Around the world, dockworkers have refused to unload ships tied to Israel’s military supply chain. In Italy, Morocco, India, and Sweden, those refusals have sparked national strikes and port shutdowns. But in the United States — where 70% of Israel’s weapons originate — things look very different.

This episode dives into the complicated reality facing American activists trying to “block the boat”: a divided labor movement, powerful unions with clashing politics, and a military-industrial complex that shields its most sensitive logistics behind military bases and Air Force cargo planes.

We meet East Coast organizers struggling to reach conservative longshore workers, West Coast veterans who once helped stop South African apartheid cargo, and the researchers studying how social-movement unionism succeeds — and fails.

What power do workers really have to stop the flow of war? And what happens when activists push that power to its limits?

This is a republished episode from Things That Go Boom.

Guests: 

Tova Fry, organizer and activist with Port Workers & Communities for Palestine
Katy Fox-Hodess, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield
Rafeef Ziadah, Senior Lecturer at Kings College
Lara Kiswani, Executive Director of the Arab Resource & Organizing Center
Clarence Thomas, retired dock worker at ILWU Local 10
Charmaine Chua, Acting Associate Professor of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley

Additional Resources: 

Community picket lines and social movement unionism on the US docks, 2014–2021: Organizing lessons from the Block the Boat campaign for Palestine, Katy Fox-Hodess and Rafeef Ziadah, Critical Sociology

Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront, Howard Kimeldorf

This Union Is Famous for Opposing South African Apartheid. Now It’s Standing With Gaza., Sarah Lazare, The Nation

Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area, Peter Cole

Unsettled is currently producing an audio documentary about the Hammads, a Palestinian family who escaped the Genocide in Gaza and who are currently rebuilding their lives in Dublin. If you’re a long time Unsettled listener, you may have heard the voice of Isam Hammad in previous episodes. If you haven’t heard them yet, it’s a good time to go back and listen for some background: 

The Great March (Gaza, ep. 1)

Isam Hamad: "What sort of a life is this?"

An update from Isam Hamad

The day after Awdah’s death, mourners in Umm al-Kheir were attacked by the Israeli military, who arrested several friends and family members. At the time of this episode release, many are still in jail. On Thursday, July 31st, more than seventy women in Umm al-Kheir began a hunger strike to demand the release of Awdah's body to his family, which Israel is reportedly refusing until the community promises not to bury him in Umm al-Kheir.

Eyewitness Testimony of July 28th:

"‘The most peaceful person’: Umm Al-Khair mourns activist slain by Israeli settler," +972 Magazine (July 29, 2025)

Awdah's writings:

"In Umm al-Khair, the occupation is damning us to multigenerational trauma," +972 Magazine (July 22, 2024)
"We don’t just live through one home demolition — we live through them all," +972 Magazine (November 18, 2021)

Awdah on Unsettled Podcast:

The Birthday Party (2022 Series)
"Escalation in the South Hebron Hills: Awdah Hathaleen" (January 27, 2023)

Unsettled Reporting on The South Hebron Hills & Masafer Yatta

We also speak to Maya Rosen, an American activist and journalist based in Jerusalem, about settler-soldier militias, and how her activism has changed. 

For more Maya and Ali, and for more context on the South Hebron Hills, listen to all of Unsettled's previous reporting on the area, collected in this Spotify playlist.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Max Freedman and Ilana Levinson. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.

To support the longevity of the show, consider making a donation before the end of the year: https://unsettled.fundjournalism.org/donate/. Donations will allow us to continue creating episodes like this one, and increase the capacity of our team. 

Matt is a past president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and he was the foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders for five years. He is currently the Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy. 

For More:

Matt Duss: "This is not a moment where people are making good policy"

In addition to being a Rabbi for Ceasefire, Abby is author who has regularly writes about gender and sexuality. In 2019 she published her memoir, “Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman.” Abby is also a member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, IfNotNow and the JVP Rabbinical Council. She’s currently part of the clergy team at Kolot Chayeinu in Brooklyn.

Unsettled Producer Emily Bell reached out to Abby to learn more about the Rabbis for Ceasefire High Holidays directory, and how spiritual leaders like her are approaching this sacred time of reflection and interpreting Torah during this confluence of dates.

For More:

Rabbis for Ceasefire

Rabbi Miriam Grossman: "We act and we do not wait for hope"

For the past year, Shahd has had to make impossible calculations in order to survive. By December, her family was running out of their basic needs, waiting on long lines for water at mosques and from UN aid workers. In February, after hearing about a possible Israeli invasion of Rafah, Shahd started to think seriously about leaving Gaza. One year later, her circumstances are very different: she's now is in the U.S., pursuing a bachelor's degree in human rights and written arts. Unsettled has been in touch with Shahd throughout the year, following her journey. In this episode of Unsettled, Producer Ilana Levinson speaks with Shahd about the last year of her life: where she's been, and what she had to do to get where she is now.

The brutality of Israel’s assault on Gaza has mobilized movements around the world to demand a ceasefire, and prompted South Africa bring accusations of Genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice. Of the remaining hostages in Gaza, many have died, some executed by Hamas militants, some killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. 

As we reach the one year anniversary of October 7th, how should we make sense of this day? How should we mark it? Many Israelis and those whose sympathies lie with them will grieve, and make space to remember what was, for many, one of the worst days of their lives. But for thousands of Palestinians – and now Lebanese people, too– they’re still fighting for their survival. how can we stop and remember if the horror persists for so many?

Shortly After October 7th, 2023 Asaf Calderon left the Unsettled team as a producer, and started a new movement of anti-Zionist Israelis living in the United States, called Shoresh. Last week, Unsettled Producer Ilana Levinson sat down with Asaf to talk about creating Shoresh, and how that work has helped him understand the anniversary of October 7th. 

So we wanted to open up our voicemail again. Send us your thoughts and messages– maybe to people in power, to someone you’re no longer in touch with, or maybe a stranger. You can call in with your name, or stay anonymous. Know that we may use your note in an upcoming episode of Unsettled or on our social media. Leave a message at 347-878-1359.

Haniyeh was killed in the middle of ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel. With the death toll in Gaza nearing 40,000, and the family members of the Israeli hostages desperately calling for a prisoner exchange, the pressure to come to an agreement has been mounting. But Ismail Haniyeh was a chief negotiator in those talks– and now, the chances of arriving at a deal seem further than ever.

Iran has vowed to retaliate against Israel for the attack on their soil. As of Thursday August 8th, that hasn’t happened yet, but many now fear that tensions could lead to a wider regional war. 

In this collaboration between Unsettled Podcast and Jewish Currents, Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson interviews Tareq Baconi, author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance to make sense of these developments and what Haniyeh’s assassination means for the future. 

This episode was a collaboration between On the Nose and Unsettled Podcast. It was produced by Ilana Levinson, with Emily Bell, Arielle Angel, and Alex Kane. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.

Further Reading:

“Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance,” Tareq Baconi

“Hamas: Gaza (Ep 3),” Unsettled Podcast

“Tareq Baconi: ‘There’s no going back’,” Unsettled Podcast

“Regional War: An Explainer,” Alex Kane and Jonathan Shamir, Jewish Currents

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson, with support from Asaf Calderon. This episode was written and produced by Ilana Levinson. Our theme music is by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Aly Halpert makes music used in synagogues and Jewish song circles. If you listened to our last episode featuring Rabbi Miriam Grossman, you heard Aly’s tune for the prayer 'Ashrei' as part of a service led by Rabbis for Ceasefire. Today, Aly is releasing a new song called 'Ayeka': the first time she has used her music to directly respond to the violence in Israel-Palestine. 

Aly spoke to Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson about her inspiration for  'Ayeka', her writing process, and what she hopes the song will do for listeners.

'Ayeka' Spotify Pre-Save Link

Aly Halpert on Bandcamp

Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson recently sat down with Rabbi Miriam to ask her what it means to be a rabbi for ceasefire, especially when so many rabbis and other Jewish leaders are standing in lockstep with the state of Israel. Where in Jewish texts and traditions does she find the call to oppose the war? How does she keep going?

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions and Aly Halpert.

Before this war, the population of Rafah was about 250,000. Now, it’s over a million, with many families living in tents and some on the streets. Isam lives in a three-story house with 46 other people. Recently, he was able to get a family reunification visa from Ireland, because one of his children was born there. But he’s still waiting for approval to leave.

In this episode, producer Ilana Levinson talks to Isam Hamad about leaving his home, living in Rafah, and the difficult choices ahead.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson, with support from Asaf Calderon. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.

On this episode—a collaboration between Unsettled and Jewish Currents magazine's On the Nose podcast—Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson joins Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and associate editor Mari Cohen to listen to clips from callers describing the ruptures in their families, their attempts to repair relationships while sticking to their values, and their strategies for getting through to stubborn loved ones. They explore questions of when it is our obligation to keep arguing, and when it’s better to take a break—or give up completely. And they zoom out to think about what this moment says about the future of Jewish American institutional life.

This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson and Max Freedman. Music by Nathan Salsburg.

Palestinian prisoners being released have been called terrorists, with an Israeli imposed ban on Palestinian families publicly celebrating the return of their loved ones who are being freed in the deal. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said, “expressions of joy are equivalent to backing terrorism.” But who are the Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons being released in this deal, and on what grounds are they being detained? 119 of the freed Palestinian prisoners are children. And more than half of them have never been charged with a crime.

This episode of Unsettled, originally published in February of 2022, covers Israel’s system of military courts and administrative detention of Palestinians. Milena Ansari, international advocacy officer at Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, talks about the case Hisham Abu Hawash, a Palestinian administrative detainee who went on hunger strike for 141 days, while he was held in prison by Israel without charges or a trial.

(Photo: Addameer)

Since October 7, Noam has dedicated her social media platform not to comedy, but to painful, personal posts from her unique perspective as an Israeli Jew with a deep connection to her Palestinian neighbors. Noam grew up in Neve Shalom: a unique community in central Israel where Jews and Palestinians live together intentionally. In this episode, Unsettled producer Asaf Calderon speaks to Noam about her grief, her determination to speak out, and the possible consequences.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson, with support from Asaf Calderon. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions. 

Follow Noam Shuster-Eliassi on Instagram @noam_joon, on X @ShusterNoam, and on Facebook @therealnoamshuster. Read her recent writing for +972 Magazine, "Picking up the pieces of our grief."

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson, with support from Asaf Calderon. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.

For more context on the South Hebron Hills, listen to all of Unsettled's previous reporting on the area, collected in this Spotify playlist. And follow these Instagram accounts:

• B'Tselem
• Center for Jewish Nonviolence
• South Hebron Hills Watch

You can read Shahd's writing about her experience of war on Gaza since October 7th here.

In this conversation, Ilana and Arie, who grew up going to the same synagogue and and summer camp discuss what it was like to be in Israel on October 7th, and what Israel's obligations are toward its own citizens as well as the Palestinian people of the Gaza strip as the war continues continues. 

Arie Hasit is the associate dean of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, which trains Masorti (Conservative) rabbis for Israel and the international community, as well as runs pluralistic Jewish leadership programs. He worked for many years in congregational rabbinic work, and currently volunteers with pastoral care in his local community and with youth across Israel. He and his family live in Mazkeret Batya.

To better understand the U.S. role in this war, Unsettled producer Max Freedman speaks to Matt Duss: former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, and now Executive Vice President at the Center for International Policy. They discuss the geopolitical context for Hamas's attack; how the U.S. provides diplomatic cover for Israel on the international stage; and why the Biden administration appears disinclined to restrain Israel from committing war crimes in Gaza.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson, with support from Asaf Calderon. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.

Referenced in this episode:

• President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Terrorist Attacks in Israel, October 10, 2023.
• President Biden: The 2023 60 Minutes Interview, October 15, 2023.
• Amir Tibon, "Bernie Sanders Initiates Congressional Letter Urging Trump to Change Gaza Policy In Light of Protests." Haaretz, April 13, 2018.
• Mikhael Manekin, "Why the Safety of Israeli Hostages Must Come First." The  New York Times, October 15, 2023.
• Matt Duss on X, October 17, 2023.

As this crisis unfolds, Unsettled is bringing you the voices of many different people who are affected by the violence, as well as expert analysis and context. Today, producer Ilana Levinson speaks to Isam Hamad: an organizer of 2018's Great March of Return, and manager of a medical equipment company in Gaza City.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson, with support from Asaf Calderon. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.

Tareq Baconi is the author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance, billed as "the first history of the group on its own terms." Shortly after the book was published in 2018, Tareq was a guest on Unsettled; he spoke with producer Max Freedman about the origins of Hamas and its complicated relationship with the state of Israel. Earlier this week, Max called Tareq again, to get his analysis of Hamas's recent moves. Why this kind of attack, and why now?

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson, with support from Asaf Calderon. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.

• Tareq Baconi, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (2018)
• "Tareq Baconi: Hamas, Explained" (2019, republished 2021)
• Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network

Events are developing rapidly. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared war and Israel has launched air raids on Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed thus far, most of them in clashes inside of Israel. It seems likely that the situation will continue to escalate: the Israeli minister of energy signed an order to cut electricity to Gaza, and Israeli leaders are considering a full ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. 

Some Israelis are hearing sirens and have to run to shelters; but for Israelis living in the more southern parts of Israel, those sirens indicate a more grave threat. Palestinians live under constant, daily threat of violence and destructio n, in Gaza, civilians are running for shelter from air raids as well, and Netanyahu’s declaration of war means something we don’t yet know. 

The Unsettled team is following the news closely. We are planning to share voices of people impacted by the unfolding war as well as context and analysis on these events. While we’re working on this, we recommend listening to some of our older episodes that we think can provide context to what’s happening today – specifically our interview with Tariq Baconi about Hamas and a conversation between Asaf and Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson called “politicized pain.” 

Make sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss our upcoming reporting, and follow us on Instagram for updates as well.

Women of the Sun

AChord

Abraham Initiatives

To hear more from Groundwork: https://groundworkpodcast.com/.

Credits
Groundwork is hosted by Sally Abed and Dina Kraft and produced by Yoshi Fields. Today’s story is by Maria Rashed and scored by Joel Shupack. Art and design by Nick Acosta. Groundwork is a joint production of New Israel Fund and the Alliance for Middle East Peace.

In this episode, Amjad mentions  the Israeli nation state law and the 2021 violence in between Palestinians and Jews in Israel’s so called “mixed cities.”  You can hear more from Amjad on those topics in our 2021 episode, 'Palestinians Rising,' and our  2018 episode, 'The Nation-State Law.' This episode also discusses Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his right-wing agenda. Ben Gvir  openly identifies as a follower of Kahane, who you can learn about in our 2021 episode, 'Shaul Magid: The Life and Afterlife of Meir Kahane.'

You can hear more from Awdah Hathaleen and his cousin Tariq about their life in Umm al-Khair in “The Birthday Party”: a special four-part series Unsettled published last year, reported on the ground in the South Hebron Hills. Follow Awdah on Instagram @awdah.hathaleen.

Unsettled is made by Emily Bell, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson, with support from Asaf Calderon. Original Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

This episode of Unsettled is reported and translated by Ali Awad, who was featured in our last episode. Addition translation from Alaa Hassan.

Since then, the people of Masafer Yatta have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And two weeks ago, the army informed Palestinian officials that they would soon begin carrying out the forced transfer of more than a thousand people — a war crime, according to international law, now authorized by Israeli courts.

We featured Ali Awad on Unsettled just before and after last year’s court decision. You can still go back to listen to those episodes; they’re called “The Campaign to Save Masafer Yatta” and “Playgrounds for the Military.” We asked Ali to explain what’s happening now.

This week, Unsettled will be bringing you voices from the ground in Masafer Yatta and the South Hebron Hills. Stay tuned for more – and while you wait, make sure to listen to our previous two episodes featuring Ali to learn more about the history and conditions in Masafer Yatta. You can follow Ali directly on Instagram at ali_awad98. 

Help shape the future of Unsettled by filling out this listener survey! It should take only 5-10 minutes to complete.

This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson with help from Asaf Calderon and Sophie Edelhart. Our theme music is by Nat Rosenzweig.

Help shape the future of Unsettled by filling out this listener survey! It should take only 5-10 minutes to complete.

This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson. Our theme music is by Nat Rosenzweig.

Help shape the future of Unsettled by filling out this listener survey! It should take only 5-10 minutes to complete.

