things like that. And also the media, still saying, yeah, but in any case, Israel says— because then Italian journalists know better than others. So there is a gag order. Right. On the gag order in Israel, there is a censorship over the censorship. Journalists can't even talk about that. But Italian newspapers know that this has something to do with terrorism. I'm not surprised because if you read my second report, which is I think really more important and more groundbreaking than the self-determination report, it lists all the grounds that lead to Palestinians being arrested and detained, which sometimes is really the exercise. A fundamental freedom, being friend with someone who's associated with someone who might be part of an hostile organization, meaning everyone, because there are 411 organizations, including all charities, political parties and human rights organizations, who are hostile. No, sorry, the human rights organizations are terrorists, which is more than hostile. This is the reality. Being part of a political gathering Being in a place that is a closed area, declared by the army as a closed area, 7 years imprisonment. Saying something which is considered offensive to a soldier leads to 1 year imprisonment. These are the legal grounds which we are talking about. And this is why I say it's not just apartheid. It's apartheid by default, because it's enforced through a military dictatorship. And, Adnan, I want to ask you, because you're This is what Israel is in the— and yeah, sorry. And then, no, I had another point, but I forgot. I got carried away.

Speaker 5: Since you're just warming up, should we do another round?

Francesca Albanese: Of course.

Speaker 5: So I'll take 2 questions for— don't give me so many questions, but you break my heart like this.

Speaker 10: Hi. Thank you so much for the talk. And as a child who actually grew up in Palestine, I look forward to reading the report. My question is actually about something that you both have referred to, which is what's currently happening with the definition of antisemitism, especially after our government has endorsed the EHRC definition exactly. Because of that, currently, the spaces for discussions like this have been getting smaller. For example, for a while, we have been fighting media through using social media. But for example, a documentary that was released a couple of weeks ago was talking about how Meta is silencing any Palestinian voices because of a collaboration between the Ministry of Justice and Meta about closing that. And in the US, currently, we have this huge campaign about blocking books. I mean, not even about Palestine, about other topics as well. So I'm just thinking about it from a— not from an awareness-raising, because as you both have been saying, awareness-raising has been already done. It's about basically changing minds, especially within this current political atmosphere, where basically the rise of fascism and the right is seen everywhere. I mean, we might even have another election of Trump. Imagine that. Oh, God. And currently with here. So I'm just saying, how do you actually—

Speaker 9: Yeah.

Speaker 10: Begin discussing this with politicians, because if we don't have any faith with politicians, I mean, forget the political authority, the Palestinian Authority. I mean, we are currently discussing what's going to happen after Abbas. The King Abdullah, I think, referred to that as well in the UN. So I think my question is, how do we envision these post-political discussions? Because obviously, in the world of politics, nothing is happening. Where would be our— where would we have these discussions then?

Ramzi Dabagh: Thank you.

Speaker 10: Thank you.

Speaker 5: Since you're very close, you're practically neighbors.

Speaker 8: I have 2 questions which really are— I mean, they just invite surmise, I know, not facts. On the possibility of new forced expulsions, I was wondering where and if you placed activities in Sinai in Egypt in relation to that, the sort of, again, the forced displacement and emptying of parts of Sinai? That's one question.

Speaker 3: Oh.

Speaker 8: It's okay. You can just have not thought about this. It doesn't matter. The other question is to do with the settlers and their relationship to the Israeli state. So for the longest time, Israel is presenting itself as a part of Europe, part of the Enlightenment, rational, democratic, scientific, et cetera. But the settlers were always there, and they had a relationship with the government, which we've seen developed until now. We actually have a settler government. And this, of course, tallies also or coincides or whatever with increased settler building and increased settler activity. And with, like, I mean, this is where things start to sound crazy, with things like blowing the horn for the first time in the mosque, the Abrahamic Mosque in Khalil, or like particular rituals happening inside Al-Aqsa, or as it was in the news, I haven't invented this, in the actual importation of 5 perfect cows. So this is all to do with prophecy and to do with the end of days and to do with the building of the temple and so on. But there is something happening with the relationship between the state and the settlers. And I was wondering if there was any comment to be made on that. I think that's a very good question.

Speaker 5: I have a feeling you have a short question. I look at you and I think it's going to be short and sweet.

Speaker 11: My question is, how do allies of the Palestinian cause defend themselves against the weaponization of antisemitism and baseless accusations of such if in a country like this, which is sort of a beacon of democracy and gave the world the parliamentary system, And blah, blah, blah, someone like Jeremy Corbyn can just be entirely eliminated on what transpired to be absolutely baseless accusations. So what hope is there for anyone else? And how do you, Francesca, survive, you know, being at sort of the spotlight of this on a daily basis?

Speaker 5: We'll hand it back.

