Upstream - [BONUS] Palestine Pt. 4: False Solutions and Paths of Resistance with Sumaya Awad

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

Before the Zionist project and the state of Israel placed their boots on the neck of Palestine, this region was a multicultural, multi-religious land, where Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived side-by-side in relative peace and harmony.  And despite what Israeli forces propagandize, this so-called “conflict” in the Middle East is not some millennia-old, intractable holy war between two religions. It's quite simply and very classically a case of settler-colonialism. When we see what's happening in Palestine from this perspective, the solution becomes quite clear: end the occupation. But despite this clarity, ending the occupation is no simple feat. Not only is there little appetite for this in Israel, of course, but with the entire cavalry of US military, financial, and PR support behind it, an end to the zionist colonization and occupation of Palestine feels, well, to put it gently, perhaps not feasible in the short term.  Of course, this doesn't mean that the fight for Palestinian liberation is a lost cause — far from it. Not only are there many battles to be fought which will bring liberation just that much closer, and which can improve conditions drastically, but the ultimate aim of ending the occupation of Palestine is a goal that the left can never abandon. As Noura Erakat reminded us in the second episode in our series on Palestine: we are, in many ways, all Palestinians.  In this episode we're going to explore how to end the occupation and the colonization of Palestine. We’ll explore some of the steps to get there, some of the barriers, some of the false solutions, and what a liberated Palestine might look like. To guide us on this journey we’ve brought back onto the show Sumaya Awad. Sumaya is a Palestinian writer, analyst, and socialist organizer based in New York City. She’s the Director of Strategy and Communications at the Adalah Justice Project and a contributor to and co-editor, along with brian bean, of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction, published by Haymarket Books. Our first conversation with Sumaya a few weeks ago is what kicked off our ongoing series on Palestine. And although you can certainly listen to each episode separately and in any order, they do all build on one another to set up helpful context as we move forward. Further Resources: Palestine: A Socialist Introduction Adalah Justice Project Upstream: Palestine Pt. 1: A Socialist Introduction with Sumaya Awad Upstream: Palestine Pt. 2: Justice for Some with Noura Erakat Upstream: Palestine Pt. 3: Settler-Colonialism and Medical Apartheid with Rupa Marya & Jess Ghannam Donate to Middle Eastern Children's Alliance (MECA) Anera: Provide urgent humanitarian aid to Palestinians Write your member of Congress to demand an immediate ceasefire This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

I think it is definitely true that we need to be thinking beyond the word piece because what does that mean and how has it been used against us in the past and beyond this illusion of separate Palestinian statehood, certainly in the context of a two-state solution. That said, I do think it's useful to think about what does it mean when we say no two- doesn't work? One state does because I think it gets to the heart of the most important thing that we're trying to build, which is freedom for everybody, regardless of race, religion, culture, background,

that in fact your rights and your freedoms are not based on an identity you bolder do not hold. They're just based on your humanity, based on you being a human, and that's just the foundation. And I think that's what's so useful in talking about a one-state solution, and that's what's so useful in saying

from the river to the sea, that in fact from the river to the seas, a call for liberation for all, and a call for freedom for all, and an insistence that one people's freedom cannot mean the oppression of another. You are listening to Upstream. Upstream.

Upstream. Upstream. A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Dela Duncan. And I'm Robert Raymond. Before the Zionist project in the state of Israel placed their boots on the neck of Palestine, this region was a multicultural, multi-religious land where Christians, Jews, and Muslims

live side by side in relative peace and harmony. And despite what Israeli forces propagandized, this so-called conflict in the Middle East is not some millennia-old, intractable, holy war between two religions. It's quite simply and very classically a case of settler colonialism. When we see what's happening in Palestine from this perspective, the solution becomes quite clear and the occupation. Despite this clarity, ending the occupation is no simple feat. Not only is there little appetite for this in Israel,

but with the entire cavalry of the US military, financial, and PR support behind it, an end to the Zionist colonization and occupation of Palestine feels well to put it gently, not very feasible in the short term. Of course, this doesn't mean that the fight for Palestinian liberation is a lost cause, far from it. Not only are there many battles to be fought which will bring liberation just that much closer and which can improve conditions drastically, but the ultimate aim of ending the occupation of Palestine

is a goal that the left can never abandon. As Nora Erakot reminded us in our second episode in our series on Palestine, we are, in many ways, all Palestinians. In this episode, we're going to explore how to end the occupation and the colonization of Palestine. We'll explore the steps to get there, some of the barriers, some of the false solutions, and what a liberated Palestine might look and feel like.

To guide us in this journey, we've brought back on the show, Sumea Awad. Sumea is a Palestinian writer, analyst, and social organizer based in New York City. She's the director of Strategy and Communications at the Adala Justice Project, and a contributor to and co-editor, along with Brian Bean, of Palestine, Socialist Introduction, published by Haymarket Books. Our first conversation with Su- Suméa a few weeks ago is what kicked off our ongoing series on Palestine.

