"The settlers and the land will never be one" w/ Good Shepherd Collective

Sina: Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Welcome to the show. This is a long-delayed episode. It's been, uh, I don't know, it should have happened a long time ago. I'm big fans of you guys, of your work. We're with Cody and Bana from the Good Shepherd Collective. Why don't you each take a second, introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your work, where you're based, starting with you, Cody.

Cody O'Rourke: Yeah, my name is Cody O'Rourke. I'm one of the co-founders of the Good Shepherd Collective. I've been living here in Palestine and working here for about 20 years now, and I'm based here in Palestine. I'm at the moment in Beit Sahour.

Banna: Hi, my name is Banna, and I'm a member of the Good Shepherd Collective. Since 2021. We started with the— after the Unity Intifada in 2021. And our campaign was Defund Racism, actually looked at the settler organizations that are based in Palestine that are trying to displace Palestinians from their land. And they're receiving charitable funds from US charitable organizations.

Sina: Right.

Banna: And we're looking at those connections and trying to refund these organizations. And I've been doing advocacy ever since. I'm currently based in Ireland doing a PhD in international law at Maynooth University.

Sina: So thank you for that. And thank you, both of you. Thank you to the work of Good Shepherd Collective. I've been a big fan. I follow you guys. And I guess at the outset, maybe we should start with what's happening in the West Bank, just because I think I know if this is true for myself, this may be true for people who are listening, but the genocide, obviously, we have our eyes glued to that. And meanwhile, the intensification of the settler colonial genocide, Zionist genocide, is also unfolding in the West Bank. And it entails a larger conversation about the status of the West Bank as a legal entity, about its government. And how it relates to the entity, and the question of normal life. What happened when the Palestinian National Liberation Movement normalized with Zionism in 1991 or whenever it was, 15 years ago? I can't even do math. 25 years ago almost now. So yeah, we could, but maybe both of you can take your time. Maybe Cody, you can start since you're there right now and give us a kind of, if you can, a comprehensive update. Or maybe not comprehensive. I probably should have given you some warning, but maybe give us a couple of updates of what's happening.

Cody O'Rourke: Well, I think that one of the things that's been lost is just how widespread these mechanisms of indigenous erasure are really happening across the You know, the West Bank. You know, I was looking through the home demolition data, you know, just today to kind of, you know, refresh myself. And I was looking at it, and in 2024, so far this year, there's been about 3,800 Palestinians that's been displaced. In previous years, you know, going back, you know, the average number was right around 1,000 Palestinians.

Sina: Wow.

Cody O'Rourke: That were displaced yearly. So this year has been the highest rate of displacement in the last 20 years. But what's also interesting to know is that even though the number of structures are about the same, the number of people displaced are higher.

Sina: Right.

Cody O'Rourke: Kind of what that tells you is that there's an intentional targeting of residential units, of family homes. And this certainly makes sense when you couch that into the current political rhetoric or the rhetoric that's really been happening for several years from the Israeli Zionist movement, the far-right part of it, them beating the drums to annex the West Bank.

Banna: Right.

Cody O'Rourke: So you can kind of really see that across the West Bank, there's really an attempt to consolidate Palestinians into these small ethnic enclaves of Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin. Yeah. So that violence has really escalated, particularly this year.

Banna: Yeah. So one of the things that we've witnessed so far have been a lack of understanding of the logic of elimination when it comes to the West Bank. Because the problem is, is you have maybe around, you know, we've seen obviously the coverage of the situation on Gaza. And we've seen that, you know, right now, The coverage has lessened. There is no coverage for what's happening in the West Bank. So, you know, you can say bluntly that the Zionist military is basically doing whatever they can possibly do, along with these settler organizations and groups, to create settler outposts, to displace whole communities. Right. To assassinate Palestinians in cold blood, to commit extrajudicial killings, to arrests en masse and things like that without any backlash, right? So one of the examples of that, which would have been very, very contentious and would have caused a lot of uproar, was the Khan al-Ahmar Bedouin community. It's a Bedouin community, if you actually you know, visited, it's really on the way from Jerusalem towards Jericho. So this Bedouin community has been at the threat of displacement from settler organizations. And in fact, a specific settler organization called Regavim has been targeting them through lawfare. So they've been suggesting to the Israeli court that they do not, that the Palestinians do not have permits to, you know, have property. So they don't have property permits or, you know, housing permits. So, you know, you can obviously go further and talk about this whole thing about like the Bedouin, you know, ownership of land and the idea of private ownership and, you know, the fact that, you know, in Palestine, Prior to colonization, there was so no such thing as private ownership of property because that's a thing that came with colonialism. That's a thing that came with capitalism, etc., etc. But they've ended up threatening to displace them a few times to the to the extent that the International Criminal Court prosecutor at that time, Fatou Bensouda, said that. The displacement of the community of Khan al-Ahmar would constitute a war crime. So that ended up—

Sina: When did that ever stop them? Let's be real. Come on.

Banna: But exactly that. But because of that backlash, I suppose the government stopped that plan for a while. Regavine never stopped their advocacy or lawfare against those, the Khan Lachma community. But that sort of created a sort of a delay in the process. They have been displaced during the genocide, Khan Lachma community. And not a single page, not a single article on that. Nobody has mentioned anything. For something that would have, you know, been such, you know, it was on every news. It was internationally even covered at that time. Right now there's no coverage of it. And this policy, by the way, of displacing whole communities doesn't happen just in the West Bank. In both sides of the Green Line, there's also a Merheiran who also has been recently displaced, right? Whole community. They know they've demolished the last structure there. And unfortunately, since they've been continuously demolishing Umm al-Hiran, the people there have just— do not have any ability to rebuild again. You know, it's— you can rebuild so much, you know, structure for it to be demolished again and again and again. And if you're— if it's just you and your family left in that community Eventually, you and your family will decide to leave because it's a coercive environment, obviously, that they establish to facilitate displacement, right? So this has been happening publicly. We've seen that happen publicly. Not a single word about it. The same thing, Janine. Every day, and almost every day, there are incursions. What is the word? Is incursion the word? There are invasions. Sorry. So there are invasions of Jenin every single day and assassination of Palestinians, children as well, point-blank assassinations, et cetera. And not a single word. Now, the other element of this that I think is worth mentioning is that the PA has been a very, very central part of this process. Just yesterday, they went at the same exact time that the Israeli military was invading Jenin, the Palestinian officials, the security officials, they went to I think it's called Tamun, and they arrested in mass Palestinians, and they, you know, threatened to assassinate the ones that didn't want to, you know, voluntarily basically give themselves up for arrest or, you know, put down arms and things like that. So you can see that, you know, all of these dynamics Counterinsurgency, all of these dynamics that we're seeing in the West Bank, including, you know, the extreme layers of it, of like this displacement of whole communities. We're seeing that more so with settler organizations right now establishing settlement outposts as well. We have all of these newer settlement outposts in areas around Bethlehem, tightening the ring of Bethlehem. Now you're having to, if you have to look around 360, you will see a settlement. There's no, there is no, if you go into highest point of every place in the West Bank, you will see, you go 360, you see a settlement or a settlement outpost. So definitely building Pantostans, definitely a project for the complete elimination of Palestinians.