Check out the music video for “Hope Hurts” written and performed by Dan Fishback, and watch the trailer for “200 Meters” starring Motaz Malhees.

Did you know Unsettled has been around for five years? If you’re around the New York City area, you’re cordially invited to Unsettled’s five year anniversary party this August. For more details, make sure to follow us on Instagram @ unsettled_pod .

A few weeks ago, we published an interview with activist Ali Awad about the campaign to save Masafer Yatta. Unsettled producer Max Freedman spoke to Ali again to get his reaction to the court’s new ruling.

This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson. Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Unsettled producer Max Freedman reports from the center of the action: what goes according to plan, what doesn’t, and what happens next.

"The Birthday Party" was reported by Max Freedman, and produced by Max Freedman, Emily Bell, and Ilana Levinson, with help from Asaf Calderon. Music from Blue Dot Sessions. Visit www.unsettledpod.com to see Max's photos from his time in the West Bank, and all of Unsettled's previous reporting about the South Hebron Hills.

Unsettled producer Max Freedman follows Lilly and other activists with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence as they get to know the people and the landscape of the South Hebron Hills, and prepare to stand alongside Palestinians as they directly challenge the Israeli occupation forces.

“The Birthday Party” was reported by Max Freedman, and produced by Max Freedman, Emily Bell, and Ilana Levinson, with help from Asaf Calderon. Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

He’s one of 44 diaspora Jews who have come to the South Hebron Hills with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence to practice co-resistance with Palestinians. In the second episode of “The Birthday Party,” producer Max Freedman spends time with Bob as he confronts the reality of occupation — and his own identity.

“The Birthday Party” was reported by Max Freedman, and produced by Max Freedman, Emily Bell, and Ilana Levinson, with help from Asaf Calderon. Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

In the first episode, Max gets to know Tariq, a Palestinian teacher from the village of Umm al-Khair. Umm al-Khair is surrounded on three sides by an Israeli settlement, and the residents live under constant threat of violence and demolition. Tariq explains how his family came to live in this area, how he became an activist, and why he believes in co-resistance with Jewish allies.

“The Birthday Party” is reported by Max Freedman, and produced by Max Freedman, Emily Bell, and Ilana Levinson, with help from Asaf Calderon. Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

In this episode, producer Max Freedman speaks to Ali Awad and Maya Rosen about this decades-long legal battle and what’s at stake. Ali and Maya are both organizers of the Save Masafer Yatta campaign, which aims to stop this eviction by turning Masafer Yatta into a household name.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Music by Nat Rosenzweig and Blue Dot Sessions. Photo credit: Yahel Gazit.

Save Masafer Yatta

To exact ‘revenge,’ Israeli settlers wreaked havoc in my village (Ali Awad, +972 Magazine, 4/4/22)

Explainer: The threat of mass expulsion in Masafer Yatta (+972 Magazine, 3/14/22)

Maya Rosen & Daniel Roth: KKL-JNF (Unsettled, 3/23/22)

This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson. Music by Nat Rosenzweig and Blue Dot Sessions.

In this episode, we speak to Milena Ansari, International Advocacy Officer at Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Milena explains Israel’s military court system and how Palestinians are fighting to end administrative detention.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. This episode was reported and produced by Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

When Unsettled producer Max Freedman visited Jerusalem at the start of 2020, he stopped by the Educational Bookshop and sat down with Mahmoud. In this episode of Unsettled, they talk about the history of the bookshop and what it means — to Palestinians in East Jerusalem and people around the world.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. This episode was reported by Max Freedman and produced by Emily Bell. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

MAHMOUD’S PICKS: NON-FICTION

• Jerusalem in History by Kamil Asali
• I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti
• Palestine on a Plate: Memories from My Mother’s Kitchen by Joudi Kalla
• In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story by Ghada Karmi
• The Palestinian Table by Reem Kassis
• Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore
• Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh
• The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine—A Tale of Two Narratives by Padraig O’Malley
• The Peace Process: From Breakthrough to Breakdown by Afif Safieh
• Palestinian Walks by Raja Shehadeh
• The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World by Avi Shlaim
• Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation by Eyal Weizman

MAHMOUD’S PICKS: FICTION

• Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
• Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
• Out of It by Selma Dabbagh
• The Parisian by Isabella Hammad
• The Children of the Ghetto: My Name is Adam by Elias Khoury

These episodes of Unsettled was produced by Asaf Calderon and edited by Ilana Levinson. Unsettled theme music is by Nat Rosenzweig with additional music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.

This episode of Unsettled was produced by Asaf Calderon and edited by Ilana Levinson. Unsettled theme music is by Nat Rosenzweig with additional music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.

In this episode of Unsettled, producer Ilana Levinson talks to Morgan and Ira about their collaboration, and the importance of joy in collective liberation.

The Anti-Zionist Bat Mitzvah was first performed on July 4, 2021 on Rashid Johnson’s Red Stage in Astor Place. The performance was commissioned by Creative Time and curated by Diya Vij. Performers: Morgan Bassichis, Ira Khonen Temple, Emma Alabaster, April Centrone, Zoë Aqua, and Pam Fleming. Tutors: Shirly Bahar, Brooke Lober, Izzy Mustafa, Tamar Ghabin, Dean Spade, Rabbi Miriam Grossman, and Ita Segev.

This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson and edited by Emily Bell. Original music by Nat Rosensweig.

Special thanks to Aleksei Wagner and Creative Time for performance recordings.

This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson and features Jonathan Kuttab and Khaled Elgindy.

Archival footage courtesy of Al-Haq. 

RESOURCES

Tareq Baconi: Hamas, Explained (Unsettled Podcast, 5/17/21)

‘They targeted us for one reason: We’re succeeding in changing the paradigm’ (Yuval Abraham, +972 Magazine, 10/25/21)

Israeli dossier on rights groups contains little evidence (Joseph Krauss, AP, 11/6/21)

Israel/OPT: Designation of Palestinian civil society groups as terrorists a brazen attack on human rights (Amnesty International, 10/22/21)

Naomi Shihab Nye is a Palestinian-American writer, educator, and editor. Her published work includes poetry, children’s books and essays, and she has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle. She has also spent decades as an educator, visiting classrooms all around the world. 

In this episode, producer Emily Bell speaks with Naomi Shihab Nye about finding inspiration in her father's notebooks, processing grief, and writing about Palestine. Naomi shares a selection of old and new works, including two from her book "Transfer."

CREDITS

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

BIO

Palestinian-American writer, editor and educator Naomi Shihab Nye grew up in Ferguson, Missouri, Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she continues to live.

She is the Young People’s Poet Laureate of the United States (Poetry Foundation). Her late father Aziz Shihab was a journalist and author of Does the Land Remember Me? A Memoir of Palestine. She has been a visiting writer in hundreds of schools and communities all over the world for more than 40 years and has written or edited 35 books including collections of poetry, novels for teens, picture books, essays, very short fictional stories, anthologies of poetry. Her books Sitti’s Secrets, Habibi, This Same Sky, & The Tree is Older than You Are: Poems & Paintings from Mexico have been in print more than 20 years. Her volume 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Recent books include Everything Comes Next, Cast Away, The Tiny Journalist, and Voices in the Air. She is on faculty at Texas State University and won recent Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Book Critics Circle and the Texas Institute of Letters. The Turtle of Oman (Greenwillow) a novel for children set in Muscat, will soon be followed by its sequel The Turtle of Michigan.

RESOURCES

• Naomi Shihab Nye at the Poetry Foundation
• Works by Naomi Shihab Nye at poets.org
• “This Court Decision in the Gavin Grimm Case Will Bring Tears to Your Eyes” (American Civil Liberties Union, 4/10/17)
• “A memorial to a great Arab American Journalist, Aziz Shihab” (Ray Hanania, The Arab Daily News, 10/28/07)
• “Texas journalist Aziz Shihab on 'Does the Land Remember Me?: A Memoir of Palestine'" (Michael King, The Austin Chronicle, 7/20/07)
   

CREDITS

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Marwa Fatafta leads Access Now’s work on digital rights in the Middle East and North Africa region as the MENA Policy Manager. She has written extensively on technology, human rights, and internet freedoms in Palestine and the wider MENA region. Marwa is also a Policy Analyst at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network where she co-led the organization's policy work on questions of Palestinian political leadership, governance, and accountability. Previously, Marwa was the MENA Regional Advisor for Transparency International Secretariat in Berlin and served as the Communications Manager at the British Consulate-General in Jerusalem. Marwa was a Fulbright scholar to the US, and holds an MA in International Relations from Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. She holds a second MA in Development and Governance from University of Duisburg-Essen.
 

RESOURCES

• Access Now's statement on Facebook and Twitter systematically silencing protests  (5/7/2021)
• Access Now's 'Facebook Stop Silencing Palestine' campaign
• "Elections or not, the PA is intensifying its authoritarian rule online" (Marwa Fatafta, +972 Magazine, 4/29/21)
• “Facebook's Secret Rules About the Word 'Zionist' Impede Criticism of Israel" (Sam Biddle, The Intercept, 5/14/21)

Lod was the epicenter of this recent violence: there were shootings in the streets, neighbors attacking one another, lynching. In this episode, Groundwork’s hosts Dina Kraft and Sally Abed speak with Lod activists Rula Daood and Dror Rubin about the complicated history of Lod, what they think led to the violence in May, and what’s next.

CREDITS

Sally Abed is a staff member and an elected member of the national leadership at Standing Together. In recent years, Sally has become a prominent Palestinian voice in Israel that is putting forward the holistic view that identifies the interrelation between the ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories, growing social and economic disparities within Israeli society, the threat of climate change, and attacks by the government on democratic freedoms and Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Dina Kraft is a veteran foreign correspondent based in Tel Aviv where she’s The Christian Science Monitor correspondent. She began her overseas career in the Jerusalem bureau of The Associated Press. She was later posted to AP’s Johannesburg bureau where she covered southern Africa. She’s also reported from Senegal, Kenya, Pakistan, Jordan, Tunisia, Russia, and Ukraine. Dina has taught journalism at Northeastern University, Harvard University, and Boston University. She was a 2012 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and a 2015 Ochberg Fellow at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University.

Dina hosted “The Branch” podcast, about ties between Jews and Palestinians and her work has also been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Haaretz among other news outlets.

Yoshi Fields is the co-founder and producer of Groundwork and has worked in the podcast industry for about 5 years. In 2018, he moved to Israel-Palestine and has worked on several podcasts in the region, focusing on both political and human interest stories, including as a producer at Israel Story, The Branch, and Unsettled.

Through his work, Yoshi aims to empower the voices of others, and facilitate the expression of their stories. He has previously hiked the Himalayas while carrying out a research study on the intersection of love and Buddhism, and worked in a hospice for a year writing about the experience of mortality for health workers.

Groundwork is powered by the Alliance for Middle East Peace and the New Israel Fund.

CREDITS

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Jonathan Brenneman is a Palestinian-American Christian. He has undergraduate degrees in History and Philosophy from Huntington University, and in 2016 completed a Masters at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Before going to Notre Dame, Jonathan was part of Christian Peacemaker Teams Palestine project in Hebron/Al-Khalil, where he worked in solidarity with Palestinian communities to challenge unjust Israeli policies and the structures that uphold them. Today, he continues his advocacy in the United States primarily through challenging Christian Zionist theology.

Aidan Orly is an Israeli-American Ashkenazi Jew who is active in donor and social justice organizing, especially around issues related to Jewish communities, the Christian Right, and Palestine.

RESOURCES

• “Progressives Can’t Ignore Role of Christian Zionism in Colonization of Palestine” (Jonathan Brenneman & Aidan Orly, Truthout, 5/20/21)
• “Will this Palestinian matriarch get to keep her Jerusalem home?” (Unsettled, produced in collaboration with +972 Magazine, 4/12/21)
• “Inside the Most Insanely Pro-Israel Meeting You Could Ever Attend” (David Weigel, Slate, 7/22/14)
• “An unholy alliance” (Natasha Roth-Rowland, +972 Magazine, 11/5/20)
• “The Terrifying Alliance Between End Times Christian Zionists and Donald Trump” (Sarah Lazare, In These Times, 10/5/20)
• “AIPAC Isn’t the Whole Story” (Jonah S. Boyarin, Jewish Currents, 3/4/19)

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Kathleen Peratis is a Partner at Outten and Golden, an employment justice law firm in Manhattan. She's also the Co-Chair of the Middle East and North Africa Division for Human Rights Watch, and the former director of the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, succeeding Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Kathleen's published works on her time in Gaza:

• One Day in Gaza (May 2011)
• If You Want Two States, Support BDS (October 2013)
• Remember Gaza (November 2013)
• Walking Amid the Rubble of Gaza (September 2014)

Unsettled's 4-part series on Gaza:

• The Great March (Gaza, ep. 1)
• Refugees (Gaza, ep. 2)
• Hamas (Gaza, ep. 3)
• Energy (Gaza, ep. 4)

We have dedicated two past episodes of Unsettled to the story of this cave: how it was first reclaimed four years ago by Palestinian and Jewish activists; and how it has remained in local Palestinian hands ever since, thanks to a group called Youth of Sumud. Today, we’re sharing those two episodes as one. 

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

• Youth of Sumud: Facebook, Instagram
• Center for Jewish Nonviolence: Facebook, Instagram
• “Palestinian children travel dangerous route to school in At-Tuwani” (DCI Palestine, 9/10/13)
• Amira Hass and Hagar Sheizaf, “The Village Where Palestinians Are Completely Powerless” (Haaretz, 1/5/21)
• Spotify playlist: Unsettled essentials, May 2021

What does this new Palestinian uprising look like? And where will it go next? Producer Ilana Levinson speaks to Amjad Iraqi, a writer and editor for +972 Magazine based in Haifa.

Unsettled is produced by Ilana Levinson, Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, and Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Amjad Iraqi is an editor and writer at +972 Magazine. He is also a policy analyst at the think tank Al-Shabaka, and was previously an advocacy coordinator at the legal center Adalah. He is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, based in Haifa.

• "Against the horror, Palestinians are still rising" (Amjad Iraqi, +972 Magazine, 5/13/21)
• The Nation-State Law w/Amjad Iraqi (Unsettled, 7/24/18)
• Spotify playlist: Unsettled essentials, May 2021
   

This episode is not an expert interview, it's a conversation between two friends: one American, one Israeli. Unsettled producers Ilana Levinson and Asaf Calderon discuss empathy and anger, power, trauma, and responsibility.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

• “Want to help Israelis? Become an anti-Zionist” (Asaf Calderon, +972 Magazine, 5/19/21)
• “What it’s like to have a Jewish terrorist in the family” (Asaf Calderon, Haaretz, 5/3/17)
• Spotify playlist: Unsettled essentials, May 2021

Kahanist mobs have recently marched through the streets of Israeli cities chanting “Death to Arabs” and attacking random Palestinians. A Kahanist politician was blamed by Israel's Police Commissioner for inciting a new intifada. What is Kahanism, who was Meir Kahane, and how did the ideas of such an extremist figure become, in many ways, mainstream?

In this episode, producer Max Freedman speaks to Shaul Magid, professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and author of the forthcoming book, Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Shaul Magid is Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. Author of many books and essays, his two latest books are The Bible, the Talmud and the New Testament: Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik’s Commentary to the Gospel, and Piety and Rebellion: Essay in Hasidism, both published in 2019. His new book Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical will be published with Princeton University Press in October, 2021. He is presently working on a project understanding contemporary Jewish scholarship on antisemitism through the lens of critical race theory.