Speaker 6: So I just was wondering about this kind of, when we talk about rewriting the narrative or rewriting the history, somehow implying in it is that the history that we are seeing or the narrative, the Palestinian narrative that we have is still like kind of that very Eurocentric one and we need to spend time to rewrite that.

Speaker 14: Yes.

Speaker 6: In a way, if then you're thinking about the Palestinian narrative in Iran already, like, or the way that it has changed, or in the region, but, you know, the way that that narrative has already been, how much of our energy do we need to, like, put on educating, you know, like, to changing that? And how much can we within the region, like—

Speaker 12: Yeah.

Speaker 6: Work on those alliances and solidarity or changing that narrative? How should we balance that? Or what's the best way to manage the energy?

Speaker 5: Perfect. I feel terrible that I haven't asked this section, so I'm going to take one more question and then we have 5 minutes to round up. Is that okay? So one more question at the end. Hello.

Francesca Albanese: I love it.

Speaker 5: Do you mind if I— I know, I know, sorry. But do you mind if I go there for a second? Thank you. Yes, please. You want me to hand you the mic or— hold on. Is it on?

Speaker 14: Thank you. You mentioned a A while ago, Francesca, in one of your answers— thank you, by the way, for the talks— you mentioned terrorism in the Second Intifada and that nothing good is born out of terrorism. We always hear about acts of resistance when it comes from Palestinians or when it comes from Arabs or when it comes from Muslims. The word terrorism is bandied around, but when you look at Ukraine, for instance, and you see the Molotov cocktails and all of that, then that's sort And that's war, and everything is fair in war. So where do you draw the line between terrorism and self-defense?

Francesca Albanese: Very good question.

Speaker 5: Can I give the mic?

Nadia Abu El-Haj: Oh my God, please.

Speaker 5: You don't want to ask it afterwards? Yeah, it's connected to that. Okay.

Speaker 12: Hi. Thank you so much. I'm really glad that you brought up Ukraine because the thing I wanted to ask was about international law and mechanisms. And so there are questions about bringing the Putin regime to justice on the international sphere. And I was wondering if that happens, how will the narrative then ignore what is happening in Palestine if there is some sort of precedent for it? So I was wondering whether or not those mechanisms would do anything in the end. Thank you.

Speaker 14: Okay.

Francesca Albanese: Are you okay around here? Yeah, I have— can I answer? I'm very happy that this question of Ukraine was brought up, because in fact, this is the second point I wanted to mention. Russia's unlawful war against Ukraine, the occupation, it was an aggression, has triggered such a positive, organic, just a just reflex in Western world. So all of a sudden, they rediscovered really what the application of international law by the book is. So there was no need for a database to declare a boycott of and a divestment and sanctions of businesses. They really went— they went far beyond what was acceptable from a human rights point of view, because, again, I don't mean to vilify my compatriots, but at a certain point they were debating to remove Dostoevsky and Tolstoy from— I'm not joking— from university curricula. All of a sudden, mentioning Russia was anathema. And again, there were political measures, there were economic measures. So I do think that it's very important to bring, to bring the case of Russia-Ukraine into this discussion because it shows the double standards that are applied, particularly, not only, but particularly to the Palestinians. Because again, it's not exactly the same, but it's very much the I mean, I've seen there are cases brought before the ICC for genocide in Ukraine. There is this denunciation of settler colonialism, of apartheid, but not a mention of it in the case of Palestine. But again, this is where the hypocrisy The hypocrisy of the system is fully exposed. And I think that, again, this is going to trigger a powerful— I hope powerful awakening among us, because this is the system we are part of, and we don't want this, because the moment we tolerate double standards, double standards are going to— they can play against us as well.

Speaker 9: Right.