Sina: Right.

Banna: And I think there's a good— I think Cody might tell us a good example of that, I think, with the Al-Qaisiya family. Maybe, Cody, you want to bring that, an attention to that?

Cody O'Rourke: Okay. Yeah, so the Al-Qaisiya family, it's a Palestinian Christian family just on the other side of Bethlehem. It's situated In a UNESCO heritage site, actually, where it's one of the few green spaces in Bethlehem or in the West Bank, really, that has public access. They're a family that has had a restaurant there for several years, and it did quite well. It was a barbecue place, and because of how scenic it was, it was often used for family gatherings, for community events. But because it sits in this corridor between these other settlements, the settler movement led by the Jewish National Fund decided to put an outpost there. They came in, destroyed the house, destroyed the restaurant in 2019. So over the last 5 years, it's been a perpetual struggle for that family.

Banna: Right.

Cody O'Rourke: To stay on their land. What's kind of unique about this situation is that these aren't simply Palestinians in the West Bank that don't have Israeli citizenship. These are Palestinians that actually have Israeli citizenship. So even though they have kind of these additional rights that a lot of Palestinians in the West Bank don't have, Right. The settler movement still is targeting them. So there's a lot of times the Israeli left likes to frame it as, oh, the settler movement's only attacking Palestinians in the West Bank. But no, it's a wholesale attack on anyone who's not of— that doesn't belong to the Zionist project. And I think that one of the things that the Good Shepherd Collective And what I think the book tries to do is repackage our analysis in a colonial context. And the way that colonization, even the way it makes us understand what's happening here, because not this year, but in many other years, there's actually been more home demolitions of Palestinians' that have Israeli citizenship in the Negev and in the Galilee more than what there is in the West Bank. And that's important because a lot of the international focus and international aid is about what's happening in Gaza and in the West Bank. And that's by design.

Banna: Right.

Cody O'Rourke: Right? Because there's this whole layer of international law that's only applied to the occupied territories. And because the occupied territories in a colonial context excludes Israel, therefore there's not the resources to understand the settler colonialism that's happening there. So one of the pieces that my colleagues wrote, Banna and Lara, earlier this year, talking about what anti-Zionism should look like, was really kind of a response to the way that the NGO industry in the UK and Canada and certainly in the US has kind of co-opted what anti-Zionism should look like. So when you, and just an example of this, it's like, If you're really doing anti-Zionist work, Tel Aviv is just as much of a settlement as Kiryat Arba, as Ariel, as Efrat, et cetera, et cetera. Settlers aren't simply those people who are living in Tel Ramada or these other radical settlements. Settlers are those people who are also living in You know, in West Jerusalem and Holon and, you know, in all of these other spaces. So that's one of the things that we try to push back on because it has real impact. You know, currently there's not a real good way for us to just dig up and see how many Palestinian homes were demolished in 1948 Palestine. That data is really obscure and hard to access.

Sina: Right.

Cody O'Rourke: Yeah. So there's lots of implications when we don't think about what colonization is and what decolonial praxis should look like.

Sina: You know, that's really— I appreciate both of those. And it's something that I try to always think about in the context of Palestine, is that it's this strange contradiction of Here's this, like, almost— here's this antiquated form, almost, say, of settler colonial racist white supremacist nationalism that we— that the world had phased out, at least in its earliest, most raw form. I mean, they had evolved by the time 1945 rolls around. But let's just say for the sake of argument that even the imperialist powers themselves had moved beyond in terms of their own, their own relationships and configuration of settler colonialism. But they return to this almost primordial form of pure colonialism in the form of Zionism that combines ultranationalist race hate, European white supremacy specifically, with an unbridled thirst for native expulsion and destruction and conquest, really, and making that conquest the centerpiece of your, of your manufactured cobble-together society, right? So like when you drive by the, like what hipsters say, kitschy hotel in Colorado somewhere that has a bow and arrow motif, like that is its— that is a stage of settler colonial development and a symptom of settler colonialism, right? And In a similar explanation of that, a similar analogy to that is this Israeli need to turn couscous and hummus and falafel into this whatever. We all know the jokes by now. But I think that what makes the Palestine story different, obviously in many other ways, and of course all of these instances are different, but the Palestine chapter of the global settler colonial, European settler colonial project, Is that we get to watch it in all of its stages that we got, and we got to watch it more and more as it reached its conclusion.

Banna: Right.

Sina: And now, sure, that was the case with South Africa, at least the latter thing, and we got to watch its conclusion. But even then, because of the advent of phones and the internet and all this stuff, it's a live, it's a simultaneous experience. And so almost, you know, like it's as if, it's as if you can track it minute by minute. And in some ways you can, right? In terms of the war aspect of it, right? Of like the actual, like now in terms of the individual struggles, no, you can't. A phone doesn't give you access to that stuff because you have to be there. But in the way that we historicize wars, settler colonial wars, imperialist wars, or whatever, the Palestine story is truly unique. Because we get to watch it. And somehow the most, the most, I don't know, evidenced genocide in history is also subject to the most sort of like blackmail. And I don't know, I personally don't like this word gaslighting, but I'm using it for some reason. I've been on the internet too long. Someone log me off, please. But it's true. They think they call you crazy, but it's this, it's this game of rhetorical madness, where you see this retrograde hate state built around a racial obsession with itself, terrorizing not just millions of Palestinians, but tens of millions and hundreds of millions of indigenous people around it, because it operates as the US stick in the region. And America rolls around and pretends to give carrots. And so we live in a moment, this post-Oslo moment. I mean, you live, you two live, you're there to a degree and have connections there. But this moment that we grew up in, at least, from my childhood on, of a Palestinian Authority, which means a normalized faction of the Palestinian liberation movement, decided to normalize When another faction didn't. And as much as what we're watching now is a story of that twin or split struggle, I think, and like to sort of the global analysis of that and like reaping sort of like what all of this stuff sowed, like Oslo specifically, but also the way that in conjunction with liberal Zionism, in conjunction with, you know, like all the NGOization, right? We saw something truly unique. in this is that you had a parallel national liberation movement and a comprador capitulation regime. I mean, to me, that's like, like, I can't help it. Like, I'm sorry if that sounds— if I like chop it up like an academic so much, but like, to me, I can't think of any other historical analogy that comes close to something like this, especially because we're talking about a relatively small chunk of land, right? And a relatively small number of people. Yeah.

Cody O'Rourke: Right.