• Shaul Magid, Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (Princeton University Press, 2021)
• Josef Federman and Joseph Krauss, “Radical rabbi’s followers rise in Israel amid new violence” (Associated Press, 5/14/2021)
• “Police chief said to blame far-right lawmaker Ben Gvir for ‘internal intifada’” (Times of Israel, 5/14/2021)
• School Colors, Episode 2: “Power to the People”
• School Colors, Episode 3: “Third Strike”
• Spotify playlist: Unsettled essentials, May 2021

In this episode, producer Ilana Levinson speaks to historian Leena Dallasheh about the many forms of exclusion faced by Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Leena Dallasheh is an Associate Professor of History at Humboldt State University. Her research focuses on modern Palestinian and Israeli history, and her training covered the broad social and political history of the modern Middle East, with a particular interest in understanding identity and citizenship in colonial transition. She received her PhD in the joint History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies program at NYU. Her work focuses on the social and political history of Nazareth from 1940 to 1966, tracing how Palestinians who remained in Israel in 1948 negotiated their incorporation in the state, affirming their rights as citizens and their identity as Palestinian. Before coming to NYU, she received a law degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

• Spotify playlist: Unsettled essentials, May 2021
• Rasha Budeiri: Sheikh Jarrah (Unsettled, 5/14/21)
• Refugees: Gaza, ep. 2 (Unsettled, 2/4/19)
• Jerusalem: Leena Dallasheh (Unsettled, 12/22/17)

In this episode, originally published in 2019, producer Max Freedman speaks with Tareq Baconi, author of the book Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. They discuss the origins of Hamas, how Hamas governs the Gaza Strip, and its complicated relationship with the state of Israel.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Tareq Baconi is the International Crisis Group’s Analyst for Israel/Palestine and Economics of Conflict. His book, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance, was published by Stanford University Press in 2018. His writing has appeared in Arabic in Al-Ghad and Al-Quds al-Arabi, and in English in The New York Review Daily, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, The Nation, The Daily Star (Lebanon), and al-Jazeera. He has provided analysis for print and broadcast media, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, BBC, National Public Radio, and Democracy Now!

• Spotify playlist: Unsettled essentials, May 2021
• Fares Akram and Ravi Nessram, "Israel stages new round of heavy airstrikes on Gaza City" (Associated Press,  May 16, 2021)
• Tareq Baconi, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Stanford University Press, 2018)
• Tareq Baconi interviewed by Rami Younis (+972 Magazine, January 11, 2019)
• Tareq Baconi, "Sheikh Jarrah and After" (London Review of Books, May 14, 2021)
• Hamas’s original charter (August 18, 1988)
• Hamas’s new political document (May 1, 2017)

A number of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah are facing imminent eviction from their homes, to be replaced by Jewish settlers. Palestinian demonstrators in Sheikh Jarrah were met with overwhelming force from Israeli police. In this episode, Max Freedman speaks to Rasha Budeiri, whose parents are right in the middle of all this: they live in Sheikh Jarrah, in one of the homes threatened with displacement.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

• Spotify playlist: Unsettled essentials: May 2021
• “Palestinians fear loss of family homes as evictions loom” (Joseph Krauss, Associated Press, 5/9/21)
• “Tax-exempt U.S. nonprofits fuel Israeli settler push to evict Palestinians” (Alex Kane, The Intercept, 5/14/21)

Born and raised in Jerusalem, Palestine, Rasha Budeiri is a mother of two girls; ages 14 and 12. Rasha holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications and Sociology from Birzeit University in the West Bank. She worked with Palestinian communities through her employment at the United Nations for the Relief and Welfare of Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Jerusalem. After several years of working in the media and NGO fields in Jerusalem, she moved to Kuwait and continued to build on the knowledge and expertise in the communications and research fields. Rasha now resides in Ottawa, Canada.

In 1948, Rasha’s grandparents (Fouad and Badria Al-Dajani) were forcibly displaced from their house in Al-Baq'aa, south of Jerusalem by the occupying Israeli forces. As was the case for many Palestinian refugees, they moved to Jordan, then Syria, and back to Jerusalem where they lived in rental homes until 1956.

Through an agreement between the Jordanian Government and UNRWA in 1956, Rasha’s grandparents, along with 27 other Palestinian refugee families, were offered housing units in Karm Al-Jaouni, Sheikh Jarrah. In return, these families’ refugee status and benefits were revoked.

Raising their six kids at that house, Rasha’s grandfather passed away in 1977 and her grandmother in 1992. Their legacy and love to the place was passed down to her aunts, uncles, and grandchildren. Israeli forces are now in the process of confiscating Rasha’s grandparents' house and evicting her parents, who currently live in it.

According to Palestinian entrepreneur Sam Bahour, it’s time to try confederation. In this episode, Ilana Levinson talks to Sam about why he believes a confederal model is best for Israelis and Palestinians.

Unsettled is produced by Ilana Levinson, Emily Bell, and Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business consultant from Ramallah/Al-Bireh in Occupied Palestine. He is a frequent independent political commentator and is co-editor of “Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians” (1994). He blogs at ePalestine.ps. @SamBahour

• "Want Israeli-Palestinian Peace? Try Confederation" (Sam Bahour and Bernard Avishai, The New York Times, 2/12/21)
• Sam Bahour on Blogspot
• Sam Bahour on YouTube
• "J Street finally wants the US to think beyond the two-state solution" (Arianna Skibell, +972 Magazine,  4/16/21)

That’s the case with the Sumarin family, who live just outside Jerusalem’s Old City in the Palestinian village of Silwan. The Jewish National Fund and the Elad organization have long been promoting Jewish settlement in the area — often at the expense of the Palestinian residents.

In April, after a decades-long legal battle, an Israeli court will finally decide whether the Sumarin family will be forcibly evicted from their home. On this episode, we teamed up with the +972 Podcast to tell the story of the Sumarin family and their struggle to remain in the house they’ve lived in for generations.

This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson, Max Freedman, and Emily Bell. Music from Blue Dot Sessions. Special thanks to Henriette Chacar and Edo Konrad at +972; Asaf Calderon, Uri Blau, Ayat Yaghmour, Hagit Ofran, and Leena Dallasheh.

RESOURCES

• Emek Shaveh website
• Timeline of the Sumarin eviction case (Peace Now, 9/23/19)
• Common Ground: The politics of archaeology in Jerusalem (Rachel Poser, Harper’s Magazine, September 2019)
• In Search of King David’s Lost Empire (Ruth Margalit, The New Yorker, 6/29/20)
• Palestinian family faces latest setback to save Jerusalem home (Aseel Jundi, Middle East Eye, 7/2/20)
• Documents reveal decades of close cooperation between JNF and Elad (Uri Blau, +972 Magazine, 10/19/20)
• JNF Plan to Expand Settlements Could 'Endanger Its Existence,' Jewish Groups Warn (Allison Kaplan Sommer, Haaretz, 2/15/21)
• Update on the Sumarin case before the Supreme Court (Peace Now, 4/6/21)

Producer Max Freedman speaks with Anan Maalouf, former chief of staff and policy advisor to Ayman Odeh, head of the Joint List and leader of its largest party, Hadash-al Jabhah.

CREDITS

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions. Special thanks to Amjad Iraqi.

Photo: Makbula Nassar; election night in Nazareth, March 2015.

BIO

Anan A. Maalouf is an Urban Planner and a Ph.D. student of Urban and Public Policy at Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment (The New School). He earned his M.Sc. of Urban and Regional Planning from the Technion IIT (2018), his thesis focused on the relationship between urban forms and technological alterations. Before moving to New York, Maalouf served as Nazareth Mayor’s Assistant (2012-2013), and as MP Ayman Odeh Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor (2015-2018). Anan works currently at The Arab Center for Alternative Planning (ACAP) and is a teaching assistant at The New School and at Barnard College.

RESOURCES

• “The Only Left That Is Left” (Joshua Leifer, Jewish Currents, 3/5/2020)
• “The Beginning of Breakdown” (Joshua Leifer, Jewish Currents, 3/31/2020)
• Arabs in Israel Split over Homosexuality (Dima Abumaria, The Media Line, 7/24/2020)
• How Israel’s Netanyahu helped break apart the Joint List (Jonathan Cook, Middle East Eye, 2/9/2021)
• As Arab consensus splinters, wangling for community’s vote sparks hard questions (Haviv Rettig Gur, Times of Israel, 2/12/2021)
• Israel’s Islamists Side with Netanyahu (Joshua Leifer, Jewish Currents, 2/16/2021)

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, has been running its Camera Distribution Project since the early 2000s. The project distributes video camcorders to Palestinians, training them in documentation, and building an archive of citizen-recorded video. These videos cover a wide-range of topics, including settler violence, IDF night searches and demolitions.  How do visuals disrupt historical narratives of conflicts? What does it mean for someone to later on witness preserved traces of events? And in the context of Israel-Palestine, what impact does a camera actually have in the face of entrenched power dynamics? 

Producer Emily Bell interviews Liat Berdugo, author of the recently released book, The Weaponized Camera in the Middle East: Videography, Aesthetics, and Politics in Israel and Palestine.

CREDITS

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions. Video courtesy of the B’Tselem video archive.

BIO

Liat Berdugo is an artist and writer whose work investigates embodiment, labor, and militarization in relation to capitalism, technological utopianism, and the Middle East. Her work has been exhibited and screened at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), MoMA PS1 (New York), Transmediale (Berlin), V2_Lab for the Unstable Media (Rotterdam), and The Wrong Biennale (online), among others. Her writing appears in Rhizome, Temporary Art Review, Real Life, Places, and The Institute for Network Cultures, among others, and her latest book, The Weaponized Camera in the Middle East, was released from Bloomsbury in 2021. She is one half of the art collective, Anxious to Make, and is the co-founder of the Living Room Light Exchange, a monthly new media art series. Berdugo received an MFA from RISD and a BA from Brown University. She is currently an assistant professor of Art + Architecture at the University of San Francisco. Berdugo lives and works in Oakland, CA.

RESOURCES

• The Weaponized Camera in the Middle East: Videography, Aesthetics and Politics in Israel and Palestine
• B’Tselem Camera Project Archive
• Spectral Power (Real Life, 8/22/17)
• Five Broken Cameras
• Eyal Weizman

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

GUEST BIOS

Marc Lamont Hill is an award-winning journalist and the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University. He is the author of multiple books, including the New York Times bestselling Nobody, and co-author (with Mitchell Plitnick) of Except for Palestine (The New Press). He lives in Philadelphia.

Mitchell Plitnick is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy and is a frequent writer on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, is the former vice president at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, director of the U.S. Office of B’Tselem, and co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace. The co-author (with Marc Lamont Hill) of Except for Palestine (The New Press), he lives in Maryland.

RESOURCES

• Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics
• Marc Lamont Hill fired from CNN after his speech on Israel draws outrage (NBC, 11/30/18)
• Republicans and Democrats Grow Even Further Apart in Views of Israel, Palestinians (Pew Research Center, 1/23/18)

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

GUEST BIO:

Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. With more than 25 years working in the Middle East foreign policy arena, Lara is a leading authority on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with particular expertise on the Israeli-Arab conflict, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, and the role of the U.S. Congress. She is published widely in the U.S. and international press and is regularly consulted by members of Congress and their staffs, by Washington-based diplomats, by policy-makers in capitals around the world, and by journalists in the U.S. and abroad. 

RESOURCES:

• Foundation for Middle East Peace
• Biden may offer some key opportunities for Palestinians and their allies (Noura Erakat, Washington Post, 11/17/20)
• Biden’s Israel-Palestine policy: A chance to restore and reset (Lara Friedman, Foundation for Middle East Peace, 11/12/20)
• Bill to define anti-Semitism passes state House (Wissam Melhem, AZ Mirror, 3/9/20)
• ACLU Statement on Senate Introduction of 'Anti-Semitism Awareness Act'  (5/23/18)
• How the Israeli flag became a symbol for white nationalists (Ben Lorber, +972, 1/22/21)
• Israel announces new settler homes, risking Biden's anger (Joseph Krauss, ABC News, 1/22/21)

In this interview with producer Max Freedman, Samiha explains how Youth of Sumud has maintained a Palestinian presence in the caves of Sarura despite the constant threat of violence from soldiers and settlers, and the price that she and her family have paid for their activism.

• Youth of Sumud: Facebook, Instagram
• Center for Jewish Nonviolence: Facebook, Instagram
• “The Story of Sumud” (Unsettled, 8/4/17)
• “Palestinian children travel dangerous route to school in At-Tuwani” (DCI Palestine, 9/10/13)
• Yuval Abraham, “He grabbed his generator. They shot him in the neck” (+972, 1/3/21)
• Amira Hass and Hagar Sheizaf, “The Village Where Palestinians Are Completely Powerless” (Haaretz, 1/5/21)
• Twitter thread on Sami Hureini’s recent arrest (1/9/21)

The unlikely election of Jeremy Corbyn to lead the Labour Party in 2015 appeared to signal the renewed political viability of both socialism and Palestine solidarity. But under Corbyn's leadership, Labour was consumed by a series of anti-semitism scandals, with disastrous results. Was the charge of anti-semitism simply a weapon in Labour's long-running factional conflict, or is the British left irredeemably anti-semitic? What can Americans learn from Corbyn's mistakes?

Producer Max Freedman talks to Joshua Leifer, assistant editor at Jewish Currents and author of "The Tragedy of Jeremy Corbyn."

CREDITS

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Joshua Leifer is an editor, writer, and translator. He is currently an assistant editor at Jewish Currents. He was previously an associate editor at Dissent, and before that, at +972 Magazine. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Nation, n+1, Jacobin, Haaretz, and elsewhere. 

REFERENCES

• Joshua Leifer, “The Tragedy of Jeremy Corbyn” (Jewish Currents, November 27, 2020)
• Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire, Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn (2020)
• J.J. Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment (1996)
• Nathan Thrall, “How the Battle Over Israel and Anti-Semitism Is Fracturing American Politics” (The New York Times Magazine, March 28, 2019)
• Mari Cohen, “Jewish Federations Urge Biden to Promote Controversial Definition of Antisemitism” (Jewish Currents, December 10, 2020)

To better understand the legal landscape in the occupied West Bank, we turned to Noura Erakat: a human rights attorney, a scholar of law in the Middle East, and the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine.

Unsettled is produced by Asaf Calderon, Emily Bell, Ilana Levinson, and Max Freedman.

Amiel was with our producer Max Freedman when he visited Rashash to report "The shepherd and the settler" for the BBC World Service. Listen to the full documentary, then return to this episode to learn more about why Ta'ayush focuses on herding communities, the resistance they face from settlers and soldiers, and why an older generation of activists struggles to find young Israelis who are willing to join them.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson.

Aviv Tatarsky is a researcher for Ir Amim and one of the founders of Engaged Dharma Israel. Aviv was with our producer Max Freedman when he visited Rashash to report "The shepherd and the settler." Listen to the full documentary to hear Aviv's close encounter with a settler on an ATV, then return to this episode to learn about how Aviv uses meditation to challenge the occupation, and why he no longer calls himself a "peace activist."

Unsettled is produced by Asaf Calderon, Emily Bell, Ilana Levinson, and Max Freedman.

Muhammad Jahaleen is a 30-year-old Bedouin shepherd in the occupied West Bank, living with his family in a remote place called Rashash. Listen to "The shepherd and the settler," then return to this episode for more of Muhammad's story and more details about his life under threat from the settlement next door.

Unsettled is produced by Asaf Calderon, Emily Bell, Ilana Levinson, and Max Freedman. This episode was reported by Max Freedman.

Muhammad's family has been herding sheep and goats in Rashash for 30 years, and in Palestine for generations. But since Israeli settlers recently moved in nearby, it has become difficult for Muhammad to graze his flock undisturbed. After watching this conflict in action, Max sets out to understand what he saw in Rashash.

"The shepherd and the settler" originally aired on September 16, 2020 as part of the "Rulebreakers" series, a collaboration of the BBC World Service and the Sundance Institute. This story was produced by Max Freedman, Ilana Levinson, and Emily Bell, with editing by Ilana Levinson.

"School Colors" is a new podcast from Unsettled producer Max Freedman exploring how race, class, and power shape American cities and schools. Listen to the first episode here, then find "School Colors" in your podcast app and subscribe. More information at www.schoolcolorspodcast.com.

CREDITS

Producers / Hosts: Mark Winston Griffith and Max Freedman
Editing & Sound Design: Elyse Blennerhassett
Original Music: avery r. young
Production Associate: Jaya Sundaresh

First, producer Max Freedman speaks with Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, to learn why Gaza’s energy infrastructure can only meet about half of the demand. Then, the story of Majd Mashharawi: a young engineer and entrepreneur who is harnessing Gaza’s most plentiful natural resource — sunlight — to bring power to her people.

This episode of was produced and edited by Max Freedman with Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Monem Awad and Blue Dot Sessions.

BIOS
Tania Hary is the executive director of Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement. Prior to joining Gisha in September 2007, Tania worked on advocacy initiatives for not-for-profit organizations promoting human rights and the rights of refugees. She received her B.A. in modern literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz and an M.A. in international affairs from the New School in New York. Tania is relied upon as a source of information and analysis on the situation in Gaza by diplomats, foreign offices and international organizations, and appeared before the Security Council in an Arria formula meeting in 2015.