And although you can certainly listen to each episode separately and in any order, they do all build on one another to set up helpful context as we move forward. And finally, before we get started, upstream is entirely listener-funded. We couldn't do this without the support of you, our listeners and fans. So if you haven't yet already and if you can, if you're in a place where you can afford to do so and if it's important for you to keep upstream sustainable, please consider

going to upstreampodcast.org forward slash support to make a recurring monthly or one-time donation. Also, if you can, please go to Apple Podcasts and rate, subscribe, and leave us a review there. You can also go to Spotify to leave us a review there too. It really helps get upstream in front of more eyes and into more ears. We don't have a marketing budget for upstream, so we really do rely on listeners like you to help grow our audience and spread the word. Thank you. And now here's Robert in conversation again

with Suméa. It is really great to have you back. And I just want to let you know, we got so much great feedback on our initial episode with you a few weeks ago now, and we promised a second conversation with you, and so I'm really glad that we're back and that we are able to do that, and that you found the time out of, you know, your extremely busy schedule to hop on and talk to us again. And just for folks who may not have had a chance to listen to part one or who may need a quick refresher, I'm wondering if you could introduce yourself and also maybe give

us an update on what you've been up to in the last few weeks. Sure. Well, thanks so much for having me back. And for your patience, I know we've wanted to do this almost every week for the last seven weeks and finally found a time. So my name is Samaya, I'm Palestinian based in New York City and I'm the Director of Strategy with the Adela justice project which is a Palestinian advocacy group that does many things but one of the things that I think we're most known for is connecting the Palestinian struggle to other struggles

for liberation, indigenous struggles, black liberation, queer liberation, the list is long. And so you can check us out at thatadjusticeproject.com. And what have we been up to? I mean, you know, we're entering the third month, it's really hard to believe of Israel's onslaught of Gaza or on Gaza. And everything we've been doing, everything I've been doing for the last eight weeks has been focusing on how to get the U.S. government to push and pressure Israel for a ceasefire, and not a pause, pause is not enough, but a full permanent ceasefire as the only way

forward. And I think since the last time we spoke, there has been a lot of ground. I think last time we spoke, I think the resolution in Congress had been introduced or was just about to be introduced with very few members of Congress supporting a ceasefire. And we're now at over 50, which feels like a lot. It's a small number in Congress, but it's I think indicative of a big shift and perhaps the most, I don't know if I want to say uplifting, but I think something that points to a big

shift that's taking place not just in the U.S. but globally and perhaps we'll get into this later is the fact that for the last consecutive eight weeks, almost every single day, there have been protests in almost every city across the country, nonstop. The momentum's only picking up, and it's clear that it's not going to stop until we get a permanent ceasefire. There are so many tactics that are being employed from direct action, marches, protests, sit-ins, hunger strikes as of last week. And I think there's this big movement building, this anti-war movement, and we haven't seen anything like this since the US went to war in Iraq in the early 2000s.

And so that's kind of what I've been up to for the last for the last eight weeks or since we last spoke. All right. Well, thank you so much for updating us. I really appreciate that. And I've been following you on social media. So I've been able to see a little bit of what you're up to. And I just want to say, you know, we really appreciate all of the work that you're doing. And you know, it looks like you're just out there every single day. So yeah, really appreciate that and totally understandable that it would take

a little while for us to get you back on here with how busy your schedule is. And yeah, we we ended our last episode with a brief exploration of some of the solutions, but it turned out to be a little bit of a teaser because we ran out of time and particularly looking at the current intense crisis in Gaza, which which has actually now spread to the West Bank and neighboring Arab countries in many ways. And you talked about the importance, of course, of the immediate ceasefire, which we're still waiting on. But zooming out a bit, I'd love to spend some time unpacking first.

I think some of these false or oftentimes just straight up bad faith attempts at fighting some kind of solution to the crisis of Israel and the plight of the Palestinian people. And then, of course, looking at some real solutions and what those might look like. But yeah, I think maybe a good place to start though is maybe debunking some of these false solutions. And no, I think one of the first places that we might touch on is there's this excellent chapter in the book that you co-edited with Brian Bean,

Socialist Introduction to Palestine, or rather Palestine, a Socialist Introduction, and that's the chapter by Daphne Tier. And it explores the Israeli working class. And I'm wondering if you could it explores the Israeli working class. And I'm wondering if you could talk about the Israeli working class and whether or not they can be seen as a revolutionary ally in the struggle for Palestinian liberation. And I think you would also mentioned a bit about Israeli labor opposition to Palestinians and the history of that as well in our first conversation with you.

So feel free to touch on that if you feel like it makes sense here. But yeah, I'm wondering what you think of this idea of the Israeli working class potentially being revolutionary allies in the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Definitely. First of all, I just highly recommend people read Daphneil's chapter for like a more thorough in depth explanation of this. I think this starting point for this is understanding that the context in Israel-Palestine Eseller colonialism is apartheid, is occupation. And we need to understand what the nature of the labor is in a partied economy. Because it's not like elsewhere, where working class solidarity seems like such an organic, obvious thing

that you can build through organizing and education, that we can build that in ways that we've seen, I think, in the US, in most cases, not all, but in most cases. But the reality in Israel, because of the way that the state is set up, because by design, it's this settler colonial system, it's this apartheid project, that means that there is full separation, again by design of Palestinians from Jewish Israelis. Very rarely do the two work alongside one another. They're segregated

in every single way possible. Everything is segregated. And so it entrenches racism by design. And what that means is at the end of the day, national loyalty. So Jewish Israelis, national loyalty to Israel, to the state, trumps any sort of class consciousness or class loyalty. Now, of course, there are always exceptions. And I'm not talking about the exceptions. I'm talking about the general trends. And this is not, you know, like a theory that many of us just like project. This has actually been proven decade after decade since Israel established itself as a state

and actually even before that. When you look back at how Israel became Israel, what happened before 1948 leading up to the Neckba when Israel became a state on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian, the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, it did so through actually some of its largest trade units, the Histatruth which still exists today, it's of its largest trade unions, the History of Truth, which still exists today, it's Israel's largest trade union. And it played a big role in the Zionist movement as early as the 1910s and 1920s. The History of Truth led major campaigns to ensure that businesses do not hire Palestinians,

that they boycott Palestinian labor, that they only hire Jewish workers. And in the 30s, between 1936 and 1939, there was a big Arab Palestinian uprising, and part of that uprising was a big general strike. And during that, the Histatruth organized to bring in strike breakers to replace Palestinians. And the Histadruth worked with the British, right?