Sina: It's not 30 million people. It's not 50 million people we're talking about. We're talking about under 12, 15 when you include Jews, right? Something relatively small, right? And so in all of this, I just think that you're right.

Banna: We—

Sina: there is a tendency to lose the grinding war and the genocide, obviously, against the larger historical backdrop of settler colonial genocide. So I appreciate the work that you guys do in bringing this to attention because it is a kind of You have to be the It's Sunny in Philadelphia guy. You always have to be drawing the circles and connecting it and be like, yeah, don't you see? It also makes you crazy. I'm sure I don't need to tell you this.

Cody O'Rourke: Well, it's interesting because I reflect on what you're saying in that you're right. It's the most documented place on Earth. Right? Because it's like, you know, you have tour groups here and come-and-see tours and Israeli tours and Palestinian tours and, you know, these interfaith tours and cultural tours and religious tours. And it's just documented. And so many film crews and so many reports. And it creates a situation where It's like you're on social media, you're inundated with all of these stories and data, and it's like you're talking in your friend circles about it, but it's like, how often do people really go back to the basics? Because there's still a large chunk of Palestinian liberation that still operates inside of the framework of this is a conflict. Which is completely different than looking at it through a lens of settler colonialism. So it was like yesterday or today, it was, I had a friend on, not a friend, but an acquaintance who had come through here a few years ago on a tour through this Palestinian organization called Sabeel, and it's a Christian organization. One that we've had contact with for a lot of years, and we know them and have worked with them in the past. We don't work with them anymore. But yeah, so they're doing a tour now, and they're taking, as part of their tour, a stop to talk to the Israelis down in the Gaza Strip or near the Gaza envelope. You know, the settlements in the south, to hear their stories. And that goes back into that framework of, oh, this is a conflict, so we have to listen to both sides.

Sina: Right.

Cody O'Rourke: And what we see as the long-term impacts of that is that you're giving a platform for Zionists. You know, and a lot of times you're actually donating, you're actually giving money to those speakers, you know, probably not a lot, but probably a couple hundred dollars for them to speak to the group. So not only are you creating space for them, you know, but you're also paying them. You're also adding to their resume, right? You know, because then in return they get tours for other groups, right? And so there's this whole thing about settler colonialism that there really has to be a mechanism to legitimize the voice of the settler. So if we're only operating in a framework of conflict, then there's nothing wrong with going down and meeting with those settlers.

Banna: Right.

Cody O'Rourke: But if you're operating in a paradigm of settler colonialism, You know, you pump the brakes on that and go, look at, like, we're not doing that. You know, we're not giving space for both sides. Like, no one's going into the United States and going, hold on a second about this racism. We need to give equal space to the KKK. Right? But, you know, so there needs to be a real conversation about what is anti-Zionism, what should it look like, and how do we implement these mechanisms of accountability.

Banna: I'd just like to add here that something, picking up on the line about documentation, I think it is so shocking once you learn of the banality of Zionism, because only Palestinians have the burden of proof, the burden of evidence, the burden of documentation. The burden of proof of, you know, every word we say. We have to justify our existence. We have to justify our, you know, way of life, our culture. But if you look at Zionism and Zionists, they've never had to have any of that. They just have complete full entitlement on a national level. You have all of these people, settlers, that have entitlement on a national level to do whatever they want to do. So talk about the extreme form of white supremacy, extreme form, to kill Palestinians, to suppress Palestinians, to displace Palestinians, to genocide Palestinians, to take over the land of Palestinians, the full entitlement of that. And yet the problem is you have this arrogance of the international community to come in and say that you Palestinians must accept and normalize that, normalize that sense of national, you know, kind of extreme level of, you know, sadistic, you know, nationalism. Um, you know, and settler sort of, you know, uh, arrogance and entitlement. And that's the only way you are able to exist on that land, right? So there's this arrogance. That's why, for example, when, when we see things like this type of, you know, organizations that bring in like both sides, we understand that this is, this is not just some sort of kind of a mistake on part of organizations and NGOs. This has been a process in making for years and years. Since Oslo, we've seen billions and billions, and this is public, you can find articles on that, billions of dollars being given to NGOs in Palestine, NGOs Inside, you know, '48, you know, occupied Palestine, really from the river to the sea, like just full of these projects of people-to-people normalization projects, meet and talk, Israelis and Palestinians talk to each other type of thing, which you are, I'm pretty sure you heard many of yourself, Sina, because— Yeah. This is such a common thing of, you know, why don't you just sit together? Why don't you just talk it out? It's such a— I've just, you know, if you actually ask me, I'm infuriated with that because in fact that has to do with my own even research because I still have, you know, reviewers and people ask me that question even though my research is on normalization. But the problem is, is that there's lots of funding for those type of projects that eventually it boils down to nothing more than telling Palestinians again arrogantly that the only way that you can exist in this space is if you normalize Zionism. If you normalize that it is a good thing that you are eliminated for the goal of establishing the Jewish state, that you need to sort of— so now instead of saying, well, here there is the sort of forceful elimination of the Palestinian people through genocide, through, you know, a coercive environment, through apartheid, through all sorts of, you know, settler colonial kind of mechanisms. No, let's do a softer way of it, like a carrot, as you said, Sina. And let's have the Palestinians themselves arrive at the fact that, look, the only way that you can exist is if you normalize Zionism. So it has been a tool of so-called counterinsurgency, as many have looked at, and a tool of containment of resistance. And so we see ourselves, you know, we see ourselves every day, you know, our right to express ourselves, our Palestinian identity suppressed. And it is a form of depalestinization. It's a form of removing the Palestinian identity from the people. And saying, look, the only way that you can exist here, and perhaps maybe not even exist because you will never be part and parcel of that, you know, identity of that project of Zionism, is that you just need to accept your fate. And so there's just extreme arrogance that we must accept that fate for us to live. And to survive. But to see that coming from Palestinian organizations and NGOs that receive that money and implement these projects, it's just another layer of it all, just another layer of the banality of it all. So what Cody was speaking of is something that we witness every day. There's There are so many forms of normalization. I can say that 3 levels of it, like the people-to-people projects, this is just one layer of it. But another level has been the PA, obviously, with post-Oslo normalization, the Wye River Memorandum and the security coordination is another. And the way they are actively participating in counterinsurgency, physically even doing so and silencing and arresting Palestinians who refuse and reject Zionism, et cetera. And then there's even this form that we've seen the last maybe 10 years of normalization with the Arab states and regionally. And the most sort of abhorrent form of it is the one where Egypt, became a partner with the Zionist entity in the genocide. Like, I don't see many people speaking of this, and I understand that, you know, people don't want to deviate and don't want to talk about, you know, the responsibility of Egypt, but it cannot be anymore hidden, the fact that they are absolutely partners in the genocide, in the extermination of the Palestinian people. And then the 4th form really actually is the one that Cody was speaking to, the one where during genocide, you're still having people saying that we need to look into the experience of settlers. We need to hold space for the Israeli left. Yeah. We need to hold space for liberal Zionism. And so that's why when we speak, we need to have space. We need to institutionalize anti-Zionism. And we're speaking to that. We're speaking to the fact that these people, every day they wake up, Palestinian NGOs and whatnot, partners of these NGOs in the US and other spaces, all of these, you know, Choose wake up every day and choose to normalize and choose to uphold Zionism in that way. And yet, yet at enduring genocide, they're still unable to stop that that normalization, that abhorrent and vile normalization. The as we say in Palestine, the blood has not dried, and yet you're still calling for normalization. I mean, even the U.S. keeps talking about oh yes, now I think is the time to. Have a diplomatic solution. The only way of for this to end is through diplomatic solution while they send in bombs, while they created a whole psychological operation on on Palestinians to and and they've created this what do you call it the the see Port, yeah, humanitarian pier, and then they ended up using that to massacre 200 Palestinians. Do you think Palestinians will forget that? That that that that Egypt, the U.S., and all of the UAE as well, Saudi Arabia, Jordan. Do you think Palestinians will forget that? Turkey. So in a way, Palestinians are very aware that, you know, regionally Zionism is upheld by these people. Internally, the PA is upholding Zionism, and so is these organizations, NGOs that receive this money. And make concessions on behalf of Palestinians and what Palestinian liberation should look like. And at the end of the day, who gets the platform? These organizations. And who gets demonized? Organizations like Samidoun, organizations and groupings like Palestine Action. They're too radical for us. We cannot be partners with them. So, and so eventually we're going to have to arrive at that We're going to have to talk about this, you know, very, very difficult conversation that it's not enough for individuals to be anti-Zionists. Anti-Zionism needs to be the foundation of institutions, needs to be the way everybody acts, needs to just be common sense. So you shouldn't— we shouldn't even be talking about Settler, native, these should be common sense. We shouldn't be talking, as Cody said, that, you know, the, the— we shouldn't have a distinction between the settler in the West Bank and the one in inside of the so-called State of Israel. There's no such thing. They're all settlers. And it's all occupied Palestine from the river to the sea. We're colonized. We've been colonized since I don't know how many years. And yet so many people yet until today want to remain ahistorical, want us to remain in the ahistorical and want us to normalize. And still, even in the sort of post-Gaza conversations, that is the answer for people. Oh, the only solution you can have is a negotiation of a ceasefire. And, you know, let's normalize the fact that they occupied You know, the north of Gaza, and they now they want to they've they're completely cutting off aid from that. It's complete abhorrent. There's an ongoing genocide. They do the same in the West Bank. Why? What would hold hold them back? Really nothing. So all what we're saying is it's abhorrent that people and organizations and folks still do not see how anti-Zionism is. Not a matter of discussion. It needs just to be the standard. It's not let's talk about what anti-Zionism is. Let's have a conversation because it's very clear what anti-Zionism is. If you understand settler colonialism, you understand what anti-Zionism is. So it's not complicated. It's very it's pretty clear. Palestinians cannot wait enough for people to. arrive at that conclusion. There's a genocide happening. What are people waiting for?