Francesca Albanese: So, this is why I want a true rule-of-law-informed system. And I hope you want the same. So, how to— the displacement, where displacement is going to happen, I don't want to think about that, because I— again, it's so illegal, it's so immoral, it's so irresponsible that I want it I mean, I want to put my efforts in stopping it and not envisaging the continuation of what is, for the Palestinians, an Nakba. They say it has never ended. So, yeah, I— again, I don't— I've never heard of plans or where— so far, the Palestinians are being increasingly confined in their own territory. As I said, There is no more land to be taken. The land in the West Bank is— that could be taken is taken. Now the point is what to do with the people. And this is why there is an absolute urge for deploying protection for the Palestinians, because this insanity is not going to stop otherwise. The relationship between Israel and the settlers, I'm glad I'm understanding it better, because it seemed to me that, of course, everyone knows that Israel supports the settlement, but the extent to which the occupation is at the service of the settlers, this is not necessarily understood. At least it was not clear to me, because even Israeli judges over 20 years ago have said, the moment you leave, you let Israelis travel with Israeli law in the backpack, they become vectors of annexations. It's not the judge who says that, vectors of annexations. I think it's me saying that. But again, they become— they carry the annexation with them, because this is what has happened. I mean, now you have lawyers and policymakers making crazy gymnastics to distinguish de jure and de facto annexation, it's annexation, and it's so illegal that you can never recognize the consequences as legal. So, but in order not to think of what they have to do according to their legal obligations, states resort to gymnastic and fantasious arguments. But it is to— the relationship with settlements is— I mean, with the settlers is to be fully unpacked, because there are 2 things Yeah. That strike me. One is that in each settlement, as far as I understand from reading Breaking the Silence, is that there is a security coordinator who determines how law enforcement operates. So it's them alerting soldiers on where to arrest the Palestinian, where someone has trespassed, or whether there are— there There is an incident, whatever. So the army is at their service. And there is another issue which is very interesting. I didn't— I mean, I couldn't delve in it, because there is really little research. But there is a connection between youth at risk in Israel and settlements. So there is this sending youth to be rehabilitated. Right. Socially into yeshiva schools in settlements, where they get radicalized. And then they become the Hilltop Youth, which commits violations against the Palestinians. So, again, even the differentiation between what is settlements and what is state enterprise is to be better understood than just misspelled.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: I mean, I think the separation altogether Is fictitious. Is fictitious. That from the very beginning, right, the Israeli— from '67, I mean, first of all, many people would argue if Israel's a settler colonial state, these are the latest settlers, but not the only settlers. But, you know, from the very beginning, the army used— the military and the government used setting up settlements as a way to claim territory. And that's always been an integral part of its Right. The Labor Party started it. But of course, there is a transformation in terms of who is now more dominant within the government. And that's a long story, right? I know I just read a dissertation that also dealt with the Third Temple and the cows and the kind of messianism for the future. But her argument, which I think is right, is Zionism has always been messianic. The seculars— the difference between the secular and the religious Zionists They were all— it was always a messianic project. That division is drawn too tightly. But the thing I want to say about the military, just to be clear, the thing about even the distinction between the settlers and the military, right, you do reserve duty and you do it around your own settlement. There's not a strong distinction there.

Speaker 8: Yeah.

Nadia Abu El-Haj: Right? And I think one has to keep that in mind, that this is a state project, even if at moments It sort of comes into conflict. Those are the tensions within the state that is not seamless, but it is a state project.

Francesca Albanese: Definitely. And this is another taboo, I don't know, in the UK, probably in the UK as well, but certainly in Europe, where people are really— I mean, there are certain politicians, not all politicians are the same, and there are some who are really honest and want to do the right thing, and they say, we are really working to label the settlement products and to— does it suffice? No, of course not. Settlement products should be banned from European markets, because if they emanate from a war crime, from settlements which are war crimes, they shouldn't be there. But the rest, I do not— again, as I said before, I won't repeat myself, I do not see this changing, this changing overnight. I like the question of how Palestinians can defend themselves. It's very hard. Again, the campaign against BDS is mind-blowing, because there has been so much effort and money put into this, because, eventually, what they are— what is BDS asking for? The application of the principles of international law that the International Court of Justice formulated in its 2004 ruling— advisory opinion, sorry. It's so straightforward. It's so factual. It's so legal. And at the same time, it's shifting the narrative. So they are. I think that our responsibility as fellow human beings, wherever we are, is to make sure that there is enough space for them to feel safe and to speak out, because this space is shrinking. And how to resist this? I mean, I understand Corbyn has been sort of— there has been this cancel culture. And why this has not happened to me? Because I'm smarter. No. It's true. No, I'm saying, don't tell Jeremy Corbyn. He was very nice, by the way. But the thing is that I think that the key for me was not to be— not to feel intimidated. I mean, I remember, to be totally honest, the first time I received an email from the Times of Israel was Said, in 2008, you said Jewish— no, in 2008, it was in 2014, you said Jewish lobby. I said, eek. And then, no, it was not just that. I said, the Jewish lobby, which controls the media, which influences the media. I said— I really literally saw my head of special rapporteur rolling on the—

Speaker 10: Oh, my God.

Francesca Albanese: The hill, and they said, it's the end of it. And then, and then this is when I started discussing with some Israeli friends, and I mean, not necessarily Israelis, but they say, don't apologize. I mean, there is nothing incredibly wrong. Clarify what you meant, but especially the context. This was the 2014 war in Gaza. And 2,000— over 2,000 people died. 500 of whom were children. And the Europeans and the American media and policymakers were very shy in denouncing these atrocities. And this is what triggered my indignation. And I was— yeah, I had just left the occupied Palestinian territory, so it was awful. I contextualized, but then I learned a lesson. I thought that I don't want to apologize. If I offended anyone, this was not intentional. And you did. And I will not make the mistake again. But again, there is an Israel, pro-Israel lobby. Let's call it for what it is, and let's keep on denouncing it and the monstrosity it covers up. So in this sense, say I'm smarter. In the sense, I got not intimidated, and I sought counsel from the right people. Voilà.