The colonizers, the British colonizing forces against the Palestinian workers and against the uprising. And it continued to play this role. The Histadruth did, I mean, it also played a role in 1948 in the Haganan, the Ergun, which are the two military forces that carried out the ethnic cleansing in Palestine, and that actually later became what today we called the IDF, or the I.O.F., the Israeli offensive forces. The History was part of that. And that's Israel's largest union today, and it does not represent Palestinians today. The Historyra was part of that. And that's Israel's largest union today and it does not represent Palestinians today.

The Histodra only represents Jewish Israelis, again by design. And so it's not really this like union that exists in Israel, this is the truth. And others like it, they by design intentionally alienate and isolate and exploit Palestinian labor. And so no, they're not an ally for that reason. And when you look at it, it's pretty simple to see and kind of understand why the Israeli working class is not an organic ally, because for them, the national loyalty has to trump class consciousness, because that's how Israel is built. That's how Israel is able to reproduce itself. That's how Israel is able to reproduce itself.

That's how Israel is able to build these settlements. It all relies on exploiting Palestinian labor. If you think about it, who builds the settlements? Who are the construction workers in Israel? They're Palestinians who are undocumented. Who Israel has brought over from the Occupy-Dwest Bank. Or, who brought over from Raze to work in Israel. They don't have papers, they don't have rights. This became abundantly clear and sort of made headlines for a little bit during COVID because during COVID, undocumented Palestinian workers who largely worked with the construction industry in Israel were not allowed to go home to the West Bank.

They were essentially given an ultimatum. You can go home to your families, but you lose your job or You can stay here We'll give you housing and you have to stay for an indefinite amount of time Because of COVID because they worried that people went home to act by West Bank They would bring COVID back into Israel proper and so of course people couldn't afford to lose their jobs. And they stayed and they lived in dismal conditions. And if anyone got sick and there was one particular case that I remember really well where a Palestinian, an undocumented Palestinian worker got sick, he had COVID and he was picked up and he was dumped.

He was just thrown in front of the checkpoint that like separates the occupied wrestling from Israel proper and just left there on the ground. Sick, nearly unconscious. And this made headlines and sort of, this is just one example that we learned about, but there are hundreds more of what these Palestinian workers endure. And a little bit later, I'll also talk about sort of like how this fragmentation of the economy impacts Palestinian workers and further oppresses them under this apartheid economy that they are forced to live in because of Israel's colonial project. A couple things, I think it's really interesting because I've heard from a number of people

now, sort of just, you know, listeners or followers of ours, that have kind of had trouble wrapping their heads around this idea of the Kabut's and how Kabut's are these like, you know, quasi-socialist communist settlements that have this almost like utopian feel to them. And having trouble reconciling that and sort of the nature of those kibbutzim with the idea that I can't get out of my head, which are that like oftentimes maybe they're actually built on old Palestinian villages or towns drenched with the blood of Palestinian children built on the bones of those that have been displaced. And it's kind of hard to reconcile that in a way.

But again, it goes to this idea that you can't have a socialist utopia on occupied land. And no matter how socialistic or communist the dynamics and the relationships are in there. Totally. I also wanted to just read a quote from the book from this chapter, Daphne Tears chapter. It's about a paragraph, so to start here.

So long as Israel continues to expand, evict Palestinians from their lands repurposed for Jews and retained the land and wealth stolen in 1948. The Israeli Working Class constitutes a colonizing force and an enforcer of occupation. Even its most oppressed sections demand not democratic rights and equal distribution to all, but rather their own, quote, fair share of Zionist plunder. In an era of neoliberalism, when living standards are declining, the Israeli working class aspires to return the wealth to itself. The lower the rung in society, the more bitter

is the battle. And much like prisoners, Palestinians will not likely find allies in the guards and the communities whose livelihood depend on this prison. The denial of freedom to one is the precondition of the livelihood of the other. So yeah, that was just a really powerful quote in there. And I don't know if you wanted to say anything to that or you wanna talk a little bit about Oslo at this point. I mean, both. I will just say about that.

I've always reminded when I read that quote, and when I just think about how, you know, what it means to be a socialist, what it means to try to build this alternative to capitalism. It means that we understand, we have a firm understanding that our liberation cannot come at the expense of another people's servitude or oppression. our liberation cannot come at the expense of another people's servitude or oppression. And I think in Israel, as that quote points to you and what you just said, it's the opposite. And it's also so it's so warped because like you said, a lot of these people, you know, the Israeli working class, their conditions have actually been getting worse and worse and worse since the 80s.

And if not, talk about this little bit in the chapter. And they will continue to get worse. That's what the trend is showing. And that's part of the reason there's this new ultra right wing government in place, which of course is staying something for Israel because every single government since its founding has been pretty right wing because it's a seller-clinial project. But I'm reminded of Remy Kanazi's words when he says that our liberation will be liberating for you too. That actually Palestinian liberation, Palestinian freedom means freedom for everyone, means liberation for everyone. And I think that's also at

the heart of the quote from the river to the sea. It's Palestinian freedom isn't like the Israeli talking points where one person's freedom is at the expense of another. It's actually quite the opposite. That Palestinian freedom means freedom for everyone from the river to the sea, but also beyond. And that's kind of the beauty and the power of it. Mm.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Just because that's liberation in designist ideology, necessarily means ethnic cleansing. It doesn't mean that that's what it means for everybody. And there's a case of projection there for sure. And I appreciate you bringing that up. Okay, so I have a huge question for you. And so feel free to approach it.