Sina: So I guess in some ways, part of the issue here, from the perspective of people like us— I'm guessing you and the 3 of us are basically around the same age— is that we do have this example of indigenous resistance choosing to normalize with the colonial entity. And I want to correct you though, is that you were— at least I want to sort of bring up something, which is that this is a choice that indigenous people face all around the world, or faced. Do you recognize this behemoth beast that's kidnapping your kids, that's destroying Your lands, that's poisoning your water, stealing every inch of your identity. What do you do? And a lot of indigenous history is them struggling. There are a lot of examples of them struggling with this question, having the same debates that Palestinians have probably in their dinners about normalizing, about like, okay, we can make a better life. And I was, you know, so I'm thinking, I'm thinking across that larger history. And I wonder, though, is that one structural difference about the West Bank versus Gaza, which is Gaza doesn't contain much of their religious history, right? They— if part of the Zionist project is this hyper-fetishization of these ancient historical sites, Then Gaza, it's is is def that doesn't compare to the West Bank for them. Now, would they like to bomb Al-Aqsa? Whoa, gleefully! They would do it gleefully if it wouldn't cause like global religious war instantly. But it it by I think in general though is that one of the strange one of the strange elements about the the conquest of Palestine by Zionism is that unfolded in different ways, and on top of that the The withdrawal, they talk about disengagement, but really the withdrawal of Zionists from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which is to say the liberation of the Gaza Strip, then presented a new obstacle in the strategy because it was supposed to be all of the West Bank model, the model of diplomatic, political, and material attrition where you do a mix of bribing, And coalescing your own allies and compradors in that colonial framework and creating a kind of subspace where they can be governed by their own people ostensibly, but ultimately the control and sovereignty rests in the hands of the colonial entity. But that wasn't the case in Gaza, which would force them to besiege it for 17 years. And now with periodical sort of like violent catastrophic bombings. But now they just, they had to do the whole, they had to do their end zone, right? It's their final solution to the Gaza problem, which we're watching. And something that I always like to say to people is that as much as it hurts to watch Gaza, they are failing in that project. They don't have the numbers to sustain that. All of those settler tours, all of those sales of land in Gaza, it's all for just show. Yeah. They don't have the numbers. How many Shlomo Eichmanns can they send to Gaza? How many? What can they do? They'll be sitting ducks waiting for the resistance to smash their little fucking faces in with missiles. Because what are you going to do? You're going to set up a fucking Gaza envelope there? No, it's going to be sitting ducks. They're going to recreate the same problem that got them here, which was they want the land. But the resistance won't let them. And that resistance has grown. So I try in this moment to really, really hammer on this, just as an observer. I'm not Palestinian, and I can't say, don't be sad about your people, but they are winning. They are winning. And the punishment is the genocide. And I can't stress this enough, that genocide doesn't win you a war.

Cody O'Rourke: Right.

Sina: War has strategic goals, it has structures, and the resistance being what it has, and being also the fact that, yes, there is an alliance, a treacherous alliance of Muslim and Arab states arrayed against this small country of indigenous Palestinians on the Eastern Mediterranean. Yes, we know their names, we know their GDPs, we know their pedo leaders. Okay, we know who they are. Okay, but there's also a noble group of countries who have come together numbering in the hundreds of millions with powerful tools in their hands who have decided to say like, yeah, this is our fight too. And so when people say, oh, what's the world doing about it? Yeah, there are people in the world that are doing about it. They're doing a lot actually. You just don't see them as part of the world because you have like 45 years Of Zionist fucking propaganda that tells you Iranians aren't people. And then 15 years of propaganda that says Yemenis aren't people. And 30 years of propaganda saying Lebanese Shia aren't people. So I really hammer on this, is that as bleak as it seems, is that these lines are bigger than Palestine, right? Like these geographic alliances, this thing we're watching, whatever it is, like as local as it is, as much as it's about like olive trees, and land. It's also historical modes of governance going against each other. You have the settler colonial mode in the form of Uncle Sam, and it's sick goon, mobster proxy Zionists. And you have an array of indigenous liberation movements, anti-colonial, anti-imperial liberation movements born of the land that speak the native languages, that connect with the people, Arrayed around them in Iran, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Lebanon, soon to be in Bahrain, soon to be in these Gulf states that won't exist if there is World War III. So anyways, that's my big long rant of trying to sort of like set the tone because it's really easy to see the destruction of Gaza and just be like, it's lost, they won, right? Because we're human and we're fallible.