As a resident of war-torn Gaza, Majd Mashharawi observed the acute need for access to construction material in order to rebuild damaged buildings and infrastructure. She strove to meet this need by founding GreenCake in 2015,a company that creates environmentally friendly bricks from ash and rubble. In the summer of 2017, she developed SunBox; an affordable solar device that produces energy to alleviate the effects of the energy crisis in Gaza, where access to electricity has been severely restricted, sometimes to less than three hours of electricity a day. With SunBox, she was able to provide electricity to hundreds of people and recently awarded MIT Pan Arab competition for that. She received her BSc in Civil Engineering from the Islamic University of Gaza. In 2018 she was selected as one of the most creative people in business and spoke at TEDwomen 2018.

LINKS
Monem Awad AKA Fawda, “الشمعة بريئة (The candle is innocent)”
Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement
SunBox

SunBox’s crowdfunding campaign
“How I’m making bricks out of ashes and rubble in Gaza” (Majd Mashharawi, TEDWomen 2018)

In this episode, producer Max Freedman speaks with Tareq Baconi, author of the new book Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. They discuss the origins of Hamas, its position in the Palestinian political landscape, and its governance of the Gaza Strip.

This episode was produced and edited by Max Freedman. Fact-checking by Asaf Calderon. Music by Nat Rosenzweig and from Blue Dot Sessions.

• Episode Notes
• Unsettled on Facebook
• Unsettled on Twitter: @UnsettledP
• Unsettled on Instagram: @unsettled_pod

In the second episode of Gaza, a series from Unsettled, we hear from Hilmi and his son Isam. Isam was born in Gaza and is one of the organizers of the Great March of Return. Isam and Hilmi shared with us their history and talked to us about what it means to be Palestinian refugees in Gaza, still dreaming of returning to their native village.

This episode was produced and edited by Asaf Calderon, with help from Ilana Levinson. Fact-checking by Ilana Levinson and mixing by Max Freedman. Music by El Far3i and from Blue Dot Sessions. Unsettled theme music by Nat Rosenzweig. Artwork for our Gaza series by Marguerite Dabaie.

Preview image: Palestine Open Maps

• Episode Notes
• Unsettled on Facebook
• Unsettled on Twitter: @UnsettledP
• Unsettled on Instagram: @unsettled_pod

In the first episode of Gaza, a series from Unsettled, we hear about the Great March of Return from one of its organizers and two young participants.

This episode was edited and produced by Ilana Levinson, with help from Asaf Calderon and Sophie Edelhart. Music from Blue Dot Sessions. Unsettled theme music by Nat Rosenzweig. Artwork for our Gaza series by Marguerite Dabaie.

Photo credit: Issam Adwan

• Episode Notes
• Unsettled on Facebook
• Unsettled on Twitter: @UnsettledP
• Unsettled on Instagram: @unsettled_pod

Why did thousands of people risk so much to take part in the Great March of Return? Why does a majority of the population identify as refugees, even many who were born in Gaza? How are Gazans innovating in order to survive? How can art be used to upend conventional narratives about Gaza and its people?

These are just a few of the questions we'll try to address in Gaza, a series from Unsettled. Coming in January 2019. Subscribe to Unsettled wherever you get your podcasts.

Music from Blue Dot Sessions. Illustration by Marguerite Dabaie.

A few years ago, you would have found Ita Segev in the Israeli army, training to patrol the West Bank. Today, Ita is a transfeminine performance artist and anti-Zionist activist in New York City. In this episode, Ita tells her story: how gender and Zionism shaped her early years, and how learning the truth about her home created space to understand and express her true self.

This episode was produced and edited by Yoshi Fields. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Ita Segev makes performance, writes, performs/acts and does advocacy & community building work, mainly around the intersection of her transfeminine and anti-Zionist Israeli identities.

She is currently developing a show titled Knot in My Name as a Brooklyn Art Exchange artist in residence for 2018/2019 and is a BDS supporting artist council member at Jewish Voice for Peace. 

You can read more about her sociopolitical context and personal story on Condé Nast’s Them magazine and connect on IG @itaqt for cute looks and upcoming shows.

REFERENCES

• Ita Segev, "I Left Israel and Found My Trans, Anti-Zionist Self." Them, January 12, 2018.
• Ita Segev, "Israel Makes the Hormones I Need, But I Support Palestinian Liberation." Them, May 18, 2018.
• Orly Almi, "Captive Economy: The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Israeli Occupation." Who Profits, March 2012.

Photo credit: Niyoosha Ahmadi Khoo

On July 19, the Israeli Knesset passed the "Nation-State Bill" in a 62-55 vote. Many critics of the bill say that it undermines Israel's historic claim to be both Jewish and democratic in character. But does this new law actually change anything, or only make explicit the way things have been for decades? Is it possible for a state to be both affirmatively Jewish and treat its citizens equally?

Producer Ilana Levinson spoke to Amjad Iraqi, a Palestinian writer and policy adviser who was in the Knesset for the final debates before the Nation-State Bill was passed into law.  

This episode of Unsettled was produced and edited by Ilana Levinson, with technical help from Asaf Calderon. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig.

Amjad Iraqi is a writer for +972 Magazine, a policy member of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, and was a projects and international advocacy coordinator at Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

REFERENCES

• David M. Halbfinger and Isabel Kershner, "Israeli Law Declares the Country the ‘Nation-State of the Jewish People’" (New York Times, July 19, 2018)
• Israel's Basic Laws
• Yousef Jabareen, "Israel just dropped the pretense of equality for Palestinian citizens" (Los Angeles Times, July 20th 2018)
• Daoud Kuttab, "Palestinians outraged at Jewish nation-state law" (Al-Monitor, July 20, 2018)

_Preview image: James Emery, via Wikimedia Commons _

On December 19, 2017 Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi was arrested after slapping an Israeli soldier on her family's property. She was taken from her home in the middle of the night, interrogated without an adult present, and eventually signed a plea deal and was sentenced to eight months in prison. Ahed Tamimi became a symbol of Palestinian resistance, but she is only one out of hundreds of Palestinian children who face Israel's military court system every year. In this episode of Unsettled, we wanted to find out — On what grounds are children arrested? What actually happens to a child once they’ve been arrested? How does child detention impact both individuals and communities in the West Bank?

We spoke to Ahed's father Bassem Tamimi, Palestinian student and activist Yazan Meqbil, and attorney Brad Parker of Defense for Children International-Palestine. 

This episode of Unsettled was produced and edited by Emily Bell and Asaf Calderon. Music by Nat Rosenzweig and Monplaisir.

Bassem Tamimi is a Palestinian activist from the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. Since 2009, Tamimi has been one of the leaders of protests in the village against the seizure of the local spring by a nearby settlement. Tamimi spent three years in administrative detention in the 1990s. While he was imprisoned twice between 2011 and 2013, Amnesty International labeled him a prisoner of conscience and wrote that he was "detained solely for his role in organizing peaceful protests against the encroachment onto Palestinian lands by Israeli settlers." Bassem is married to Nariman Tamimi and has four children, including 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi, who was arrested in December 2017 and currently serves an 8-month sentence. 

Yazan Meqbil grew up in the West Bank town of Beit Ommar. Growing up, Meqbil became familiar with the ill-treatment of Palestinian children. In 2015, Meqbil joined the American Friends Service Committee and Defense for Children International-Palestine in filming the documentary Detaining Dreams. He has been on several speaking tours and engagements in the US since then advocating for the cause and raising awareness about Israel’s arrest, persecution, and mistreatment of an average of 700 Palestinian children every year. Meqbil is currently a rising senior studying Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Goshen College, in Goshen, Indiana.

Brad Parker is a staff attorney and international advocacy officer at Defense for Children International - Palestine. He specializes in issues of juvenile justice and grave violations against children during armed conflict, and leads DCIP’s legal advocacy efforts on Palestinian children’s rights. Parker regularly writes and speaks on the situation of Palestinian children, particularly issues involving detention, ill-treatment and torture of child detainees within the Israeli military detention system, and violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. He leads DCIP's US Program and is a co-leader of the No Way to Treat a Child campaign in the United States and Canada. He is a graduate of the University of Vermont and received his J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law.

RESOURCES

• Military Court Watch Annual Report 2016/17
• Minors in Jeopardy, B'tselem, March 2018
• Statistics on Palestinian minors in the custody of the Israeli security forces, B'tselem, May 2018
• Unprotected: Detention of Palestinian Teenagers in East Jerusalem, B'tselem, October 2017
• Order regarding Security Provisions [Consolidated Version] (Judea and Samaria) (No. 1651), 5770-2009
• Israel's military courts 'humiliating charade' for Palestinians, Al Jazeera, February 2018
• Separate and Unequal: Inside Israel's Military Courts, Where the Only Defendants Are Palestinian, Haaretz, March 2017
• Defense For Children International - Palestine
• No Way To Treat A Child
• H.R.4391 - Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act
• Detaining Dreams
• Yazan Meqbil: Congressional Briefing - 50 Years of Occupation and Life for Palestinian Children

Preview image: Ofer Military Prison, Israel. Photo credit: Christopher Michel, Wikimedia Commons.

Every year, when Israelis and many American Jews celebrate the creation of the state of Israel, Palestinians remember their people’s expulsion, or what they refer to as the "Nakba," the Arabic word for catastrophe. This year, on the 70th anniversary of both Israeli independence and the Nakba, the United States is moving its embassy to Jerusalem.

Our guest for this episode, Palestinian filmmaker Ahmed Mansour, calls this a "double Nakba and double catastrophe." Producer Ilana Levinson spoke with Ahmed about his childhood in a Gaza refugee camp, why the timing of the U.S. embassy move is so inflammatory, and how the Nakba continues to permeate Palestinian life.

Ahmed Mansour’s film, "Brooklyn, Inshallah," follows the 2017 campaign of Khader El-Yateem, a Palestinian-American Lutheran pastor who became the first Arab-American to run for New York City Council. To learn more and to contribute to his fundraising campaign, click here.

This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson and Max Freedman, and edited by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. 

Ahmed Mansour , a New York-based filmmaker, is a NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute - News and Documentary Program - graduate. Ahmed was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza Strip, Palestine. He worked as an organizer, translator and guide for international journalists covering the 2014 war. He made a series of short films highlighting the humanitarian crisis in Gaza Strip after three successive wars. He has also worked as a reporter for the Washington Report on the Middle East Affairs in Washington DC. Ahmed has received residencies and fellowships from Duke University and Story Wise Program.

RESOURCES

• Trailer and fundraising campaign for "Brooklyn, Inshallah"(LaunchGood)
• Eric Adams,"Why Only Israel Can Customize America's F-35 (At Least for Now)" (Wired, May 10, 2016).
• Jonathan Cook, "Critics blast US shipment of fighter jets to Israel" (Al Jazeera, April 26, 2017). 
• Daniel Kurtzer, "How terrorism helped found Israel"(Washington Post, March 13, 2015). 
• Asaf Calderon, "What It's Like to Have a Jewish Terrorist in the Family"(Haaretz, May 3, 2017). 

Israel has a complicated history with refugees. Many Jewish refugees found shelter in Israel after the Holocaust; many Palestinians, on the other hand, became refugees after the 1948 war. But in this episode, we talk about Israel’s other refugees, those you may not have known about: African refugees who come mostly from Sudan and Eritrea escaping oppressive regimes and persecution.

Mutasim Ali is a Sudanese refugee, one of 35,000 African refugees currently living in Israel -- but one of only 13 to have his refugee status recognized by the state. As of December 2017, all of the others are at risk of deportation. Israel has already started sending refugees to countries that offer them no status or security.

In this episode, Unsettled producer Asaf Calderon speaks to Mutasim and advocate Elliot Vaisrub Glassenberg about the unfolding crisis. Why did so many African refugees choose Israel? Why doesn't Israel want them? What does Israel's treatment of these refugees say about the state of the Zionist experiment? And what can Americans do to help?

This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Asaf Calderon and edited by Ilana Levinson. Music by Nat Rosenzweig and Podington Bear.

Mutasim Ali is a law student at the College of Law & Business, Ramat Gan and former executive director at African Refugees Development Center (ARDC), a community-based organization to protect, assist, and empower African refugees and asylum-seekers to advocate on their behalf. He is an advocate for change and democracy in Sudan.

Elliot Vaisrub Glassenberg is an American-Canadian-Israeli Jewish educator-activist. Elliot is a senior educator at The Kibbutz Movement and BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change and the central shaliach (emissary) for Habonim Dror Olami in North America. Currently based in Chicago, Elliot leads activities and teaches throughout North America. Elliot is an activist for Jewish pluralism and inclusion, refugee rights, LGBTQ rights and human rights, and his educator-activist approach focuses on the application of Judaism for social change. Elliot is co-chair of Right Now: Advocates for Asylum Seekers in Israel, a blogger for The Times of Israel, and has published in Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Week, and elsewhere. A native of Chicago, Elliot earned a B.A. from McGill University, and an M.A. in Jewish Education and Jewish Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Elliot worked in the field of Jewish education in North America before making aliyah to Israel in 2011, where he served as Director of International Communication for BINA and became a leading activist for refugee rights in Israel.

REFERENCES

• RIGHT NOW: Advocates for Asylum Seekers in Israel
• "I am my father's son: Mutasim Ali at TEDxBGU" (2014)
• "We want freedom - demonstration and voices of refugees, Tel Aviv, Israel"(2014)
• Benny Morris, Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956 (Clarendon Press, 1997).
• Michael Bachner, "Netanyahu says Africans slated for deportation 'not refugees'" (Times of Israel, January 21, 2018). 
• Associated Press, "Rwanda, Uganda Deny Reaching a Deal with Israel to Accept Refugees"(Haaretz, January 5, 2018). 
• Xan Rice, "China and Russia 'sell jets to Sudan'" (The Times, November 17, 2004). 
• Ilan Lior, "Israel to Pay Rwanda $5,000 for Every Deported Asylum Seeker It Takes In"(Haaretz, November 20, 2017).

We’ll be back next week with a full episode, about African asylum-seekers in Israel -- tens of thousands of whom are at risk of being deported. Here’s a preview of our interview with Sudanese refugee and activist Mutasim Ali.

We’ll have Unsettled merch, including stickers and t-shirts, and there will be a raffle with amazing prizes: a signed copy of Dov Waxman’s book, Trouble in the Tribe; the new album by Dan Fishback’s band, Cheese on Bread; a ticket to see comedian John Mulaney; a juggling lesson from producer Emily Bell; and more!

If you’re not in New York, there’s still time to help Unsettled grow by donating online. We’ve got just $500 left to reach our goal of $2,018 in the first month of 2018. Can you help us cross the finish line?

This week's listener story comes from Arielle Rivera Korman. 

If you've learned something new from listening to Unsettled, if your views have been challenged, if you want to hear more, or all of the above -- please visit gofundme.com/unsettledpodcast and donate $18, or whatever makes sense for you.

This week's featured story comes from our listener Rivka M.

In just the first week, we've raised over 700 dollars! Thanks to you, we're on our way to reaching our goal of $2018 in the first month of 2018.

In this episode, Unsettled listener Toby Irving explains what brings her to a critical conversation about Israel-Palestine. If you think it's important to create a space for this conversation, please visit our fundraising campaign and donate $18, or whatever you can.

Donate now to help us raise $2018 in the first month of 2018. These funds will support our operations and growth, including: keeping our website running, editing software, recording equipment, and access to a sound studio.

To accompany this campaign, each week in the month of January we’ll release a personal story submitted by one of our listeners. We asked you: Why are you here? How did you get engaged in this conversation and why is it important to you?

The first answer comes from Becca Litt. 

This is a bonus episode featuring extra content from our December 4th episode on Cultural Resistance. Playwright and musician Dan Fishback explains the difference between boycott and censorship, why he uses the word "apartheid" to describe Israel-Palestine, and why he wants to start identifying as a "liberationist Jew."

This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Recorded at The 'cast Sound Lab in Brooklyn, New York on November 6, 2017. Edited for length and clarity by Ilana Levinson. 

Photo credit: Sammy Tunis

Dan Fishback is a playwright, performer, musician, and director of the Helix Queer Performance Network. His musical “The Material World” was called one of the Top Ten Plays of 2012 by Time Out New York. His play “You Will Experience Silence” was called “sassier and more fun than 'Angels in America'” by the Village Voice. Also a performing songwriter, Fishback has released several albums and toured Europe and North America, both solo and with his band Cheese On Bread. Other theater works include “Waiting for Barbara” (New Museum, 2013), “thirtynothing” (Dixon Place, 2011) and “No Direction Homo” (P.S. 122, 2006).