However, make sense for you and whatever you want to, whatever historical points or figures you want to bring in. I'll leave that all to you because I know it's a huge one. But yeah, I'm wondering if you can talk about the betrayal that was the Oslo so-called piece of chords. And the problem with this idea of a two-state solution, we touched upon this very lightly with Nora Ericott a couple of weeks ago when she was giving us this really awesome abbreviated entire history of Palestine, essentially. So we didn't have time to really get into the details. So yeah, I'm wondering, yeah, please go ahead and tackle that however you'd like. The Oslo question.

Sure. I mean, Oslo being called like the Oslo P Street is perhaps one of the biggest misnomer's in history because it did the exact opposite of establish any form of peace or lay the groundwork for any form of peace. Instead, it actually just entrenched occupations. It laid the foundation for Israel to build an apartheid state that exists today. So I guess I'll start from the start. The also peace process, so-called peace process, was from 1993 to 1999. And it was meant to be a way of laying the groundwork for what would later become a separate, sovereign, Palestinian state. So essentially to create a two-state solution. Instead what happened, and this was brokered by the United States. It was brokered by the US.

There's a really famous photo on the White House lawn of Clinton with the Astratafat. And it was this like the thing everyone was waiting for. And it happened right after at the end of the first in Tufalda, which is the uprising in the 90s in Palestine. And part of the reason that Oslo was reached was actually because of the first in Tufalda, the first anti-Follow, swept across Palestine and was really powerful in bringing light and bringing attention to what was happening in Palestine, to the oppression of Palestinians

who were facing under Israel, to the brutality of the Israeli regime, how ruthless it was and relentless and violent, and began to really chip away, rather quickly at Israel's attempt at sort of selling itself to the international community as the victim and as like the weak one against these big Arab scary Arab states and you know all the dehumanization in Islamophobia that comes with that. But when international attention and international polls started to sort of shift to side with Palestinians and to sympathize with Palestinians, it was around then that it became necessary

to have some sort of agreement. There were many other reasons that I won't go into right now that led to Oslo, but I think that was a big one. Or at least it was one of those last straw, let's say, the Infi Fala. And the Oslo Peace Accords were supposed to last until 1999, and then there were supposed to be another round of negotiations. Now what happened during that period is that Israel expanded its project. It expanded the land. It expanded the land.

It expanded its legal settlements. In fact, the number of illegal Jewish settlers living on occupied Palestinian land doubled during Oslo. During that time, checkpoints just sprouted up all across the Occupy-Dewest Bank. There were over 500 by 1999. And the Occupyde West Bank was fragmented, completely fragmented, into what we see today.

So prior to Oslo, there had been certain policies being enacted to isolate and fragment Palestinians, but also really solidified that. It established the Palestinian Authority as the sort of main arbiter, main decision-maker on behalf of Palestinians. This was not a decision made by the majority of Palestinians. And it created the ban to stand like fragmentation that we see in occupied West Bank today, where

there are Palestinian villages and towns and cities, and all around them, sprinkled around them, are illegal settlements, and all around them are checkpoints. And it ensured that there is no continuity between any of these Palestinian towns, villages and cities, and instead you have to go through some form of a checkpoint, a fence, a settlement, etc. in order to travel between Palestinian areas. And it created Area A, B, and C in the occupied West Bank. And I'll break that down because I actually think that's really important. So under Oslo, the West Bank was divided into these three areas. Area A, which was about 16, 17% of the total land of the West Bank, and that's where the majority of Palestinian lived.

It was just 17% of the West Bank, but it held the most Palestinians, and that was to be under the Palestinian authorities, civilian and security control. So the Israeli army is still like the umbrella has overall control, but the day-to-day security, civilian administration is the Palestinian Authority. And more concretely what that means is like who's in charge of like sanitation, you know, like taking out the trash, providing electricity, things like that, it would be the Palestinian Authority instead of Israel. Usually when a country is occupying another, so in this case, it's a settler-clotinal project, but under this case, under international law, Israel is Israel's responsibility to provide all these administrative civilian rights

to people living in the occupied West Bank, two Palestinians. So actually Israel's responsibility did to provide electricity and fuel and water, sanitation, et cetera. And what also did is it handed over those responsibilities to the Palestinian Authority, who had to in turn respond to the Israeli army. And so it created this like system of dependence and Israel letting the PA do its dirty work for it.

And I'll get into that a bit more later. So that was area A, which is 17%, area B was 23% of the West Bank. And that was under the Palestinian Authority's civilian control, but under Israeli military control. And that's where some of the settlements are. That's where a lot of the, some of the land where like Israel does it,

it's practice zones for the military and things like that. And then area C, and that's the largest part of the West Bank. It's 60% of the West Bank. That's where the majority of settlements are. And that's under full Israeli military and civilian control. So Israel controls all of that. 60% of the occupied West Bank is controlled by Israel fully. The majority of Palestinians only live in 17% of the West

Bank. So that fragmentation was really, really important. And that also laid the groundwork for what would happen later in the 2000s when Reza was fully isolated and alienated from the rest of Palestine, and where families were separated by design. So that Israel could do this like dividing conquer, which is nothing new, you know, many, many states and certainly colonial powers have done this in the past, dividing conquer strategy. But what also did is it fragmented Palestinians, it fragmented them geographically, it fragmented them using like identity and proximity to different

locations and proximity to the Palestinian Authority. So the closer you were to the Palestinian Authority, meaning you worked for them, meaning you had family that was so part of them, the higher up you moved in the wrongs of society. And this plays a really big role later in the 2010s that I'll get into. But during that time settlements expanded and the apartheid wall, the groundwork for apartheid wall also began. So right as Oslo finished in 2000, the Israeli apartheid wall began to be built. And that should tell you everything you need to know about whether or not the Oslo piece of cords were in fact piece of cords

if they ended with the building of an apartheid wall. Yeah, so it was a big misnomer and it really entrenched Israel clear that the idea of a two-state solution is actually just an illusion and a distraction. That it's words thrown out to sort of quell the scent, to quell any attempt at finding a just and lasting solution to what's happening in Palestine. And I think Oslo sort of really cemented that and it's a cautionary tale of what can happen and how movements can be co-opted and how when brokers like the US bring in things like the World Bank and the IMF that that can only spell trouble.