Banna: Yeah.

Sina: And we can't help but think of destruction as the co-equivalent of power. But destruction— power is not destructive ability. Power is being able to impose your will on your enemy. And the Zionists, they can't do that. And so that's in the midst of all this, I think, in the conversation around the West Bank and Gaza, is that Gaza has held, it's held steadfast to the liberation of Palestine, where—

Banna: Yeah.

Sina: Whereas aside from, you know, like there are powerful resistance movements inside the West Bank, at least the governance factor, the kind of state, whatever you want to call the PA, they haven't. And so yeah, the Palestinian liberation movement is divided. It is divided. That's, that's, I think that's, we don't say this enough out loud. Like we don't, we don't talk in these terms, but it's divided. That's just easy to say that. That's okay. But one side needs the Zionists and the other one For sure.

Banna: I really thank you for doing like this type of conversation, opening this, because we had a conversation on this, um, a few podcasts before on this com— like this idea of defeatism in the movement. And I think it's very problematic because it sets the idea that like there isn't anything happening. And as you said, there are lots happening. And one thing that We must just point at, and you said it yourself, but maybe you didn't mention that Lebanon—they're absolutely getting their butts handed to them, as we say in Ireland. So so you can see that you know the you know the Lebanese resistance is more than capable. This is just an easy game for them. Even like you know they the they could not. You know, just you know freely think that they can just invade Lebanon without knowing that the resistance there is just. I mean, they won into they won against them in 2006. Do you think that they will not? You know, so like in a way they are. There's a lot of this. You know, obviously this element of yeah, it's. So bad, and this element of, you know, just defeatism in the movement. And I think we are very wary of that because once you fall for that, I think you sort of remove yourself from the resistance. You remove yourself from the process. You remove yourself from the movement. And I think that's very problematic because we all obviously have a role and we're all doing Lots as well. There are, as you said, so many organizations. I mean, I hear every day about, you know, weapon manufacturer being like completely blocked. I hear every day about, you know, dock workers refusing to unload a ship or load a ship or whatnot and things like that. And To be honest, like, for me, I have just— I have to say this because, like, I don't think Palestinians say it enough, but the Yemenis, God, the Yemenis are just the— like, they've, they've, they've not— like, they're currently, I mean, under bombardment because of that sort of support. But not only strategically have they done that sort of But they did not stop a minute to start this process of nuance and questioning. It was just, yes, there is a genocide. The only answer for genocide is resistance. The only answer right now, as there is these 1, 2, 3, 4 fronts, 5 fronts, is we need to join hands. There's no need for nuance. There's no need for You know, you know, conversation. It's just it comes in as what do you call it? What's the word for it? Help me. It's it comes in as yeah.

Sina: Well, I mean, in the sense that there there's um there's something in us being Western subjects. Like I'm a Western subject. Okay, like not so much you. But you live in the West now, but not as— you weren't forged in the belly of the beast as I was. And let me tell you, the, like, liberal— the, the power of liberal bullshit is so ingrained into every penny, every sort of chunk of your culture. And this is actually, uh, this is why American chuds, like the right-wing chuds, this is their only real leverage, is that they go after this institutional control that liberalism and liberals enjoy. So they're like, oh, the liberal media, oh, the liberal establishment, blah, blah, blah. And then they like make these fake culture wars and they, you know, just quack at each other for no reason. But one of the things, though, is that the liberalism that forged me, and especially because I'm in like the Canadian version of it, which isn't, you know, it's a different arrangement of the US. But there is this thing of talk to your enemies, right? Which is an underlying thing of saying nonviolence is the only way. To resist, right? Non-fetishization of nonviolence. Oh, Gandhi said an eye for an eye blinds the whole world. You know, like that bullshit thing of, you know, like, as if, and which I've done episodes about, like, who wants to listen to this podcast who, like, needs to be told about the insidiousness of that? But what's crazy is that liberals, in the face of all the violence that they call for, right, that all the violence they co-sign and amplify, and just with all their hate, they thump their chest doing it. Places like Libya, Syria, for a while Yemen until they got bored, you know, like Yugoslavia, right? Like they call their requirement that the violence that goes into their supposedly loving and accepting and non-discriminatory international order, right, that doesn't count, right? And so they look at indigenous people resisting violently and they say, my God, How could you do that? Like, how, how could you betray this amazing steaming pile of shit sandwich we gave you? And you're not going to just eat it and enjoy it and say thank you for giving us this steaming pile of shit as a sandwich to like, instead of giving us our fucking— instead of like leaving our homeland. Right. And so this for me is that we're in this moment where you see that this is a liberal-run genocide.

Banna: Yeah.

Sina: Like the people who lecture us about genocides in Iran against the Kurds are leading a live genocide, genocide that doesn't exist, that this is them, or, or in Xinjiang in China, another one that doesn't exist, right? Like they are, they are leading another one that not only is it being documented by the entire planet and being discussed, but the perpetrators themselves are filming themselves doing it and archiving it for future Museums to store, right? Like, this is the madness of it, right? And their only response is to hush it up because it breaks that contradiction of theirs, right? Because it highlights their contradiction is that violence is bad unless we do it, or it's our allies, or it's done against people we think are gross and scary, right? Like, that's the liberal international framework, right? And so in the midst of all this, then you had this, you had this very powerful, very influential liberal named Bill Clinton, who was able to pull off— and there was a lot of lead-up to it, and there was a lot of things happening around it that were caused by it, sure. But the man who pulled it off and got all the credit was a Dixiecrat liberal, the same guy they sent to Michigan to insult Arabs and Muslims and laugh at them and spit at them.

Cody O'Rourke: Right.

Sina: We are watching liberalism in action. This is peak liberalism. Liberals have never been more liberal. than they are right now. So in the midst of all this, I can understand, like, it's important to understand that one wing of liberalism is the wing you guys are unfortunately trapped in with them, like in a madhouse, I imagine, is the NGO world, right? Liberals, the power of liberals in that world, we— I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, is immense. Liberal thinking, liberal money, liberal donors, right? Chuds don't fund this stuff. Like evangelicals fund settler orgs and only settler orgs, you know? Maybe they have a few scams they run, sure. Like that thing that I can't remember what it's called. Oh, that thing that Rabia Chaudry did and Wajahat Ali, those scum, or those scum Muslims from— I can't remember what it's called. Uh, but like that kind of stuff. But like evangelicals don't waste their time with that. They're honest about their political desires. They're happy to say, yeah, get those Arabs out.