As director of the Helix Queer Performance Network, Fishback curates and organizes a range of festivals, workshops and public events, including the annual series, “La MaMa’s Squirts.” Fishback has received grants for his theater work from the Franklin Furnace Fund (2010) and the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists (2007-2009). He has been a resident artist at Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, the Hemispheric Institute at NYU, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, where he has developed all of his theater work since 2010. Fishback is a proud member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Artist Council. He is currently developing two new musicals, “Rubble Rubble” and “Water Signs,” and will release a new album by Cheese On Bread in 2018.

references

• Letter calling on Lincoln Center to cancel Israeli government's "Brand Israel" theater performances (Adalah-NY, 2017).
• "5 Myths About Israel Boycotts That Every Theater Lover Should Consider"(Dan Fishback, Forward, July 21, 2017).
• Lincoln Center Festival page for To the End of the Land, presented July 24-27, 2017.
• Lincoln Center Festival page for Yitzhak Rabin: Chronicle of an Assassination, presented July 9, 2017.
• "PACBI Guidelines for the International Cultural Boycott of Israel" (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, July 16, 2014).
• "Governor Cuomo Signs First-in-the-Nation Executive Order Directing Divestment of Public Funds Supporting BDS Campaign Against Israel" (Governor's Press Office, June 5, 2016).
• Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (2002), which defines the word "apartheid" in Part II, Article 7 (page 5). 

This is the sixth installment of a special miniseries responding to the U.S. President's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

For this episode, Unsettled producer Emily Bell interviewed Leena Dallasheh, assistant professor of history at Humboldt State University. They spoke about what East Jerusalem is like for its Palestinian population and the stark differences between East and West Jerusalem.

This episode was recorded on December 19, 2017 and edited by Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig.

_Note: At 4:30, Leena Dallasheh says synagogue when referring to the site at Mamilla Cemetery. She intended to say cemetery in this instance. _

Leena Dallasheh is an assistant professor of history at Humboldt State University.  She received her PhD in the joint History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies program at NYU. Her work focuses on the social and political history of Nazareth from 1940 to 1966, tracing how Palestinians who remained in Israel in 1948 negotiated their incorporation in the state, affirming their rights as citizens and their identity as Palestinian. She has published serval articles and book chapters, including “Troubled Waters: Governing Water and Struggling for Citizenship in Nazareth,” which appeared in IJMES 47 (2015). Before coming to NYU, she received a law degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Dallasheh is currently in Jerusalem for six months, working on her book manuscript, “Contested Citizenship: Nazareth’s Palestinians in the Transition from British Mandate to Israel.” The project is a communal biography of the Palestinian Arab city of Nazareth from 1940 to 1966, telling the story of this Palestinian community as it lived through the Nakba (the “Catastrophe”) of 1948. Through this, it presents a history of the early encounter between Palestinians who became citizens of Israel in 1948 and the Israeli state. The research during this period is supported by a fellowship from PARC-NEH/FPIRI.

This is the fifth installment of a special miniseries responding to the U.S. President's decision on December 6 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

For this episode, Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson spoke to Rabbi Steven Wernick, CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which serves and represents Conservative congregations across North America. On December 8, USCJ put out a statement applauding the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem.

This episode was recorded on December 12, 2017 and edited by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig.

Rabbi Steven C. Wernick serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), a community of kehillot - sacred communities - committed to a dynamic Judaism that is learned and passionate, authentic and pluralistic, joyful and accessible, egalitarian and traditional. Since joining USCJ in 2009, Rabbi Wernick has spearheaded a top-to-bottom transformation to allow the organization to meet the dramatically changing needs of 21st century congregations. He has shepherded the successful launch of several new initiatives for USCJ congregations, including Sulam Leadership, an integrated set of leadership development resources that includes programs for presidents, emerging leaders, current leaders and officers.  Through partnerships with and grants from outside organizations, he has significantly expanded funding for USY, United Synagogue’s youth group, and has launched major new efforts to help kehillot reach out to young families and to people with disabilities.  Rabbi Wernick was instrumental in the 2016 agreement to create a permanent space for pluralistic and egalitarian prayer at the Kotel (Western Wall), following five years of negotiations.

The son of a rabbi and a Jewish educator, Rabbi Wernick was actively involved in USY and Camp Ramah while growing up in a variety of cities across North America including Oakland, California and Winnipeg, Manitoba in central Canada.  He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, University of Judaism and was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  After ordination, he served as the Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom in Cherry Hill, NJ, and then as the senior rabbi at Adath Israel in suburban Philadelphia.  As rabbi of Adath Israel, Rabbi Wernick took a synagogue that had been withering and, through his vision and energy, turned it into one of that region’s most vibrant.  He still draws on his experiences at Adath Israel, as he works to grow USCJ for the next century.

In 2010 Rabbi Wernick was named one of Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America and was on The Forward’s 50 List of Influential Jewish Leaders.  He serves on the board of the Friends of the Arava Institute.

Rabbi Wernick is married and the father of three daughters. 

references

• USCJ Statement on Jerusalem as Israel Capital
• AJC Survey of American Jewish Opinion 2017

This is the fourth installment of a special miniseries responding to the U.S. President's decision last week to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

For this episode, Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson interviewed Dov Waxman, professor of Political Science, International Affairs, and Israel Studies at Northeastern University, and author of Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel (2016). They spoke about fissures in the American Jewish community and why Jerusalem, in particular, elicits such a polarized response.

This episode was recorded on December 7, 2017 and edited by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig.

Dov Waxman is Professor of Political Science, International Affairs, and Israel Studies, and the Stotsky Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies atNortheastern University. He is also the co-director of the university’s Middle East Center.  His research focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israeli foreign policy, U.S.-Israel relations, and American Jewry’s relationship with Israel. He has been a visiting fellow at Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Oxford University. He is the author of three books: The Pursuit of Peace and the Crisis of Israeli Identity: Defending / Defining the Nation (2006), Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within (2011), and Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel (2016). 

This is the third installment of a special miniseries responding to the U.S. President's decision this week to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

For this episode, Unsettled producer Max Freedman attended a protest by the Jewish anti-occupation movement IfNotNow at the New York City offices of Senator Chuck Schumer. 

This episode was recorded on December 7, 2017 and edited by Max Freedman. 

VOICES

Eliana Fishman is a graduate student at Columbia University studying Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences. She is a member of IfNotNow.

Stephen Lurie is a researcher and writer in Brooklyn.

Anna Blachman is a healthcare consultant raised in the Boston area and based in New York City. She has lived in Peru, London, and Thailand, where she worked in public health and pursued biological research. Anna first got involved with anti-occupation work while at Pomona College and has been organizing with IfNotNow since 2016.

REFERENCES

• AJC Survey of American Jewish Opinion 2017
• Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI)

This is the second installment of a special miniseries responding to the U.S. President's decision this week to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

For this episode, Unsettled producer Yoshi Fields attended a Palestinian-led protest at Hunter College, just hours after Trump's announcement. He interviewed Rani Al-Hindi, one of the organizers of the protest. 

This episode was recorded on December 6, 2017 and edited by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig.

Rani Al-Hindi is a Palestinian-American, currently a senior at CUNY Hunter College and the co-founder of both the Palestine Solidarity Alliance of Hunter College and the Apartheid Divest at CUNY campaign. His grandparents are from al-Qubab and Deir Ayoub, in '48 Palestine.

On Wednesday, December 6th, the President of the United States formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel -- breaking with more than sixty years of official U.S. policy. Why did this happen? What does it mean? And what might happen next?

In response to the urgency of this moment, Unsettled is trying something new: a miniseries. For the next few days, we’ll bring you short episodes featuring experts and activists, each with a different perspective on the new status of Jerusalem.

For the first installment, producer Ilana Levinson spoke to Shira Robinson, Associate Professor of History and International Affairs at the George Washington University.

This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Recorded on December 6, 2017 and edited for length and clarity by Max Freedman.

Shira Robinson is Associate Professor of History and International Affairs at the George Washington University, where she teaches the history of the modern Middle East. Her first book, Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel's Liberal Settler State, examines Israel's imposition of military rule on the Palestinian Arabs who remained within its borders after 1948. 

Dan Fishback and Motaz Malhees both made waves in the New York theater scene this fall with plays about Palestine. Motaz performed with the Freedom Theatre of Jenin in "The Siege," at the NYU Skirball Center. Meanwhile, Dan's play "Rubble Rubble" was abruptly and controversially cancelled by the American Jewish Historical Society.

In this joint interview, Dan and Motaz talk about their work, and explain why culture is their weapon of choice against the injustices of the occupation.

This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Recorded at The 'cast Sound Lab in Brooklyn, New York on November 6, 2017. Edited for length and clarity by Ilana Levinson. 

Photo credit: Sammy Tunis

Dan Fishback is a playwright, performer, musician, and director of the Helix Queer Performance Network. His musical “The Material World” was called one of the Top Ten Plays of 2012 by Time Out New York. His play “You Will Experience Silence” was called “sassier and more fun than 'Angels in America'” by the Village Voice. Also a performing songwriter, Fishback has released several albums and toured Europe and North America, both solo and with his band Cheese On Bread. Other theater works include “Waiting for Barbara” (New Museum, 2013), “thirtynothing” (Dixon Place, 2011) and “No Direction Homo” (P.S. 122, 2006).

As director of the Helix Queer Performance Network, Fishback curates and organizes a range of festivals, workshops and public events, including the annual series, “La MaMa’s Squirts.” Fishback has received grants for his theater work from the Franklin Furnace Fund (2010) and the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists (2007-2009). He has been a resident artist at Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, the Hemispheric Institute at NYU, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, where he has developed all of his theater work since 2010. Fishback is a proud member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Artist Council. He is currently developing two new musicals, “Rubble Rubble” and “Water Signs,” and will release a new album by Cheese On Bread in 2018.

Motaz Malhees is a Palestinian actor born in 1992. He received his professional training in Stanislavsky, Brecht and Shakespeare at The Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp (Palestine), and in Commedia dell’Arte at Theatre Hotel Courage in Amsterdam (Holland). Motaz has trained with internationally acclaimed directors such as Juliano Mer-Khamis and Nabil Al-Raee (The Freedom Theatre), Di Trevis (Royal Shakespeare Company), Thomas Ostermeier (Schaubühne Theatre), and Katrien van Beurden (Theatre Hotel Courage). His stage credits with The Freedom Theatre include: “Alice in Wonderland” (2011), “What Else – Sho Kman?” (2011), Pinter’s “The Caretaker” (2012), “Freaky Boy” (2012), “Courage, Ouda, Courage” (2013), “Suicide Note from Palestine” (2014), “Power/Poison” (2014), and most recently “The Siege” at the NYU Skirball Center. Motaz has also acted in films, including: “Think Out of the Box” (2014, dir. Mohammad Dasoqe), which screened in Palestine, Germany and Mexico; and “Past Tense Continuous” (2014, dir. Dima Hourani).

As a versatile actor, Motaz has performed in multilingual plays as well as in scripted, devised, physical, epic and fantasy theatre. Motaz also produces and performs in short films about social issues in Palestine, which have received a wide following on social media platforms. Having grown up in Palestine, and experienced the economic and political hardships of life under occupation, Motaz has been actively interested in acting since he was nine years old. He lives through theatre, and believes in the potential of art to transform people’s ideas and lives.

REFERENCES

• "Arna's Children" (dir. Juliano Mer-Khamis, 2004)
• "The Life and Death of Juliano Mer-Khamis" (Adam Shatz, London Review of Books, November 2013)
• "Center for Jewish History Chief Comes Under Fierce Attack By Right-Wingers" (Josh Nathan-Kazis, Forward, September 6, 2017)
• "Jewish Center Faces Backlash After Canceling Play Criticized as Anti-Israel" (Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times_, _October 11, 2017)
• Program note by Oskar Eustis for "The Siege" at NYU Skirball Center (October 2017)
• Indiegogo campaign for Dan Fishback's "Rubble Rubble"
• "Return to Palestine"(The Freedom Theatre, 2016) in Arabic without subtitles
• Theatre of the Oppressed NYC
• Housing Works 
• "All Your Sisters" (Cheese On Bread, 2017)
• danfishback.com
• @motazmalhees
• thefreedomtheatre.org

TRANSCRIPT

DAN: So many people warned me against making work like this. And yeah, I got canceled, but in the process, I have tremendously powerful friends now that I didn't make before.

MOTAZ: Doesn't it make you stronger after they cancel it?

DAN: Yeah, of course. Yeah.

MOTAZ: Didn't it make you more like want to do it?

DAN: Oh, yeah.

MOTAZ: That's a good thing, then.

[MUSIC: Unsettled theme by Nat Rosenzweig]

MAX: Welcome to Unsettled. My name is Max Freedman, I’m one of the producers of Unsettled and your host for today’s episode.

Now when I’m not working on this podcast, I’m a theater artist, and I know how hard it can be to make a life in the theater and get your work out there. However hard you think it is, imagine you’re trying to tell stories about the occupied West Bank.

Enter Dan Fishback and Motaz Malhees.

Dan and Motaz both made waves in the New York theater scene this fall with plays about Palestine.

Motaz was in New York performing with the Freedom Theatre of Jenin in “The Siege,” a play about the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, during the Second Intifada.

Dan, on the other hand, made waves because of a play that didn’t happen, rather than one that did. His play, “Rubble Rubble,” was supposed to go up at the American Jewish Historical Society, but they cancelled it. I’ll let him tell you why -- and what happened next.

Dan and Motaz didn’t know each other before, but I had the privilege to get them in the same room to talk about their work and as you’ll hear, they had a lot in common.

In preparation for this interview, I dug through years of old journals and found my entry from the day I first met Motaz, when I was in Jenin, three summers ago. Really big and underlined a few times, I had written two words: CULTURAL RESISTANCE. So that’s our theme for today.

Quick note: besides the three of us, at one point you’ll hear the voice of my co-producer Ilana Levinson. I think that’s all you need to know, so, let’s get started!

MAX: Welcome to Unsettled. Uh, why don't you start by introducing yourselves?

MOTAZ: Eh, first of all I am so happy to be here with you guys that's before I introduce myself. I am Motaz Malhees, so I am an actor from Palestine, I used to work with the Freedom Theatre since 2010. I do a lot of politics theatre but also the same time I do also for community, I do like for kids show. But I feel like, whatever needs, I give, like...it’s not important the type of theatre I do. But nowadays I'm freelance, and I work like with all theatres in Palestine, my country, because I don't want to be just involved with one place -- even that's I always say that the Freedom Theatre, that's my place and my home.

DAN: I’m Dan Fishback, I’m a...I make performance and music and theatre in New York, I’ve been here since 2003 -- I don't know, what do you want to know?

MAX: Where’d you grow up?

DAN: Oh my gosh! I grew up in a pretty normal American Reform Jewish family, outside Washington, DC in Maryland. In a family that...was essentially a liberal Zionist family, although I don't think they would have necessary articulated themselves like that, they just imagine themselves being normal.

And I heard growing up, “If only the Palestinians were nonviolent, then they would get what they want. Because they're asking for something reasonable, but it's because they're violent that things are problem....that that's the reason why there's a problem.” And like, the older people around me as I was growing up were always saying, “If only there was a Palestinian Gandhi” -- that was like the refrain, over and over again. And now I find myself 36 years old, going back to my communities and being like, “There’s this huge non-violent Palestinian movement! And it’s international and we can be part of it, it’s boycott, and blah blah blah.” And everyone’s like, “Oh no, no no, this makes us uncomfortable too.” I'm like, “This is what you were begging for my whole childhood! And now it’s here! Why aren’t you excited? Why aren't you as excited as I am?” That’s where I’m from.

MOTAZ: That’s cool.

DAN: And it’s an honor to be here with Motaz, whose performance in “The Siege” was absolutely amazing.

MOTAZ: We not sure, but there is like people who really want to bring it back to the U.S. again, because it was a really successful show like for the Skirball Theatre, even like they almost sold out.

MAX: Let me back you up a second, because, I want you to imagine that I have never heard of “The Siege,” have never heard of the Freedom Theatre. Can you tell me -- tell me what it was, tell me what it is.