Can you talk about some of the internal barriers to Palestinian self-determination and sovereignty and also maybe how class and issues of political economy and particularly like Western institutions and economic institutions and how that all plays out in Palestine and just some of the barriers that arise from those institutions and from internal class divisions and other issues related to that. I think one of the really important things to talk about when it comes to thinking about what it would look like for Palestinians to have self-determination and sovereignty, because those were sort of the words that were thrown around during the Oslo Peace process and the

lead up to it and then during, and then even now when the few people that still look at it as a positive thing talk about it. And the reality is in order to actually have any form of sovereignty and self-determination, it has to be bottom up and it has to include at its heart the most fragmented, isolated, and disenfranchised Palestinians. Those are Palestinian refugees. And I want to give an example of ways that hasn't happened. And I think one of the most important ones to know about because people have been talking about, you know, will something similar to this be introduced in the Gaza in the future. Israel is talking about we need to make sure that Hamas is not

ruling Gaza, we're going to institute a new government and then we're going to leave. And so many red flags there, but what does it mean to institute a new government who will be there, this is going to bring in the World Bank and the IMF and institute some strange conglomeration of NGOs that end up just really entrenching neoliberalism and creating this economy of dependency and disenfranchisement that we've seen happen in so many places across the world. In any case, this was a similar thing was sort of attempted or perhaps succeeded to some extent in the Occupy du S. Bank in 2008, when the Palestinian Authority worked in collaboration with the U.S. and the World Bank, the British Department of International Development and the IMF to create

what they call the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan, or PRDP. And it began with a conference with about a thousand delegates that attended, and it included a lot of the big names in the Palestinian Authority, as well as wealthy Palestinian capitalists from outside the country. Many of these came from the US and Europe and the Gulf, groups from Jordan and elsewhere. And they came together and developed this plan. And like many of the World Bank's plans, it relied heavily on entrenching the West Bank

and the Palestinian Authority in its dependency on Israel as an occupying power and on these economic global institutions that really just essentially entrenched poverty and create an upper class that is consistently getting wealthier and a poor working class and in Palestine it means refugees as well that are just getting poor and in fact that exactly what happened. When this plan was put into place in 2009, 2010, poverty levels began to rise. And the richest 10% began to see their consumption rise. They got wealthier, and the poorer got even poorer.

And one of the things, one of the clauses that comes with these plans, especially with the IMF, is that they often remove subsidies on basic items, and that's what they did in the West Bank as well. They removed subsidies on things like food and fuel. There are mass layoffs, around 40% of people actually lost their jobs, and they created industrial zones. In the West Bank, they created industrial zone, qualified industrial zones. And these actually also exist in Jordan and Egypt.

And qualified industrial zones, it means a lot of things, but one of the things that it means is they are zones. So they're like almost like compounds of land where large corporations, large companies, set up factories and use very cheap labor so they exploit labor to produce items. I know that in the West Bank, two of the biggest examples there are GAP, I believe Walmart

was there for a while, and they exploit Palestinian labor because they're qualified industrial zones, it means they're like free zones. They're not considered under the jurisdiction of any particular government. And what this means, the reason this is important to mention, is that there are no labor rights there. There are no workers rights. It also means that those workers could never be unionized. And so they have no rights as workers.

They are paid very little, and they can't really do anything about it. For many reasons, one is they would just be fired and replaced, too, is that they're also still working under an occupation. At the end of the day, they go home to live under Israeli apartheid. And one of the things that PRDP also did is that it allowed the US to use free trade agreements, FTAs, to ensure that neighboring states in the Middle East normalize ties with Israel. This is happening long before these official normalization deals that we saw in the last few years. Instead,

what this did is it integrated Israel into the Middle East economy because the FTAs included clauses that asked countries participating countries to commit to normalizing with Israel and that forbid any boycotts of trade relations and that's the reason that countries like Jordan have trade relations with Israel or Egypt have trade relations with Israel and have for many decades It's because of these agreements. And this was all part of the U.S.'s plan, and of course Israel agreed to ensure that Israel is integrated into the Middle East economy, and that there can be this like flow of capital that goes from the Gulf States all the way into North Africa.

And the Israel is a part of that, and of course that the U.S. is is a part of that and of course that the US is also a part of that. And so this entrenched this reliance, Palestinian reliance on foreign aid and on privatization, private sector jobs grew and occupied Wetzbank and you definitely see that today and also reliance on jobs with the Palestinian Authority because the closer you were to that, the more likely you were to have a job that you wouldn't lose. And that was all by design. And so it really entrenched class divisions as well. And as part of the reason why refugee camps became poor and had less resources and had less access to public goods and jobs and sanitation and everything else that is supposed to be provided

by a government. And that's also part of the reason why we see today the resistance and the uprising against Israel occupation and against the Palestinian Authority, the heart of that, the heart of that organizing is in refugee camps in the West Bank. And we saw that with Janine and many other examples. So I just, I wanted to, there's so much more to say about the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan, but I hope that that was like a helpful snippet into the ways in which institutions like the IMF and the World Bank kind of weasel their way into situations like this and really exploit