Banna: Yeah.

Sina: Whereas liberals, their job is to sound as if they're not like the other side, right? And so their job is to be that velvet glove that tells you, no, listen to them, hear what they have to say, don't raise your voice. And this is, I mean, these people have to go. This is, you know, it's 2011, people saying Assad must go. Well, I'm saying liberals must go. It's 2024. All liberals must go.

Banna: Absolutely. I have actually a line that I read by Nasser Abu-Rahme on this, and he says— it's a great article, by the way, for people to read— um, he says that Zionism has exposed how in tune liberalism is with fascism. And so I thought that line was amazing. I use it everywhere now. Uh, but I think it's just so clear to us is that like, it's— there's no like, there's no, um, like It doesn't need to be hidden anymore. I think for us, I suppose we are able to see that line clearly because we're not liberals ourselves, but many others unfortunately are not able to see that line clearly of the connection between liberalism and how in tune they are with these kind of fascist, white supremacist, and violent ideologies while pretending, well, maybe with respectability politics, right? Like violence with respectability politics. Yeah. And identity politics. Oh my God, they love that. As long as you know, you know the person that's sitting on the podium at the UN that raises their hand to veto a resolution on whatever sanction, whatever for for Palestine is you know Black or a person of color. That's all that matters, right? And you know, and this whole lot of just neoliberal. As you said, bullshit. So we're we're used to that. We're so used to hearing so many of of these conversations. I mean, the elections was like sort of a a clear example to us, and I'm I'm glad so many people's eyes have been opened to it. I just feel like it's been just way too late for them to arrive at that conclusion. To be honest, I think it should have been way way early for them to see that. I don't know, maybe. Vietnam, Iraqi War. I don't know what else. What else did you want to know? Like slavery. What else do you want to know? Like about like why is it like what else do you need for you to to to make it clear to you where you are living right now is a settler colony or where you are you know what you're reproducing is you know imperial propaganda or imperialist propaganda. So it's just, it's bonanza. Like, it's just madness, as you say.

Cody O'Rourke: It's madness for sure. But I think that sometimes what we also don't talk about enough is that there is an underlying structure to this, especially as it relates to Palestine and Palestinian organizing and Palestinian resistance. And I think A lot of it has to do with the structure and the structures that are set up to gatekeep. A lot of times in these entrenched communities, you have brought up Khan al-Ahmar and whether that be Umm al-Khair or the Kassia family. A lot of times it's the liberal Zionist groups that are raising money. That are organizing the press tours, that are providing the legal aid. Most of the legal aid that's happening in Silwan right now is coming from Peace Now.

Sina: Right.

Cody O'Rourke: And so then in return, what happens is that you have these tours, like Breaking the Silence will do a tour down in Hebron to show what Shahada Street looks like, and they'll meet with Issa Amro. But all while that's happening is they're collecting emails, they're developing their talking points to the journalists, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so then what happens is that these Zionist formations that are at the same time helping Palestinians in real material ways that groups in the United States aren't, because, I mean, let's face it, USCPR, aren't paying for Palestinian lawyers here in Palestine. Jewish Voice for Peace certainly are not. The Palestinian youth movement certainly is not. So Palestinians here, their material resources a lot of times come from these Zionist formations. So the system really perpetuates itself. Yeah. Because once they collect the emails, once they collect the journalists, when anything happens, who can mobilize? It's these groups here. And so if you're a Palestinian community, like the community of Umm al-Khair, and the World Zionist Congress wants to have a Seder dinner on your community, are you going to say no? No, you don't. You allow them to happen. So then in return, it's, you know, you have these NGOs in the United States that really run under this mantra of being Palestinian-led. Well, you know, you're then in return putting Palestinians here in a position in which they have to give up their material resources, you know, To, you know, for US-based organizers or organized in the United States to confront Zionism in different ways. You know, I mean, it's like you're putting an undue— you're making these communities more vulnerable by just simply being lazy and going, oh, we have to be Palestinian-led. Well, you know, you can't expect these people To make all of the sacrifices, you have to also read Fanon, read some of these other people that have talked about what resistance looks like and what decolonization looks like and what these power dynamics look like, because it's not always the case that people are willing to speak about that stuff publicly. They will certainly speak about it privately and people that they trust, because they've told me 1,000 times over the last 20 years, I don't want to do this thing, but this is what my options are.

Sina: Yeah, which is actually a common— I think that's also something that Palestinians share with other indigenous histories, that you're left this awful choice of starve or take Resources that your enemy and your enemy's allies control, and they sort of deign to, you know, and this is part of the system. This is part of like existing under, because you can have a Palestinian— it's funny the way that this is also another liberal thing. You can say things like, oh, Palestinian-led, but it doesn't mean that it's not like Zionist-controlled, right? Like, it's not that— like, you can have a leader who's under the control of someone else.

Banna: Yeah.

Sina: Right. Like, that's not mutually exclusive. Right. And so like the idea, I mean, really what the Palestinian national liberation movement is, that it's divided. There's part of it that has sovereignty over itself, that has the ability to govern itself and pursue its own interests, which is the liberation of its own country and more of its land. And you have another side that isn't, that it works hand in hand with the colonial enemy that gets bribed.

Banna: Right.

Sina: That has an army of— what's crazy is that we now also live in a media sphere where their children have media jobs. The children of that class have media jobs and email jobs, and they start stores that make kufiyas or whatever. And this is another aspect of indigenous struggle that's, again, not common, not unique to Palestinian experience. But again, there's— because we have documentation of this and because we have the internet, we see the nuances of this struggle, this 100-year-long struggle. The Rashid Khalidi book, The Hundred-Year War on Palestine, has resulted in this struggle that has been for over a century, this anti-Zionist struggle led by Palestinian indigenous resistance, supported by outside actors who have changed and morphed over the years, mind you, but ultimately, That's, you know, this is the final, you know, this is the sort of the crux of the issue is that do you have sovereignty or not, right? The people of the West Bank do not, right? And the people of Gaza did, or they do in a sense. And that's what Israel has to destroy. That's what Zionists and Americans have to destroy. Any amount of sovereignty. You know, we did an episode earlier where the guest said, Gaza is free. It's the rest of the world that's a prison. And that's why they have to punish it so hard. That's why they have to nuke it tonnage-wise, tonnage in terms of their bombings, 6 times over. I mean, this savage, the most violent bombing campaign, the most openly, proudly genocidal army working together hand in hand with the most vicious settler colonial European white supremacists to have ever existed, Using the most advanced tools, and they can't even get out of North Gaza. Think about that for a second, folks. Okay? Think about how the odds are stacked against them. They can't even. All they can do is run their asses deep, like a little bit, a few kilometers into Lebanon, blow up some empty villages, and then take pictures for their drones and release it. Right? Like they even sent their little their their actually chief Arab spokesman, whatever his name is, Avichai or whatever. They sent him yesterday, this like stubby little man. You know, like running into the zone to like take a picture. And that's what you realize the priority of Zionists is, this fetishization of their own conquest, of documenting a nonexistent conquest that is rapidly eluding them.