MOTAZ: “The Siege” it's a story about the invasion happened in 2002 in Palestine. There was like eh...invasion for the whole West Bank: in Jenin, in Nablus, all the cities. Like, one of them was Bethlehem, and in Bethlehem there was like a group of fighters, freedom fighters, who fight and defend back from their homeland. They have like many guns defending themselves, and they have in the other side -- the Israeli side -- there is tanks, Apache, Jeeps, all kind of guns you can imagine your life, heavy guns. And they were like around 45 fighters, 250, 245 civilian -- priests, nuns, children, women, and men, from both different religions -- who’s like stuck inside the Nativity Church for 39 days. With the like first five days they have food, after that they have no food. And they surrounded with around 60,000 soldiers from the Israeli army. They want, like, to finish it. So they, they have pressure, they don't wanna -- even the fighters, says khalas, it’s enough. Their people are suffering, their families are suffering outside because of that. So, they sent them like a paper, they have to write their names, the number of their IDs they have, and their signature. So, the fighters sign on it, and they know that's thirteen going to Europe and twenty-five are going to Gaza. They don't know even where they going. So, they sent them to exile the same day.

DAN: When my friends and I were leaving the theatre, all we were talking about is, we were so curious about what their lives would be like after fifteen years of exile and we couldn’t wrap our minds around it.

MOTAZ: I know one of them is personally, and he told me a lot about it. And it’s really important to bring this piece because of one reason: they didn't choose. Even they signed the paper that say they have to go to exile, but like they was under pressure, and they thought it's temporary and that they would return. And eh, I know how much they are really broken from inside. They never show this to people.But from inside, if you know them personally, they are really broken, and they just...all they want, just to see like at least their families. Some of them, they can’t. Their family, like they can't get the visa to go to visit them -- like, for example, the two guys, Rami Kamel, and Jihadi Jaara who living in Dublin, they haven't seen their families at all. One of them, like Jihadi he have a son that's his wife give birth like after one week he was sent to exile. He didn't even touch his son, he's fifteen years old, like...at least, like, okay, you don't want to send him back to Palestine. Let his family visit him! Like, this is the minimum of humanity. And eh...a really important point we have like always to say: those people was in their homeland, they was in their own city, and they fight back. They didn't went to...yeah, to Tel Aviv to fight, or to somewhere inside Israel, to fight the people over there. They was fighting the…defending themselves from the Israeli army.

MAX: How did you get started with the Freedom Theatre?

MOTAZ: Woo hoo! Since I was like, eh…fourteen I heard about it, or thirteen -- and I was dreaming about to be in there cause I’m, since like eight, nine, I start doing acting. It's like something I really love from inside, like I really really want to be an actor. Not because like I wanted a name. Because I can hold the stories, I can share stories for all over the world, I enjoy it, it's something beautiful and strong in the same time. So when I was sixteen, I heard about the hip-hop workshop, dance hip-hop workshop in the Freedom Theatre. So I went there and I apply for it, and I get involved with the workshop, and the last few days Juliano just came and he said, “We open a new class for theatre.”

MAX: Juliano, who Motaz just mentioned, is Juliano Mer Khamis, who started what is today, the Freedom Theatre. Real quick, I want to tell you the remarkable story of the Freedom Theatre of Jenin.

During the First Intifada, Juliano’s mother, a Jewish Israeli Communist named Arna Mer, came to Jenin, where she helped to establish housing and educational programs for children in the refugee camp there -- and eventually a children’s theatre called The Stone. Arna died of cancer in 1995, and during the Second Intifada, the Stone Theatre was destroyed. Arna’s son Juliano returned to Jenin for the first time since his mother’s death in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Jenin, and made an incredible film called "Arna’s Children" -- Motaz will tell you more about this in a bit, but it’s on YouTube and I highly recommend it.

It was after finishing this film that Juliano returned again to Jenin to found the Freedom Theatre. In 2011, Juliano was assassinated, but the Freedom Theatre has persisted. Alright -- back to Motaz.

MOTAZ: So I get involved and I put myself in that place since 2010. And it’s been like around...now, now you could say like eight years almost. It is...hard and eh, good in the same time. It is, ‘cause you face emotion, a lot of different emotion. But I love it. It's like, it’s become my home now. I’m always there. Even if I have nothing, I go pass by drinking coffee there like, chill, see what's going on, if they need help or something, because I'm part of the family.

MAX: Well we met because I went to visit the Freedom Theatre. And you were just hanging around and we sat there and talked for an hour.

MOTAZ: Yeah yeah.

MAX: Alright, so, Dan.

DAN: Yeah.

MAX: Tell me about your work and particularly tell me about “Rubble Rubble” and the genesis of that project.

MOTAZ: I wanna hear about it.

DAN: Well I've been working for the past decade on a trilogy of plays that sort of explore the inner life of the Jewish left in the United States over the past century. And this last play, “Rubble Rubble,” which I've been developing for the past few years, starts in the West Bank in an Israeli settlement. And you find this family that I've been writing plays about -- which is a very far leftist socialist radical family -- you see that that family has split off, and there's like a right-wing side of the family that has become settlers. And the left-wing anti-Zionist member of their family travels to visit them, after they haven’t spoken in twenty years.

MOTAZ: Whoa.

DAN: And the family confronts each other over his huge chasm, where one person is like a Palestinian solidarity BDS supporter and the rest of the family are like...

MOTAZ: Pro-Israel.

DAN: They're like settlers! Like living on stolen land, even though, but they’re middle aged American Jews who in the sixties were like radical New Left, you know, people. I’m fascinated by how many American-Israeli Jews were like super far on the left in the United States and then became these horrible oppressors in Israel. It blows my mind that it's possible to make that transition within the course of one life. And so, and that's where the play starts, and um…and I've been developing it for a few years, I went to Israel-Palestine to research for the play, I spent two weeks with interfaith peace builders traveling all through the West Bank and meeting with different non violent Palestinian and Israeli activists. I spent a week interviewing settlers, which was extremely disturbing.

Um, and then I’ve been developing this play, and it was gonna have its first public reading at the American Jewish Historical Society in Manhattan and, um, a couple weeks ago -- I guess now around a month ago -- we went to their offices for a meeting and everything was very positive, they were very excited to have us, the staff was very supportive of the work. And we heard that there was a right-wing smear campaign against the organization's new CEO. And we were told, “This is all happening but don't let it bother you. We might have to cancel that other thing, but we're not going to cancel your play, because we, we're really excited about it.” And literally the conversation we had was about raising the budget for our play. Eight hours later, I got an email saying that the play had been canceled.

MOTAZ: What? Was there any explanation about it?

DAN: Well, I knew that it was... The institution itself never sent me like a formal letter or anything, but I knew that it was because of this right-wing Zionist pressure campaign that they were being pressured to fire their new CEO, and in order to try to get rid of that critique, they were just going to get rid of us. And the staff of the American Jewish Historical Society was very supportive of me, and I don't see them as my enemies at all. It was the board of directors, or at least a small group from the board, met in the middle of the night and made this decision. And this is what happens all the time in Jewish organizations: the people actually doing work are willing to make brave choices, and the people who are funding that work are not willing to let anyone make those choices.

MOTAZ: Yeah yeah yeah, this happened with the same thing almost with us.

DAN: Yeah, at the Public, right?

MOTAZ: Yeah yeah yeah, it's almost the same, I like, I don't know who’s stand with us or who is against us, but we had this question for Oskar, which is the Artistic Director of the Public Theater, and his answer was really diplomatic answer and I respect -- no Oskar, he’s really great guy and he was one of the supporters to bring this play over here, and the most important thing, he says, that's to bring “The Siege” for the New Yorker people and we did it. It’s not about the place.

DAN: Well, that was interesting about Oskar Eustis and “The Siege,” is that it was supposed to be at the Public Theater, the board canceled that choice. But Oskar, who is the Artistic Director of the Public Theater, he had notes in the program for “The Siege” production at the Skirball Center. And I was like, this is so unusual that you open the program and you see notes from the director of the theatre that canceled the play!

MOTAZ: Yeah yeah. But, I want to hear more about Dan play, man.

DAN: Sure, yeah.

MOTAZ: I would like to know what is the story?

DAN: Well, I can tell you about the story of what happens in the play, but what I also want to say is that, after we were canceled, the New York theatre world became incredibly supportive of us. And people really came out of nowhere to offer support and offer help. We raised our budget that had been canceled from American Jewish Historical Society within three days.

MOTAZ: Whoa.

DAN: Yeah. And we were offered resources that we couldn't have ever imagined. And to me, that was a huge sign that the people who are trying to censor dissident voices around Israel-Palestine are going to fail in humiliation. Because our work is stronger than ever after having been canceled, because people are so angry about it. People who are, who don't really know very much about it, are angry about it. And there are left-wing Zionists in my life who don't agree with me, but who are so angry that the play was canceled -- and it’s put them in a situation where they are more open to my ideas, and more open to considering the ideas of the play. So, I mean -- and we’re going to do the reading of the play, it's going happen next year, the details aren't confirmed, but it's going to be bigger and more interesting and more spectacular than it would have been if it hadn’t been canceled in the first place. Which is interesting.

The play itself -- it’s funny because the people who canceled it never read it. And it's weird, like if they read it I think they'd be like, “Oh, this is weird.” It's a weird play.

The first act is like a very traditional living room drama in a family. So, there's the aunt and uncle, who are middle-aged formerly left-wing radical American Jews who live in a settlement. There's their radical nephew, who shares my politics but is not a sympathetic person. He’s kind of...nasty and annoying and neurotic. And he’s there with his partner who’s Colombian and has no context for any of this. So I really wanted there to be a character who doesn't really have any stake in the game, doesn't have any history with Israel-Palestine, just comes from another part of the world entirely, but who has...a personal history of violence. Because he grew up in a part of Colombia that experienced a lot of violence. Whereas, I think a lot of white American Jews, violence, revolution, all these ideas are abstract concepts, and we don't experience them in our real lives. So he's coming at -- that character, who in a way is the central character of the play -- is coming at things from a totally different context. And I don't want to give anything away, but by the end of the first act, things go horribly wrong, and the first act ends with an enormous disaster.

And the second act begins, and it's a musical, and it takes place in Moscow in 1905. And it's the same family, but a century before, and the matriarch of the family is building bombs for the socialist revolution of 1905.

MOTAZ: So it’s almost flashback?

DAN: It’s like a flash -- it's like an ancestral flashback.

MOTAZ: That’s interesting.

DAN: So you see the ancestor of the same family, and she's like a socialist revolutionary. She's building a bomb, she wants to like blow up the Tsar. And...and the ideas of the first act are sort of filtered through the music of the second act, where you see her with her socialist comrades. And what I want to ask is: How did this family go from here to there? How did it get from one place to the other? And, and the other question that I'm really interested in asking is like: Once you learn that there's an enormous injustice around you, how far are you willing to go to stop it from happening? How much violence are you willing to accept in order to stop something? Which is a huge question, I think, for anti-Zionist Jews when it comes to Palestine, like how...what are we supposed to do, knowing this horrible thing is going on? It's a huge question within Palestinian society, obviously, like what are you willing to do to stop this from happening? And it’s been a huge question throughout Jewish political history, which is full of violent resistance to injustice, and we act like were so horrified by violence, but Jewish history is full of it.

So, those are the questions that I'm dealing with, and I don't think that the play offers any straightforward answers. And that's the interesting thing about the play being canceled or censored, is that the play itself is about what happens when two sides of a Jewish family can't communicate, and shun each other. And that’s what’s happened with the play, that we were being shunned just like family members are being shunned. And when I was in Israel, researching the play, and I would tell people what the play was about -- you know, it's about a Jewish family that's separated over Israel, and the Israeli side doesn't talk to the American side -- and every single person I talked to was like, “Oh, that's just like my family. That's my family, that happened to us.” And I was like, oh, right. This is bad for everybody. This destroys families, this injustice is destroying everybody involved in it.

MOTAZ: Yeah, I mean like, even if it’s happened, like something like, my grandparents, whatever it takes place, I will not do the same thing in a different place.

DAN: Right? This is the big Jewish catastrophe of the twentieth century, that you take one of two decisions, right? You either, you take all the trauma and you say, “This will never happen to us again, and we will do anything to protect us.” Or you say, “This will never happen to anyone again.”

MOTAZ: What, like, Jewish used to live in Yemen, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine, many Arab countries, there was normal to see like this Muslim, Christian and a Jewish neighbor and eh, like an atheist beside him, and all of them are living in the Arab world like normally, like -- let's be honest, even though the Arab history is not clear, like there is many bad things from the Arab history also like... But eh, we used to live like together, so the thing is not religion. I don’t believe it’s religion, it’s mentality. It’s...

DAN: I was talking, I was having an argument in a restaurant a couple years ago with a Zionist Jew, and we were fighting really passionately. And someone, a stranger came up to our table and said, “Guys, stop fighting about this. It's an ancient struggle that's been going on thousands of years.” And we both looked at him, both of us agreed, we were like, “No, it isn't! This is new, this is in the past like less than 200 years that this has happened, come on.” We were like, “Go sit down. Finish your lunch, hon. Get out of our faces.” There's so many lies about it. But this is...I feel like this is the work, this is the cultural work of American Jewishness right now. We've been brought up with such a distorted understanding of the world. And it's gonna take so much cultural work to undo it all.

MOTAZ: Yeah, and it's gonna make a lot of enemies at the same time.

DAN: Oh yeah. But I think my situation proves that it's also gonna get…it's not gonna be completely a disaster. You know, everyone -- so many people warned me against making work like this. And yeah, I got canceled, but in the process, I have tremendously powerful friends now that I didn't make before.

MOTAZ: Doesn't it make you stronger after they cancel it?

DAN: Yeah, of course. Yeah.

MOTAZ: Didn't it make you more like want to do it?

DAN: Oh, yeah.

MOTAZ: That's a good thing, then. Okay, what’s the next question?

MAX: So, for both of you, why is culture your weapon of choice?

MOTAZ: Woo hoo! Because eh… Dan, you go ahead.

DAN: ‘Cause its more powerful! Like…violence only ever creates more violence. I think this, like, even when it's necessary, it ends up being true. Culture is the only human practice that can actually dig into the root of a trauma and try to undo it in the first place. Um, and this is why people are so afraid of culture, and in particular theatre. ‘Cause when there's a human being in front of you having an experience, it’s very difficult to ignore them. It's hard to ignore a play. And, and so many…especially, so many American Zionist Jews are under -- on an emotional level, understand that their perspective is impossible. ‘Cause if you ask most American Jews, “Do you believe that it is right for a country to privilege one ethno-religious group over others?” Most of them will say, “No, that’s wrong. That is a wrong thing.” And then you say, “Well, what about Israel?” and they'll go, “Uhhhhhh…”

But the fundamental truth, the deeper truth is that none of us actually support this. It's, the the support for Israel is the more superficial belief. The deeper belief is that this is wrong. Good plays, good art, good visual art, good music, good anything about this will help strip away the sort of superficial attachment to the, to the story of Israel, and help people get to the deeper belief that supremacy is wrong. No matter who is supreme in any given situation, it will always be wrong.

ILANA: Sorry, I just wanna um, in the conversation about Zionism, I’m wondering...

DAN: Do you want me to define that?

ILANA: Yeah, I’m wondering specifically if you think any form of Zionism involves supremacy and that kind of thing.

DAN: You know, I identify as an anti-Zionist Jew, and a lot of people, a lot of people will say, “Oh, don't say that, because it’s icky, it makes us uncomfortable to say you're anti-Zionist. Because, 'cause what does that really mean.” And for me, if it was the early 1900s, maybe I would have identified as like a Cultural Zionist. But to me, the way the word Zionism functions in the world, it’s support for a Jewish state of Israel. And to me, that means that Zionism inherently requires one to believe that Jews should reign supreme in this land, and I think that that's an untenable option.

MAX: I…I sort of wanna respond.

DAN: You wanna get into it, Max?

MAX: No, I don't -- no, I don’t wanna argue with you…that's not… I will confess that I am skeptical of people who call themselves anti-Zionists who are not Jewish and not Palestinian. I...