the vulnerability. Absolutely. I'm so glad that you brought that up, actually, and touched on some of the details of Palestinian political economy because I think it's going to give people a really important introduction. And like you said, a snippet and some context for our conversation in a couple of weeks with Adam Hania on his book, Lineages of Revolt, where we're actually going to get really deep into the political

economies of Gaza and the West Bank and Palestine more broadly. So that's awesome that you brought that up. I want to talk a little bit about, I guess, you could sort of frame it as solutions for us in the West in terms of how we can support the Palestinian cause. And I think there are a lot of different ways to do that, stretching all over the spectrum, including some direct actions that hit headlines a couple weeks ago. I believe it was the Israeli arms manufacturing company, I believe it's called Elbit Systems, they have

some kind of facility in New Hampshire and three individuals, including Kala Walsh, who is a 19-year-old activist, who we were actually talking to, potentially bringing her on the show, but they were arrested and potentially going to be slapped with rico charges for a direct action at this weapons facility in New Hampshire. So there's that end of the spectrum there and then there are all sorts of other things that folks are doing like demonstrating and writing and calling decision makers and policy makers. and policymakers, but a really interesting one is the BDS movement. I'd love to talk to you about that because that's also been getting a huge amount of backlash from, all the way from, of course, Israel fighting against it, but also US legislation that makes it illegal to conduct a kind of boycott or divesting of Israel. I'm wondering if you can talk

a little bit about the BDS movement, if and how you think it's an effective way for us in the West to, to support the Palestinian cause, and maybe also, yeah, just talking a little bit about the fierce reaction that we've seen by Israel and the, the United States against BDS. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's just so outrageous and astonishing that these young activists that you mentioned, as well as people engaging and participating in these peaceful bohicots of companies, manufacturers that uplift and reproduceces your occupation is really a partied or Right now the ongoing indiscriminate bombing of millions of Palestinians in Gaza that they are facing big charges that they are being sort of smeared and ridiculed and

persecuted instead of the people that are openly blatantly instigating violence and involved in supporting and uplifting and emboldening what many experts have identified and have warned as an ongoing unfolding genocide. It's so baffling. It's so hard to comprehend that this is happening right now. And that there's this like Wall Street Journal headline from last week, I don't know if you saw it, but it was like, you know, US sends like new YouTube bonds to, I believe that's

what they were called, but you can correct me to Israel. And then the subheader says, Anthony Blinken urges Israel to take caution with Palestinians civilians. And it really does read like an onion article. Like, we are sending, the other government is sending Israel, these bombs, these warplanes, and then telling them, don't kill, be careful, don't kill civilians. Well, then why are you providing them with this military equipment? What does that have to do with Hamas?

When we look at the numbers, and there are nearly 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, nearly 7,000 children have been killed. And the US government is still sending these bombs. And when activists say, hey, let's avoid caught these arms manufacturers, let's avoid caught businesses that refuse to stop engaging with these arms manufacturers, let's boycott businesses that refuse to stop engaging with these arms manufacturers that refuse to stop engaging with a

country that is being charged with a crime of apartheid on the international level that they are being persecuted and that they are being smeared. It's really outrageous and I think one of the most troubling things is that we know that there will come a time in the future when people will look back on this and sort of study this in their textbooks and ask the questions we ask when we look back at history and say, how did this happen? How did nobody do anything? How did our governments let this happen?

And that's what we're living right now. We're living that history. This is a long way of saying, I think the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement is one of the most important tools at our disposal to put pressure on Israel to end the to unlocution because we know that what drives the different relations with Israel is profit. There's a reason that our government is continuing to uphold and support Israel, regardless of these mass protests we've seen, regardless of the fact that it's clear that across party lines in the U.S., majority of Americans are saying they support a ceasefire. We have a Democratic president in office and 80% of Democrats polling poids to this, say they support a ceasefire and still the government which claims to represent its constituents, which claims to represent the will of the people is not actually doing that. It's not doing its job, which surprise, surprise is no surprise. And that's because of profit.

That's because of the military industrial complex in the US, and the fact that what Israel's doing in Gaza, what Israel has been doing across historic Palestine for decades, is actually profitable to these large companies, whether it's Elbe systems or Lockheed Martin or Boeing. That's at the heart of this is that profit. They make a lot of money off of war. And we know this to be true from previous instances, whether it's Vietnam or others, that that's a large driver of why government support wars

is profit. And so by pressuring where it really hurts, by putting pressure on these targets, we know that that will have an impact on Israel. And we know this for many reasons, but the most obvious one, and the one that inspired the BDS movement to begin with is the movement to boycott up her tight South Africa. That's what inspired the BDS movement,

and that's what it's sort of built and structured on. And so often people point to different attempts by Palestinians to protest or to organize to resist against occupation and against apartheid and against their oppression, and they're told like you're too violent. Why can't you engage in peaceful this, peaceful that? And it's like, well, what is more peaceful than VDS?

And still we're being smeared and persecuted for it. And I think it's also, well, what is more peaceful than VDS? And still we're being smeared and persecuted for it. And I think it's also, we've reached a point where like the dehumanization and the smears are now instating violence here in the US as well. And there's been several examples of this from Maudier El Fayou, the six-year-old in Chicago, who was stabbed 26 times by his landlord, the Muslim woman in Texas, who was killed, sitting in front of her apartment building, eating, and then most recently last week in Burlington, Vermont, where three students were shot for speaking Arabic

and wearing kufias. There's like a very direct link between the way that the peaceful protest and BDS and things like that are smirred and there's these attempts to criminalize them. And then the very real impact it has on people here in the US and of course, on people in the Raze and across historic Palestine. And you know, Israel is invested, you know, probably hundreds of millions of dollars in their political, academic and cultural propaganda campaign.