Banna: Right.

Sina: And so sometimes I think, isn't it crazy that they dedicate all these resources to colonizing the West Bank and terrorizing children and women and policing Some lone psycho hut, you know, like roof, like, you know, random outpost or whatever, that they spend immense amount of resources when they could, you know, when they could dedicate that to fighting in Gaza or in Lebanon.

Banna: Right.

Sina: And then you realize, oh, there's probably a class, there's probably a class dynamic in their own military where the powerful kids and the kids of rich people get to go and do the fun stuff in the West Bank, and the kids who are poor and the mercenaries, more than likely, go to Lebanon and then go to Gaza, right? Because they don't— like, what they don't— they have a lot of technology and they have a lot of help, but what they don't have is people, right? And what they don't have is courageous people that Palestinians have in droves, and Lebanese have as well, and Yemenis, and Iraqis, and Iranians. And this is their ultimate weakness. They just don't have people. They don't have people. And I refuse to believe that a settler colonial entity, which is basically 3 cities, Right. And a whole bunch of desert in the South, right, that didn't finish the job in '48 because they didn't have the power then, that they're now trying to finish a job which they can't even do. So they resort to just shooting defenseless civilians, defenseless women and children, while getting their asses handed to them. And, you know, they come back as like fucking cyborg losers with an iPhone and an iWatch with like 2 robot legs. Yeah, fucking Inspector Gadget Magoo. Go enjoy your Tinder experience now in New York City with your fucking robot legs. Okay, it's not gonna happen. So like, they, they don't fight for the same reasons that indigenous people fight. I refuse to believe that. I refuse to believe, like, I know so many Zionists who are fucking stock boys in New York instead of fighting. If they really believed, they would go and fight.

Cody O'Rourke: Right.

Sina: Like, they wouldn't send their fucking Druze or whatever. Like, they wouldn't send their They're a little, they're mercenaries and there probably are a ton of mercenaries doing this fighting too in Gaza. So yeah, that's my rant of the day.

Banna: No, I think I love that. It's just, I love this rant because it's also very true that like you see people just not aware of the fact that like you don't need to be this, like historically you don't need to have the biggest tools to win. At war. I don't think it has— it boils down to that. And I suppose it's very difficult to win against guerrilla warfare, like, or maybe semi-guerrilla. Some, some people might argue that it's not really guerrilla warfare. But I would say that it's very difficult because it's not, it's not as simple of like, yeah, you've, you've managed it. Like, it's not as simple as like, oh, you know, Like the capabilities of your enemies, it's not clear set. And so technically, it's you you go into the battlefield with complete surprises. And that's how, like for example, like the the you know the enemy was not able to like the Zionists were not able to you know when they started saying oh yeah we will invade Gaza. They were not able to understand how they, like, they were gonna, you know, they looked into the tunnels, they were like, okay, yeah, the only way they're gonna fight us is through tunnels. But then they would come to them, right, and put like an actual missile or like a bomb right at the actual, you know, uh, tank. Like, who, who would ever think that the Zionists Or who would in their right mind think that Zionists can win this? The Palestinians have that, and the Lebanese, and, you know, the oppressed, the indigenous resistance will always have that sort of element of, you know, sacrifice, doing all you can do. But if you actually think about it, Palestinians also know that the enemies wear diapers. They like, like, I swear, I think it was like even at some point, like, it was an advertisement, like, for diapers, and people were thinking like, oh, we need to buy them more diapers for the, you know, and things like that. So like, we know that this is characteristic of their army, is that there's no hint of courage. You cannot colonize courageously even. Like, you have to colonize with fear. Like, you know, colonization— because first of all, you don't know the land, you don't know, uh, you know, how to, you know, you know, build the land or how to cultivate the land as, you know, as previously. You don't know the language of that land, you don't know how to You know, you you go to the land without having the knowledge that the locals have of the land. So the only way that you can do, the only way that you can go in and colonize, the only way that you can go in this place is through violence. And the violence does not have to be strategic, does not have to be you know with with full understanding of. Consequences. In fact, there is a sense of also undermining or a lack of understanding of Indigenous resistance and the capabilities of the Indigenous people. There's a sense of like kind of like belittling that sort of capabilities. And it's part and parcel of the racialized element of of this, of the concept of colonization, is that you look at the other as being weak. You look at the other as being, you know, civilizable, or like, you know, what's the other word, of like being easily, you know, controllable. And so you don't see any of that agency of the colonized. You refuse to see it because once you recognize it, you also—

Cody O'Rourke: Right.

Banna: It becomes a difficult conversation. So for sure, like, we— I think the Palestinians are very well aware that this is such a, you know, this is such, you know, what's the word? This, um, it's weaker than a cobweb. I think that's the line.

Sina: Weaker than a spider's web.

Banna: Yeah, spider's web. Yeah, so weaker than a spider's web. So we know that. I think that's just And it, and there's just so much evidence of that as well. Like every day there's so much evidence of that. I don't know if you see the videos of them, you know, when, when Palestinians are injured, you know, you know, in the battlefield, it's, you know, it's, you know, videos. And you see, you know, the video of Sinwar, for example, injured with his arm blown off, completely calm. A little maybe You know, shrapnel or whatever you call it hits a soldier and you hear their cries up the roof, and it's almost ridiculous. I mean, the videos—I would be embarrassed, you know, to look at them. Like it gives me secondhand embarrassment. You're a grown-up and you're, you know, crying for something so little, and it's just—it's—it's of course a music to our ears as Palestinians, as we say. But also, it. It just causes us to see the sort of banality of it, that these people are colonizing us. These people are, with the help of the US empire, managed for years to years to keep themselves here. But we're seeing that sooner or later, we're just going to have to come in terms with the fact that they're just going to have to— we're going to have to be free. We're going to have to liberate ourselves.

Cody O'Rourke: Yeah.

Banna: They're not going to be able to continue on this land. They're just— the settlers and the land will never be one. It's just simple as that. The settler will always be a stranger to the land. And so in a way, we hope that that dynamic is made clearer for people. Right. Outside as well is that, you know, Palestinians are for sure resisting, and so are Lebanese, so are Yemenis. There's a movement, and we are absolutely going to win this, and Zionism will be, uh, diminished, and we will win. But also, I must say that for all of these spaces and liberal spaces that want to control what the liberation movement looks like, we would like to respectfully say, fuck off.