DAN:  Yeah yeah yeah, me too. I think that part of the, part of what it means to liberate Jews in the world, is to liberate us from our trauma, and to liberate us from that pain that…that distracts us from the reality of the world. And that requires our friends to help us get through that trauma, and to help us liberate ourselves from that trauma, and that requires non-Jewish people who oppose Zionism to make sure that we are emotionally capable of, um, of joining with them and being in community with them. And to me that's always like a challenge to my non-Jewish friends and comrades to be like, if we’re gonna do this together you need to understand that we’re…we just barely made it alive into this century, and a lot of us have like legitimate fears for our lives. I mean, we’re living in the United States where there's like a Nazi problem, right? Like our fear of violence is real and legitimate and um, when people say there's like no anti-semitism on the left in the United States, to me that's like so foolish. Like obviously, there's some anti-semitism in any part of the world, in any community.

MOTAZ: Of course, of course…that's true.

DAN: And when we pretend it doesn't exist, then we’re...I think we make so many other Jews feel unsafe joining us in this movement, because we're saying something that's obviously untrue and they don't trust us ‘cause it sounds like we’re lying to them. From my perspective, we need to say it: yeah, there's totally some anti-semitism on the left. And we need to deal with it, and our non-Jewish comrades need to deal with it, so that we can see that this is a safe place for us to be.

MOTAZ: Nobody called you before, like you are anti-semitic after all the things you did?

DAN: Oh yeah.

MOTAZ: And you are Jewish.

DAN: Oh yeah. Motaz, I need to tell you, I've gotten a lot of hate mail in my life and it's never as aggressive as other Jews. They’re the ones that tell me I should die. What they always say is, “You should go to Palestine, where they’d kill you.” They say this all the time, and I’m like, “I’ve been to Palestine, dude!”

MOTAZ: So if some of the guys gonna hear this interview, Dan, you more than welcome in my house in Jenin. Nobody gonna kill you, you gonna love it. So come back to the first question?

MAX: Yes, yes, finally...

MOTAZ: Why cultural... Because I'm fed up. I have seen like many people got killed in this entire world since I was born. And see blood everywhere, why it’s need to be violent? Why that question? Why don't we turn the opposite question: why we have to be violent? Because it's like, we fed up, we are like, we are human.

There is many people that think, like, “Oh, they was born like this.” No, they was not born like this. There is something happen to them. Like, if you watch there is a really important and good movie, it’s called “Arna’s Children,” Little kids, he talking about this story a lot, little kids. And they was dreaming about to be a Romeo of Palestine, them want to be Juliet, one of them he want to be Al Pacino. They wanna be actors. Suddenly, in a moment in 2002, you see those people got killed. And they became a freedom fighter before. Why? One of them his mother got killed by a sniper. One of them, after they bomb a school, he went to the school and he grabbed the body of a girl and she was almost alive, while he was running through the hospital, she died. So, his...of course he was gonna have a flip in his mind, and he gonna hold the gun and fight. So those people, they didn't like came from nothing. There is a reason always to do this.

Even like I'm not into like guns or things, that's why I choose also art because I believe art is more stronger than a gun. And I don’t want to see any person on earth suffer. Like death is coming anyway, like you gonna die, but why we have to kill each other? Destroying, destroying. Like, I can make art which is strong, I can bring the messages, not just from my place, from all over the world and develop it to the stage. And eh… I think it's, let's make it, let's be cultural more. Let's let the art talk. And eh, we not gonna fake history, we not gonna fake stories, we gonna bring the story as it is.

DAN: And this is why they’re so afraid of theatre.

MOTAZ: Yeah!

DAN: Because theatre shows the reasons why a person does something, and they don't wanna look at the reasons.

MOTAZ: Man, I start to believe in this thing in 2012. I was going to the theatre in a taxi and there was checkpoint, and they stop me. ‘Cause I have no ID. I told him, like “I’m late for my theatre.” And he said, “Oh, you’re going to the Freedom Theatre.” He said like, “Come on man, they killed Juliano, they could kill you too.” And I said like “Why?” He said like, “Art will not change anything man. Why you need it?” And I said, “It's fine, for you it's nothing, but for me...” And he told me, “If you don't have your ID next time, you go to prison. And I promise you.” So since that time I just realize how much art is strong, and how much they afraid from art.

MAX: Here’s Motaz in a scene from “Return to Palestine,” devised by graduates of the Freedom Theatre acting school.

[Excerpt from "Return to Palestine," in Arabic]

MAX: So, the work I do here in New York City is mostly with an organization called Theatre of the Oppressed NYC.

MOTAZ: Yeah, I know.

MAX: Where I work with a lot of different groups of people. Right now I’m working at Housing Works, which is an organization that um…I think this is the blurb from their website, “works to end the twin crises of HIV/AIDS and homelessness.”

MOTAZ: Whoa.

DAN: Easy.

MAX: Yeah, right? I’m working with a group of folks from Housing Works on a play that they created about their experiences trying to keep and get affordable housing, with housing vouchers that they have because of their status. And… that’s just one example, I’ve worked on a lot of plays, and the way that sometimes I think about what those plays are meant to do, is is kind of in two areas: there’s the sort of, I mean, the way that I talk about it with my family, which is very much in the kind of like raising awareness camp, in the sense that people come to see these plays, they don’t know anything about tenant harassment in New York City and they learn about it. And then, really what it was designed to do by the folks who came up with this stuff in Brazil in the seventies, which is to build capacity in that community. Um, these theater tools are tools for people to work together to make change. I’m wondering if that resonates with you at all, and sort of -- what do you see your work in theater doing?

DAN: Obviously I like plays that do all of these things at the same time.

MOTAZ: Yeah.

DAN: But, as a playwright, if you go into a project with too much of a vision of like what kind of responses you want from your audience -- an audience knows when you’re trying to manipulate them, and at the end of the day, an audience knows when something is authentic. So, being a playwright is about balancing your vision for what you want to happen in the room, and your relationship to your own imagination and your own impulses.

MOTAZ: And the thing is like, if you don’t believe it, the actors will never believe it, then the audience will never believe it.

DAN: Yeah, totally, and a lot of political theatre gets a bad rap, because I think a lot of political theatre is only thinking about, how can we make an impact with this audience? And it feels false.

MOTAZ: I’m interested to know about, Dan, like -- normally, when you write, you give solution for the people? Or you give them a question to find the solution?

DAN: I don’t give solutions, no.

MOTAZ: You give a question.

DAN: I give the questions. Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

MOTAZ: Good, yeah.

DAN: If I feel like I know concretely an answer to something, then I don’t need to write the play. I will just write an essay.

[MUSIC: Cheese on Bread, “All Your Sisters”]

MAX: Motaz had to leave, and I got to talk to Dan for a little while longer about the difference between boycott and censorship, and why he wants to start identifying as a “liberationist Jew.” If you’re not already subscribed, SUBSCRIBE to Unsettled on your podcatcher of choice -- because, in a couple weeks, you’ll get a bonus episode with the rest of our conversation.

In the meantime, you can find Dan’s work at his website, danfishback.com, and follow Motaz on Instagram @motazmalhees, that’s M-O-T-A-Z-M-A-L-H-E-E-S.

The song you’ve been hearing is "All Your Sisters" by Dan Fishback’s band, Cheese On Bread, from their forthcoming album "The One Who Wanted More,” coming out next year.

You can find the song, a full transcript of the episode and other resources at our website, unsettledpod.com.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Yoshi Fields, Ilana Levinson, and me. This episode was edited by Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. We recorded this episode in a studio for the first time -- shout out to Cast Sound Lab in Brooklyn, New York.

Go to our website, unsettledpod.com, for more show information. We want to bring you more content in more different forms, and to make that happen, we need your support! So you can become a monthly sustainer at Patreon.com/unsettled.

You can like Unsettled on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, to make sure you never miss an episode of Unsettled.

In this interview, Souli explains how he began to see Israelis as potential partners, rather than the enemy. He talks about the value of ex-combatants in the struggle to end the occupation, and addresses some of the the criticism that his organization has received from other activist groups.

This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Asaf Calderon. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Recorded in Brooklyn, New York on August 6, 2017, and edited for length and clarity by Asaf Calderon and Yoshi Fields. 

Sulaiman Khatib is a leading nonviolence activist in Israel and Palestine. He was born in the West Bank and was imprisoned at the age of 14 for stabbing two Israeli soldiers. It was during his time in prison that he learned about nonviolent resistance and first encountered Jewish Israeli perspectives. In 2006, he and other Israeli and Palestinian ex-militants founded Combatants for Peace: a grassroots nonviolent movement with the goal of ending the occupation. As part of his work, he tours in the US, giving talks with other ex-combatants on nonviolent resistance to the occupation.

TRANSCRIPT

SOULI:  I believe that if our people given like a good leadership with a vision that carry nonviolence and hope, I do believe that many Palestinians are happy to join. This takes time and energy. But I believe the majority of our people don’t want to live in bloody situation, of course. And if the Israelis given the opportunity to show their goodness of solidarity with the Palestinians to struggle together, I really believe also I have faith of the majority of the Israelis in this case also, they will behave differently.

_ ASAF: Welcome to_ Unsettled_, a podcast about Israel-Palestine and the Jewish diaspora. We are here to provide a space for difficult conversations and diverse viewpoints that are all too rare in American Jewish communities._

My name is Asaf Calderon. I'm one of the producers of Unsettled and your host for today's episode.

Sulaiman Khatib, today's guest, grew up with his family in the West Bank under the Israeli occupation. At the age of 14, while trying to steal weapons, he stabbed two Israeli soldiers. Both soldiers survived, and Souli was sentenced by the military court to 15 years in prison.

Fast forward 30 years -- today, Souli is a co-founder and Managing Director of Combatants for Peace, an organization founded by ex-combatants from the Israeli military and the Palestinian armed resistance. They are dedicated to ending the occupation, using only nonviolent means.

How did Souli transform from a fighter who saw Israelis as the enemy, to a nonviolent activist committed to working in partnership with them? Why create an organization specifically with ex-militants? And how does he respond to the criticism he gets even from other anti-occupation activists?

With these questions in mind, I interviewed Souli while he was visiting the United States to work on his upcoming book. We met in his rented room in Brooklyn, on a Sunday -- so of course, you’re going to hear some background music. Sorry about that.

Another thing you may notice, is that we both have pretty strong accents. What you are about to hear is an Israeli interviewing a Palestinian, in English, which of course isn’t either of our first languages. So if you're having trouble understanding, please check out the transcript of this episode on our website, unsettledpod.com.

ASAF: So Souli, let’s start by you introducing yourself.

SOULI: My name is Sulaiman Khatib, so, people call me Souli -- some people -- and I was born in a village near Jerusalem, 10 minutes from Jerusalem, called Hizma. I grew up there, half of the time, and then I was in jail for a long time. I was one of the people that thought that the only way for freedom was joining the armed struggle. That was my mind when I was 14.

_ **ASAF: ** Like other Palestinian prisoners, Souli faced particularly difficult conditions in prison. In his bio for Combatants for Peace, he explains: The use of torture was routine: beating prisoners, spraying tear gas into prison cells, and violently stripping prisoners were daily occurrences._

But, it was in these difficult conditions that Souli learned how nonviolent struggle can make a difference. With no civil rights and with their most basic human rights severely limited, Souli and the other prisoners resorted to hunger strikes.

SOULI:  The prisoners were very organized, very smart, and represent all the factions in jail through committees that were elected, so we asked, for example, our demands were around having like water -- like in Hebron jail, we used to have a problem of water, especially like to clean ourselves, you know for showers -- to have access to books, education, and newspapers to bring them, and visiting our families -- it used to be half an hour, we demanded like 45 minutes.

_ **ASAF: ** The striking prisoners also had support from activists outside the prison walls._

SOULI:  In the first few days, we used to communicate with the youth organizations, and universities, and so we were sure that people support us outside, so we don’t reach the point where we die or something, because this was not our goal. We had the hunger strike to live a little better conditions while we were in jail. And that’s how I learned there is another path. There is another way.

I did read about Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela that was in jail at that time, and I was inspired by, you know, like all these people. We do study about Che Guevara and the Vietnam War, and the guerrilla wars. So, it’s not: you go to jail, you come out as a new Palestinian Gandhi. It’s not that way, the truth. So I don’t really represent the mainstream prisoners.

_ **ASAF: ** Not only did Souli learn about other nonviolent movements, but he also began to explore Jewish narratives which he had never before heard. He recalled watching the Holocaust film_ Schindler’s List_ one day while he was in prison._

**SOULI: ** During the film, we turned the light off, and then we watched the film --through the film, you can see that everybody is really moved. This was really the effect on our hearts, if you wish, because everyone was crying. And after the film, it's really a complex feeling, because we have to ask hot water to make tea from the Israeli police that his maybe ancestors were there, that we feel sympathy with them, and he’s putting us in jail.

Through the time I also read the history of the conflict from both eyes. I studied Hebrew also in jail and that made me realize there’s no either us or them. So I became beyond the typical narrative, and I became open for meeting Israelis after jail, and looking for partners on both sides to create a new narrative and new story for our peoples.

_ **ASAF: ** In 2003, during the second Palestinian Intifada -- or uprising -- a group of Israeli reserve soldiers, from elite combat units, decided to refuse serving in the occupied territories, so as to not contribute to the occupation. Soon after going public, the Israeli group was contacted by a Palestinian group of ex-prisoners. Souli, who was recently released from prison, was one of them. They started a series of internal talks, that eventually led to the creation of Combatants for Peace in 2006. The details of the formation of Combatants for Peace are presented in a documentary about them that came out last year,_ Disturbing the Peace_._
 

**SOULI: ** Everything in Combatants For Peace is based on certain principles, that’s very important to say: that’s joint and nonviolent and bi-national work, and opposing the occupation and slash violence. We are a grassroots organization that have nine local groups and working “twins” -- for example, Tel Aviv-Ramallah, Hebron-Be’er Sheva, Jerusalem-Jericho, Jerusalem-Beit Lechem and so on. And there’s above all also two bi-national groups, which is the woman group of Combatants for Peace that established last year, and the Theater of the Oppressed.

Some of the activities are under the local groups -- from dialogue to personal story sharing to nonviolence demonstrations as well. And there is activities on the movement level, like the Palestinian-Israeli Memorial Day -- this is the highest activity every year -- the freedom marches, and we were also part of the initiative of the Freedom Sumud Camp.

ASAF: In Israel, we often hear the term “prisoners with blood on their hands.” Israelis are much less willing to work with and cooperate with people that have done what we call “terrorist activity.” Whatever it was, against soldiers or against citizens, this term “blood on their hands” is something that rings very powerfully in Israeli discourse. What do you think about it, as somebody that, you know, does have blood on your hands? Do you think that... why do you think that Israelis should be working with you?

**SOULI: ** Firstly, all the terminologies, the language... it really exists more or less the same on both sides, that’s one thing, and it really depends where you came from and how you look at things, eh… I attacked two Israelis when I was 14, believing, "This is our enemy, I want to protect my homeland." So these kind of people, like myself, used to be like our good guys, that sacrifice for the homeland. It reminds me for Israeli discourse, when Israelis used violence before 48, for example, or the pre-Israeli organizations -- Etzel, Haganah, and all that -- were heroes.

_ ASAF: The Etzel and the Haganah were Jewish paramilitary organizations that worked before 1948 for the establishment of the Jewish state. Both used terrorism to promote their goals; for example, the King David Hotel bombing in which 91 people were killed, mostly civilians. But of course Souli is right: in Israel, most people consider them to be heroes.   _

**SOULI: ** If we go ahead in the list of around the world, same thing in the Irish conflict and Mandela party, and everywhere else. It’s like two sides of the coin: the one called terrorist by Israelis mainly called hero by Palestinians, generally speaking. I’m generalizing now because there are many opinions. There's no one Israeli opinion or one Palestinian opinion. It’s a question of narratives, and how we see things.

Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard. You know, like you can always find like more soft stories to work with, in both sides, people that never been in jail or the army or any involvement, but I think this community is very crucial, important, and we know that from Mandela story, he was in jail. And from North Ireland -- we work with Irish organizations that both sides were also involved in violence and were in jail, and they worked together and we work with them to learn from their experience and this is very exceptional role for  ex-fighters to play.

**ASAF: ** And on the other side, how do you feel about working with people that have Palestinian blood on their hands, and why do you think it’s important to work with them?

SOULI: Yeah, it’s basically really the same question. First, I admit this is heavy and hard for people on both sides and I understand that, and if I remember the first few meetings of Combatants for Peace, we did meet people that have Palestinian blood on their hands -- much more than us, because they used to be in the Israeli Air Force, like pilots, and F16. Obviously, the Israelis never went to the court, or any legal thing. In the Palestinian case you got your punishment, or like over-punishing, because you are living under military rule. So let’s say my case: what I did, if it was Israeli person did the same, would go to rehabilitation center. I was 14. But I am not citizen of anywhere, so I go to military court.