And they seem still to be losing the hearts and minds of most people. And it definitely seems like there is a shift happening right now in how the average person perceives Israel and Palestine and the so-called conflict between the two. And I say so-called, because I think conflict presupposes some kind of symmetry, which isn't there. But in a country like the United States where popular opinion isn't really reflected in our political representation,

I'm wondering, does it make a difference if public opinion is on the side of the Palestinians? Does Western sympathy really count for anything in Gaza? It's a good question and a lot of ways it's a hard one to answer because how can we say that it counts for anything when Palestinians and Gaza are being slaughtered as we speak right now? You know, the invasion of southern Gaza has begun. And there are no signs of it stopping or slowing down. And I think maybe one of the most harrowing things is when we don't hear anything at all from Gaza, those like not moments of silence,

their days of silence. That said, I do think that these shifts in public opinion do matter. I think they matter a lot. I think they matter for many reasons, but I think when you look back at, let's go back exactly 10 years to 2013. Between like 2013 and 2018, even saying the words BDS,

that was a fight to even be able to talk about it was a struggle. We're now at a place where that's no longer the case. When we have dozens of campuses across the US that have introduced BDS resolutions or have passed them, when the largest struggles in the US that have introduced BDS resolutions or have passed them when the largest struggles in the US like fighting for racial justice for climate change have embraced the Palestinian struggle as their own, are refusing to talk about their struggles without incorporating Palestine, whether that's movement for Black Lives, whether that's sunrise, whether that's indigenous struggle in the U.S. and now

labor. I mean, last week during the hunger strike, last year I was in DC, I was participating in the hunger strike in front of the White House, demanding a permanent ceasefire. And on Friday, we were joined by different union reps, including U.E., the electric workers, and UAW, United Auto Workers. And UAW, for those who don't know, UAW recently won a really massive strike. They were on strike, and they won.

And it was incredible. And it was sort of like an indication of the fact that there is this uptake in labor struggles in the US. Uptake maybe feels like too small of a word, but I'm sure that some of the fact that there is this uptake in labor struggles in the US uptake Maybe feels like too small of a word, but I'm sure that some of the labor folks would disagree with me and still an uptake compared to Like the 70s, but it is massive and it was so important and Biden actually when flew out to the picket line to stand with them and supported it and then that union Just a couple weeks after winning this major strike, comes out in front of the White House at this hunger strike for a ceasefire and says,

we endorse a permanent ceasefire. And yes, folks have pointed out that that should have happened earlier. Sure, they were in the middle of the strike, but yes, sure, of course, we need everybody to come out for a permanent ceasefire as a P. But the fact that UAW did that, I think, is really important. We're talking about one of the largest unions in the US. And so I think these shifts matter because in the long term, this means that when people are running for office, they have to answer to this. Palestine is no longer this like left fringe issue that no one's going to ask you about

that you can ignore. It's now a pretty central big issue. I would venture to say that almost every person getting ready to run in the next elections is like, okay, well, what's, what am I going to say when I'm asked about a ceasefire? What am I going to say when I'm asked about conditioning a to Israel? That's another big thing. Right now the question of conditioning military funding to Israel is a question, it's a question it's being asked.

That was not the case even just two months ago, this summer, that would have been unheard of. Now of course our demand is not to condition, our demand is to end all military funding to Israel. But the fact that there's conversations over conditioning it is also really, really important. I think that the heartbreaking devastating thing about all of this is that it took over 20,000 Palestinians being slaughtered for this to happen.

Is that it took over 7,000 children being slaughtered, and the numbers are still going up for this to happen. That 45% of buildings in Razeh, 7,000 children being slaughtered and the numbers are still going up for this to happen. That 45% of buildings in Razeh, all of Razeh, have been damaged or destroyed by Israel's bombings in the last two months. And that if Israel continues at this rate, there will not be a single building left on damaged in Razeh by Christmas. That's less than three weeks away. And I think that is what's devastating.

What it took for people to wake up and for us to recognize what's happening and the way that the US government is complicit. So I think the shifts are important and they play a big role long term in what we're able to change. But it's also so devastating that we're still in this reality. This isn't over. And that's still climbing. And there's no end in sight. And so I think that's what's hard to reckon with. And as you said, I think Israel has lost the hearts and minds of the majority of young people. I mean, polls point to this, but also when you, when you just read the news, when you look out at the street,

when you go to school, when you go to work, when you are walking down the street to get your groceries, and there's a flyer up for a protest, or there's families organizing to pressure their member of Congress, or there's teachers at school doing this or that and now the unions and it's very clear that something's happening that seems like every single industry in the US is talking about this that you can't escape that now and I think that's really really important because it breaks away from this idea

that what's happening in Gaza has nothing to do with us. That it's something happening over there in the Middle East. What do we have to do with it? Or that you can't talk about it, you can't have an opinion about it unless you're Muslim or Jewish or Arab or this or that. That we're reaching this point where people feel confident in being like actually, no, I don't think we should be funding the murder of children. That there's this genocide happening and we know that it's our right to have a say in it and it's our responsibility to have a say in stopping it and in acting to stop it. Yeah, sorry, that was a long answer. No, and a really important answer. So thank you so much. And I think Della actually said this in her interview

with Dr. Rupa and Dr. Jess recently that Palestine really seems like it's become the fulcrum on which a lot of the world is turning right now. And I guess Dr. Rupa also talked about how Palestine has really revealed this like critical moment for building solidarity among groups radicalized under the violence of settler colonialism. And I think that a lot of really important conversations have been surfacing around settler colonialism and looking at the United States particularly.