Sina: Cody, we haven't heard from you in a while.

Cody O'Rourke: No, I mean, I definitely echo Bana's sentiments. Yeah, I mean, I think alongside the fuck off, is I think there's also that call to invest in these other structures that we so desperately need. And it's not just in Palestinian formations here, it's in the podcast, like you folks, in Jared with Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. And I listen to Guerrilla History Podcast all the time.

Sina: Yeah.

Cody O'Rourke: You know, listening to Adnan and Henry, you know, I, I like to wake up and go to the gym and listen to those 2 guys. And, you know, and it really, it really broadens, you know, your understanding because I think for a lot of people that, you know, come here to Palestine, Palestine is their issue, you know. And, and Palestine in a lot of ways is a symptom of the larger issue of capitalism. And a lot of people don't think about it in that way. For us, when we talk about Zionism as being a byproduct of capitalism, that becomes a real difficult conversation for people to have because it's not wrapped up in all of these other things. And so I think what What's so good about you folks in Millennials Are Killing Capitalism and Adnan and Henry is that you open it up to explore how all of those things are all working together. And so it's, of course, Palestine has its own peculiarities, but it's like these larger ways of understanding that you folks are presenting is something that's, in my opinion, is really deeply needed because folks can't just understand this land only through this little bit of history. It has to be through all of these other liberation movements. And what I can say is, like I said, I've been working here on and off for 20 years. And what I can say is, really, since I met Bana and we started the Good Shepherd Collective, how many years has it been, Bana? 6 or 7 or?

Banna: Sorry, we've been together, I think, for 7 years as the Good Shepherd Collective, but I've only started with you in 2021. So a little bit now probably would be 3 years. So many months, 83 months.

Cody O'Rourke: Yeah. So I would say, really the last 3 or 4 years, my understanding probably over the last 3 or 4 years is more than that of the first 15. Because like we had all said, there's this whole liberal ecosystem specifically around here where it's, you're in the groups, you're in the areas, and if you're an NGO worker, then the communities also treat you as if They know what you need to hear in order for you to reciprocate and give them what they need. And what I can say for myself is that when I started to understand these things, I think much from the perspective of what your show's producing, it really transformed me.

Banna: Yeah.

Cody O'Rourke: And I think it really brought me into solidarity in ways in the local community that I could even feel the trust in a different way. When you don't use the language— I'm in a master's course right now at Bethlehem University. And in one of my classes, we were having this little discussion and I said, well, it's all Palestine. And a couple of the students— This is a— The program is actually specifically for NGO workers. And so when I said that, you could just tell that it was a thing for them to hear that, because so often internationals don't come into those spaces and go— they usually go Israel-Palestine. And when I said, oh, this is all Palestine, there was really a moment there.

Banna: Yeah.

Sina: Well, folks, thank you. Thank you so much. I've kept you almost an hour and a half. This was a really great discussion. Maybe before we turn things off here, maybe you could tell us a little bit of some future projects or ongoing projects of the Good Shepherd Collective, how we can support you guys, some things to keep our eye on.

Cody O'Rourke: I think the biggest thing that we're trying to get going for 2025 is organizing a couple of speaking tours. To be honest with you. We just think it's really important to get some of the folks from the collective into the United States, into these organizing spaces, and share just a different perspective. I think it's important for Bana and Lara and Ameed to go into these spaces and share their experience and share their understanding from a perspective that's not rooted in that NGO vernacular. Right. In that liberal understanding. So folks can go to our website, join up to our email list, and look for those opportunities to co-organize events with us, certainly help make donations.

Banna: That's going to be the big thing over the next year is going, how can we take some of this discussion around settler colonialism and anti-Zionist organizing and get it more Yeah, I would add also that I think the type of work that we hope to do, and I think that differs from other organizations, is that we know that there is a difference between what Palestinians say between each other in Arabic and what is produced in English, because there's this idea of appealing and toning down your language and your asks and demands in the process of appealing to the West. Yeah. Translating that in English. And I think what we want to do is we want to bridge that gap. So in the speaking tour, we want to talk honestly about what Palestinians think and what Palestinian conversations are happening, not the ones on the surface level. We want to go deeper into these conversations about the communities and what the communities need and things like that. So I think that will be probably the biggest thing that we're up for. For 2025, but we also have recently also published a new website, and that has been the great work of Cody. So he's been working on this for a while now. And on that website, we have a lot of the data that would be quite difficult to find for researchers and things like that on demolitions, on arrests, on displacement, on, you know, deaths, and etc. This type of information and analysis is usually unavailable for people. You have to like find little bits and pieces on different, you know, spaces. Sometimes you have to ask organizations for it, but we give that and we provide some of that with including our analysis as well in on the website. We also have some of our, you know. Analysis pieces as well. We talk a lot about anti-Zionism as well and what we think of it. And so that could be things that people could be also interested in. We are also an organization that does not have this kind of fiscal sponsorship of bigger organizations or that we receive donations from bigger organizations because we understand the limits of that, and we want to be honest to people about our principles and politics, and we don't want to have any allegiance to any organizations or donors. So we only receive, you know, support and donations from individuals. So we would like just to plug in that, that people can, if they would like to, kindly support us. The last thing I do every time I go on a podcast is that I hope Also, other people listening to the podcast can also donate to the podcast. So if you have a donation link as well for you, Ismail's podcast, please do. Please donate to this amazing podcast. We're big fans and huge fans. We're very honored to be here today.

Sina: The honor is all mine.

Banna: Oh, please.

Sina: Give your money to Good Shepherd Collective. I'm doing fine. Just give it to the people in Palestine. I'm serious. I'm serious. Don't give me your money. Keep your money, you freaks. Give it to the people. Give it to Palestine. Anything you can do. For sure. But I appreciate my patrons. Thank you. I appreciate that. The honor is really all mine. You guys do amazing work. I'm going to share all the links. And thank you to you both. And thank you for, thank you for everything. Thank you. And keep Samud. You know, you guys are heroes, all of you. We watch you. We, we, you know, Palestinians teach us about history and they teach us about resistance. Could you imagine? I don't know. What's it, I don't know. What's it like to be Palestinian? It must be so strange. Like, you're just like this, like peasant people who like, like olives, you know, who live in this nice place. You just want to be left alone. And now you're like the star of a century of global history.

Banna: Like, it must be magic.

Cody O'Rourke: Yeah.

Banna: Yeah, I think the least sort of, you know, popular element, which should be more popular, I think it's very underrated, is how amazing our food is. I think that is for sure one thing that I'd have to highlight today is if you are listening, go order some Palestinian food and enjoy it.

Sina: Hell yes. Hell yes. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Banna. Thank you, Cody. Take care. And I'm going to press stop.

Cody O'Rourke: Thank you.

Banna: Thank you.