So basically, not to legitimize any violence of course, but to say we do have to see the human behind these terms, and in the case of Israelis I... this is heavy but somehow we reach the point to see the human behind the uniform. This take long time, it’s a very deep hard process to see, to look in the eyes of these people and meet somewhere on some level.

ASAF: Many people in the Palestinian struggle and also in solidarity movements in the United States see the kind of work that you do as the term "normalization" with Israel, and they see that as wrong. What do you have to answer to that?

SOULI:  Firstly, we got a lot of criticism in both sides. And I am really fine with that, I have to say. I understand why many people worry and criticize the joint work. But I believe in my experience -- in our experience from Combatants for Peace and other organizations -- the meetings of the other, what's so-called the other, is essential. I don't know also any Israeli that born and, you know, came directly from Tel Aviv to Bil’in. Firstly, they meet Palestinians and to trust and to build relations, and then they became like more activist. That's the one I know the majority of the Israelis that really show solidarity with the Palestinians.

And -- we are not normalizing the occupation. We do a lot of activities to fight the status quo, and we are not happy with the status quo. Of course, it's controversial, always, to work with what's so-called the enemy. I personally don't think there is one way to end the conflict, or the occupation, whatever you want to say. But we are not part of the BDS movement, we have a neutral position about the BDS. This is a nonviolence legitimate tool, but we are not there. We are a bi-national organization, and I am not going to boycott my partner Chen Alon, that is teaching in Tel Aviv. He is very active to our cause together, and his daughter was just left the jail recently. And I am struggling for her, as for my sister. So I can't think in the principle of boycotting them.

_ **ASAF: ** Chen Alon is one of the Israeli founders of Combatants for Peace. Tamar Alon, his daughter, was one of a handful of Israeli youth who publicly refused to serve in the military for ideological reasons. While many Israeli members of Combatants for Peace don’t serve anymore, the organization doesn’t call for complete refusal._

**ASAF: ** In the movie, I remember that one of the Israeli Combatants for Peace activists, she says she's serving, she's still serving in the army in reserves, but she is not serving in the West Bank. But, I mean obviously the role that she does outside of the West Bank is affecting the army as a whole. So, how… how can you accept that?

SOULI:  I’m talking like as like formally Combatants For Peace. In general, when we started Combatants for Peace, was a clear condition that Israelis don’t serve beyond the 1967 borders. And on the Palestinian side you don’t, you can’t join Combatants for Peace if you support violence, for example. So there is a refusing in both sides to the mainstream.

We work in Israel-Palestine: means we are also pragmatic, means we do thousands of lectures -- last year we met around 4,000 people at lectures. It’s all joint, always there are two speakers -- one Israeli, one Palestinian -- we share our personal stories of the narrative and the transformation and this always inspire people. We find this tool as very deep impact, and we don’t tell the people what to do, especially talking to youngsters, Israeli pre-army mechinot.  

_ **ASAF: ** A mechina, or mechinot in plural, is a program that some Israelis go to before the army, where you study and volunteer in the community._
 

**SOULI: ** So in order to, to play in this space we need to be also careful with the language we use, or to tell them what to do exactly, but I believe that this model stay in the head of many of the youngsters as the only meeting maybe they ever meet a Palestinian before the army, before they go to the army.

**ASAF: ** Another thing that I noticed in the film is that you use a language of equivalency. A few times you mention dual responsibility. You’re saying, "We are both victims and we are both perpetrators." But as an Israeli, it’s difficult for me to accept the idea that you know, we are both equal in this. I feel like I am the perpetrator and you are the victim.

**SOULI: ** In Combatants for Peace, actually, after years of discussion, we recognized the imbalance in power. Of course, the Israelis are in charge. Of course. We know that. But in order to make change, we did decide to take our destiny in our hands, together as activists from both sides. And the... the truth is, usually the Palestinian come with this idea: we are the victims, Israelis they are in charge and they are criminal and... But we don’t want to stuck there. We want our peoples together to take responsibility of our life, our present, and to create a new future. A new story together.

I don’t want to see more of feeding of the Palestinian victimhood, which exists deeply. Of course, the Jewish slash Israelis have the same unfortunately story of victimhood, and this is really like a very deep negative energy that will not take us anywhere. No, we can change our lives, and I believe Palestinians, as a Palestinian, if we are united, if we had a vision, if we have the right conditions, we do have responsibility, and we do can make change, together with our neighbors basically, because it will never be good to do it alone, either side. We basically in a non-divorce marriage, we have to manage. That’s what I believe.

**ASAF: ** This I can totally understand, that you’re saying that you know, just because you’re victims doesn’t mean you don’t have agency, and doesn’t mean you can’t change your own lives. But like you said, in Israel, for Israelis we also have this victimhood complex, and I think in a way, it makes it very easy for Israelis to feel connected to, or, it resonates with us, because we...we get to still be a victim.

**SOULI: ** Just to make myself clear, we do talk all the time about the imbalance in power, that’s clear, it’s the reality, nobody denying the reality as it is, first of all. And, but recognizing that, it doesn’t feed the Palestinian victimhood. So I can talk about it until tomorrow because it’s a list of suffering. You know, in October, my mom, to go to the olive harvest next to my village, for my family land, she needs Israeli permit -- which is five minutes away from our home, because there is the wall. You know, when I drive to see my mom, 20 minutes, I have a checkpoint, of course. I’m a little privileged Palestinian compared to other people, but still: when I travel, I have complexes that my Israeli partner doesn’t. You know even with Americans, with the international community, with visa, with the logistics. It's complicated, of course, to live under the military regime. And when I talk to Palestinians I don’t deny the suffering of this person or our people.

But I don’t really believe in this competition that exists always in dialogue groups, that the Palestinian comes with full desire to share their suffering and story, which is legitimate, but to recognize the suffering of the other side, or the pain, it doesn’t take away our suffering. To recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinian connection to the land, or the jewish connection to the land, it doesn’t take the other connection to the land. That’s where I am now. I know this is complex for even my family when I say these things. I got criticism. Hard arguments. It’s not easy. Because you know what we learn in nonviolence communication, you meet people where they are.

I believe we can play a model that cross all these cliches about our conflict. And I understand the Palestinian anger, of course, but we want this energy of anger, to use it instead of going into violence and like really hopeless action like the stabbing, to come join our nonviolence action. And I see this happens, actually. Some people come, youngsters come through Facebook, we don’t know them, not from our circles. So I believe that if our people given like a good leadership with a vision that carry nonviolence and hope, I do believe that many Palestinians are happy to join. This takes time and energy. But I believe the majority of our people don’t want to live in bloody situation, of course. And if the Israelis given the opportunity to show their goodness of solidarity with the Palestinians to struggle together, I really believe also, I have faith of the majority of the Israelis in this case also, they will behave differently.

**ASAF: ** You’ve been, Combatants For Peace have existed for about what 15 years now?

**SOULI: ** 11 years.

**ASAF: ** 11 years. In these 11 years, what do you think has changed in Israeli-Palestinian politics and how did you adapt to those changes?

SOULI: First of all, we… Combatants for Peace is not just a community of ex-fighters, these are the founders, so Combatants for Peace through the years became open to everybody. We started Combatants for Peace -- the meetings, before we call it Combatants For Peace -- started in 2005 secretly, illegally around Beit Lechem [Bethlehem] area. It was the Second Intifada and the political environment, of course, and the social economical situation changed a lot since then. One of the changes, the truth: at that time, the idea of two-state was the only solution people talk about. It's not anymore; it's one of the options. And the second: like, there are many changes, good and bad. I don't see things just black-white, the truth.

Last year we did "Ten Years of Combatants for Peace" and we screened our film, Disturbing the Peace -- the film about us, Disturbing the Peace -- at the wall of of Beit Jala. We got a few hundred Palestinians, Israelis to watch it together, under full moon it was beautiful. And we did the Freedom March with 800 Palestinians, Israelis -- this was last year during the, what you call the Knife Intifada -- like really among violent situation. And we got the two Irish ex-prisoners to speak to us there. It was a beautiful feeling of successful, I have to say.

And Avner, one of our wise founders, is my close friend, and he speak Arabic fluently, I speak Hebrew, and we are really close after years we are... and Avner told me -- because that time I brought my mom to see the film, and he brought his mom, and they met for the first time -- and his mom told him, “This is exceptional work that you do, the history will write you, and…” Avner was really, for the first time I see him super emotional and we hugged and he said, “Remember, ten years ago when we start?” It was hard to talk about the principle of nonviolence. And ten years later, we are talking not just about nonviolence, we are talking about joint nonviolence, and it’s accepted to a certain level.

ASAF: So just one more question, and that’s something I want to ask everybody that we will be interviewing here. How do you think that we, as Jews that live in the United States, can and should help the struggle from a place here in the United States?

**SOULI: ** Yeah. As we talked before, the American Jewish community have a very important role to play to help our peoples out. And when I talk about our peoples, I mean Palestinians slash Israelis. I don’t see a way for one of the two sides to be happy with this cake, piece of land, that we all love and belong to, without the other side. Is really like a marriage.

So the American Jewish part of it is really highly important for us, and from the perspective of media awareness, among the Americans generally and American Jews specifically. So, also we call all the American Jews that come to visit Israel also to visit the Palestinian territory, and meet with our people and see the reality in their eyes and not to believe really the mainstream media.

The American Jewish involvement is like deep, historical exist there, in all directions. You know, most, I would say Jewish community in the U.S. of course for a reason or another they care about Israel, that's the truth. And if I look at the extreme settlers, they’re basically American Jewish. They are not even Israelis.

_ **ASAF: ** Well, not all of the settlers. But according to an Oxford University research from two years ago, while Americans make only about 2% of all Israeli citizens, they make up about 15% of the settlers._

**SOULI: ** The American involvement there is so deep. So, instead of being part of the problem, I wish to see more Jewish slash Palestinians that are working together -- with all the imbalance in power and the rights the Jewish have that our diaspora don’t have to go back and all that -- but still to work together in order to change the story and to see, to create a new reality, a new story.

_ **ASAF: ** To learn more about Souli and Combatants for Peace, visit their website cfpeace.org. You can find the documentary_ Disturbing the Peace on Netflix.

Unsettled is produced by Yoshi Fields, Max Freedman, Emily Bell, Ilana Levinson, and me. Yoshi and I edited this episode. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Special thanks to Mark Winston Griffith and Brooklyn Deep.

Go to our website, unsettledpod.com, for show information. You can now support Unsettled by becoming a monthly sustainer through Patreon.

Like us on Facebook, find us on Twitter and Instagram, and most importantly, subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, to make sure you never miss an episode of Unsettled_._

In this interview, Sarah explains how she went from feeling like a "bad Jew" for thinking critically about Israel, to directly confronting the violence of the occupation. As a radical rabbi-to-be, she reflects on the High Holidays, and shares her vision for the Jewish community she hopes to lead.

This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Emily Bell. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Recorded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 16, 2017, and edited for length and clarity.

Sarah Brammer-Shlay currently lives in Philadelphia, PA and is in her first year of rabbinical school at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Although originally from Minneapolis, Sarah spent the last five years living and working in Washington, D.C. Sarah was a founding member of IfNotNow in 2014 and has remained a leader in the movement with a focus on strategy and action. She also has been both a participant and a trip leader with Center for Jewish Nonviolence delegations in Palestine. She has worked on a variety of justice issues including labor, abortion access, animal rights and marriage equality. 

REFERENCES

• Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
• IfNotNow
• J Street
• "Boys Drawn to Gaza Beach, and Into Center of Mideast Strife" by Anne Barnard (The New York Times, July 16 2014)
• Center for Jewish Nonviolence
• "Israeli cops assault American Jewish activists in Jerusalem Day protest" by Natasha Roth (+972, May 24 2017)
• "Israeli Police Broke My Arm, But They Can’t Stop Me From Resisting — Or Speaking Out." by Sarah Brammer-Shlay (The Forward, May 30 2017)

SARAH RECOMMENDS

• The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood by Rashid Khalidi (2007)
• The Crisis of Zionism by Peter Beinart (2013)
• The Gatekeepers directed by Dror Moreh (2012)

In this interview, she talks about her own journey from "Israel, right-or-wrong" to Palestinian solidarity work, then explains some of the history and everyday realities of the West Bank under Israeli occupation.

This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Recorded in Brooklyn, New York on June 13, 2017, and edited for length and clarity.

RACHEL ROBERTS is an attorney, an activist, and a writer who lives in Washington, D.C. She has been an activist for Palestinian human rights since 2003 and has worked with numerous organizations and groups, including the International Solidarity Movement, Jews Against the Occupation, and Jewish Voice for Peace. Rachel recently returned from occupied Palestine where she served as part of the Center for Jewish Non-Violence 2017 delegation. Rachel has also served for several years as a civil rights attorney for CAIR-California, where she provided legal and civil rights advocacy services to U.S. Muslim victims of discrimination. In law school, she was the co-editor in chief of the UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law. Her opinion writing has been published in the Forward, the Baltimore Sun, the Oakland Tribune, the Electronic Intifada, and Mondoweiss. She holds degrees from Oberlin College, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and the UCLA School of Law.

REFERENCES

• IfNotNow
• International Solidarity Movement
• Birzeit University
• The Black Eyed by Betty Shamieh
• Brit Tzedek v’Shalom
• J Street
• Hillel International
• The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz (2003)
• Interactive Map of the West Bank (B’Tselem)
• Active Stills
• “Why the Palestinian Authority Should Be Shuttered” by Diana Buttu (The New York Times, 2017)
• “Israel and Pinkwashing” by Sarah Schulman (The New York Times, 2011)
• “Hasbara: Why does the world fail to understand us?” by Noam Sheizaf (+972, 2011)
• Interview with Omar Barghouti (The Intercept, 2016)
• That famous handshake
• Baruch Marzel: “The Extremist Who Could Bring Kahanism Back to the Knesset” by Raphael Ahren (The Times of Israel, 2015)
• “Accepting the apartheid label will normalise Israel” by Mark LeVine and Neve Gordon (Al Jazeera, 2017)
• “This Day in History // 1948: N.Y. Times Publishes Letter by Einstein, Other Jews Accusing Menachem Begin of Fascism” (Haaretz, 2014)
• “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel” (Congressional Research Service, 2016)

RACHEL RECOMMENDS

• The Question of Palestine by Edward Said (1992)
• The Origins of the Palestine-Israel Conflict published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East (2001)
• A People Without a Land directed by Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon (2014)
• 500 Dunam on the Moon directed by Rachel Leah Jones (2002)
• Zochrot (an Israeli NGO working to promote acknowledgement of and accountability for the Nakba)

This episode is hosted by Ilana Levinson and features Tom Corcoran, Naomi Dann, and Jeremy Swack. Edited by Yoshi Fields and Emily Bell. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig.

Photo by Gili Getz, courtesy of Sumud: Freedom Camp

MAX: Welcome to Unsettled, a new podcast featuring news and views on Israel-Palestine and the Jewish diaspora. We are here to provide a space for the difficult conversations and diverse viewpoints that are all too rare in institutional American Jewish communities.

ASAF: My name is Asaf.

EMILY: I'm Emily.

ILANA: My name is Ilana.

MAX: And I'm Max.

ASAF: Make sure to check out our first episode, interviewing Jewish activists who helped in May to build a Palestinian resistance camp in the West Bank.

EMILY: In future episodes, we’ll bring you interviews, conversations, and stories on topics like:

ILANA: Why our Hebrew School teachers lied to us

EMILY: How to talk to your family about the occupation

ILANA: Our favorite radical rabbis

MAX: WTF is indigeneity?

ASAF: Ashkenormativity

MAX: Intergenerational trauma

EMILY: Greenwashing

ILANA: Pinkwashing

MAX: And big tents.

ILANA: Full disclosure: Unsettled was started by members of the anti-occupation movement IfNotNow, but this podcast is not officially affiliated, and any opinion expressed here belongs only to the person expressing it.

ASAF: However, as members of IfNotNow, as Jews, and as human beings, we at Unsettled start from a foundational belief in freedom and dignity for all people. If you can get down with that, then this is the podcast for you.

EMILY: Go to our website, unsettledpod.com, for show information. Subscribe on iTunes to make sure you never miss an episode of Unsettled.