And so yeah, I agree with all of your response. And I think it's really important to underscore a lot of the shifts that seem to be taking place right now. And even though it doesn't look like necessarily materially, they're leading to things that we are demanding, like an immediate ceasefire, I still think that they're super important. And yeah, I think let's go beyond a ceasefire, which I think we all agree needs to happen as soon as possible. It should have happened a long time ago. Let's go beyond BDS, beyond direct action, and zoom out to what an actual solution could look like for Palestine and

the Israeli occupation. We've already talked about the failure of the two-state solution, and I was listening actually to a really excellent, an older episode of citations needed recently, and they were talking about this idea of negative and positive peace. That is negative peace being sort of just the absence of direct violence. That that was the aim really, at least on paper of the Oslo Accords, this idea of just sort of cementing in the apartheid state and formalizing it and putting an end to this sort of acute bombardments and violence. And then there's this idea of positive peace,

which refers to the absence of indirect and structural violence. This kind of peace really forces us to stop talking necessarily about states and more about justice and rights. And it kind of makes me think a little bit about the difference between peace and liberation. I saw something recently that was like, peace is the white man's word.

Like what we want is liberation and that really resonated with me. So yeah, I'm wondering, you know, white man's word, like what we want is liberation, and that really resonated with me. So yeah, I'm wondering, you know, and feel free to, if you want to frame it in terms of a one-state solution, or just more broadly, but like, how can Palestinians actually get free? What would that look like? That's the question.

I think it's really interesting that you bring up the question of whether or not it is useful or the right way to approach this is to talk about statehood. It's actually something we thought about a lot with the book, Palestine, Associates, Introduction, because part of building socialism is also thinking beyond the nation state, the nation state is such a modern invention. It has not been around for that long, even though it seems really hard to imagine the world without nation states.

But the reality is they have only been around for a little bit for a couple hundred years. And so it is so important to think beyond the nation state. And I think for Palestine in particular, it's important because we can't isolate Palestine from the rest of the region. Then in fact, Palestinian liberation is so intricately tied to what is happening in Syria and what is happening in Lebanon, what is happening in Egypt and Iraq and Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and North Africa. And that's really, really important. Palestine will not be free on its own. It's not an island.

I think this is something that Palestinians recognized decades ago, even if some of us have lost sight of it right now, from the early days of the Sun, kind of Fanny's writing, where he talks about the liberation struggle as a struggle of the region, when not just a Palestinian struggle and isolation. And so far as that's true, I think it is definitely true that we need to be thinking beyond the word peace, because what does that mean and how has it been used against

us in the past, and beyond this illusion of separate Palestinian statehood, certainly in the context of a two-state solution. That said, I do think it's useful to think about what does it mean when we say no two-state doesn't work, one state does, because I think it gets to the heart of the most important thing that we're trying to build, which is freedom for everybody regardless of race, religion, culture, background. That in fact, your rights and your freedoms are not based on an identity you hold or do not hold. They're just based on your humanity, based on you being a human, and that's just the foundation. And I think that's what's so useful in talking about a one-state solution, and that's what's so useful in saying from the river to the sea. That in fact from the river to the sea is a call for liberation for all, and a call for

freedom for all, and an insistence that one people's freedom cannot mean the oppression of another. And I think that's the heart of from the river to the sea, and that's what makes it so powerful. And that's why it's so important to chant that proudly and loudly, because it's a chant that insists on freedom for everybody, that no one is left behind, that no one is an exception to that. In the case of Palestine, I think sometimes people get so focused on one state, two state, what will the government look like, who will be represented? When in fact, there's a lot of steps that we need to take before we get there that we're nowhere near.

And so to me, it's so much more important after we say that two state is an illusion, because I think that's also important, because that's used as a distraction all too often. But to say that our demands are, lift the blockade on Gaza. That's an illegal blockade. It's an inhumane blockade. Take down the apartheid wall. There should not be a cement wall, snaking around Palestinian cities, forbidding Palestinians from living on their land, dismantle illegal

settlements, and allow Palestinians for rights. And to me, that's why BDS is such an important call, because the demands of BDS lay the foundation for building for that freedom and liberation that we're discussing. Those demands are so basic and so necessary to build any sort of lasting freedom. And that should be the first, the first step. And for those of us in the US, there's a huge responsibility on folks in the US to push the US government to end all military funding to Israel. That's like such a clear first step for folks in the US. No more military funding to an apartheid state, no more military funding to an unfolding genocide,

no more military funding to an illegal occupation. And these are all the first steps towards getting near any sort of lasting just solution to what is happening in Palestine. And then of course, one of the most important ones is the right of return. The right of return is a right that isn't shined in international law for every refugee, regardless of where they're from, that they have the right to return to their homes and their land. And that needs to be a starting point as well. The Palestinians also deserve the right of return, that they are not an exception to this

international law. They are not an exception to the Geneva Convention, that they deserve that right, and that that must be upheld for them. And so to me, pushing for these things is it's just the first step when we want to think about any solution. And I think as we win these, as we win these sort of short terms, we're to call them short term because I think they will take time, but short term girls, so the sort of end result of what will liberation look like becomes a lot clearer. And the reality is that the people that have the right to decide what that looks like

are those facing the brunt of Israel's oppression. You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Suméa Awad, a Palestinian writer, analyst, and social organizer based in New York City. Suméa is director of strategy and communications at the Adala Justice Project, and a contributor to and co-editor, along with Brian Bean, of Palestine, a socialist introduction, published by Haymarket Books. Please check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, including ways that you can support Palestine.

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