Hadar Susskind 00:04
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this Americans for Peace Now webinar. I'm Hadar Susskind I'm the President and CEO of Americans for Peace Now, in a moment, I will introduce our fabulous guest. But as you know, it takes a minute or two for everyone to get into the Zoom. So this is the part where I partake in the time honored Washington tradition of filibustering. So I will smile and talk for another minute. Luckily for you, I won't read any entire books at you, because we don't have to wait for that long. We'll just give it a moment or two. As we are getting started, I'll remind everybody how these events work. If you would like to ask a question, I urge you to please use the q&a function at the bottom, not raising your hands, not anything else. You can type your questions into the q&a, we will get to as many of them as we possibly can. Please, as always try to keep them short and keep them related to the content of our conversation. Because of course, there are lots of questions and lots of things. But you know, we've got a, we've got a focus and a reason for coming here today. So again, please use the q&a button. We would love to get questions from you. I remind everyone that this is being recorded, and we will share the recording afterward if you can't stay for the whole time, if you want to share it with other people, etc. So once again as we kick it off. Thank you for joining us. I'm Hadar Susskind. I'm the President and CEO of Americans for Peace Now, I am joined today for this very timely conversation by my friend Rebecca Abou Chedid. Hello, Rebecca. I will give you all the short version of Rebecca's very long and impressive resume. She's on the board of the IMEU policy project of Anera of the Foundation for Middle East Peace and Seed for Change. For five years, she was co chair of the board of directors of Just Vision and other important partner of ours. She previously worked both at the US Department of Justice and was national political director for the Arab American institute. She is a close collaborator and a thought partner and somebody I am always happy to be with. So Hi, Rebecca, how are you?
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 02:15
Hi Hadar. Thanks for having me.
Hadar Susskind 02:17
Good, thanks for joining us. So we are here today to talk about what's really the topic of the week. I think for us, it's pretty much always the topic, but specifically, of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu is here. He has been in DC for a few days now, today meeting with President Biden and Vice President Harris. But yesterday, in many ways was really kind of the the epicenter of the event. Yesterday, of course, he spoke before a joint session of Congress, I'm going to take moderators prerogative here for a minute for a minute or two and just sort of tell you what we were up to yesterday. So can everyone can understand the framing of what my experience was yesterday. And then Rebecca, and I will we'll dig into this. You know, for many weeks, hopefully all of you have seen since since we knew that Netanyahu was coming to town, we were very clear that literally our little slogan is Netanyahu is not welcome here. We urge members of Congress to skip the speech not not to go not to participate in that. And then yesterday, we joined, I'm gonna go with for the moment alongside because there were a lot of different people outside the capitol yesterday and a lot of different protests. We took part in a few events, starting off with something that was organized by our colleagues at T'ruah which was actually a Shacharit morning prayer service, that then turned into a call to end the war, to bring home the hostages, to move past conflict, and peace. Some of you I know, were there, but was glad to see you hope maybe you watched it online. We also co sponsored and participated in an event with our colleagues from UnXeptable where I spoke along with others. And again, you know, talked about the fact that, you know, Netanyahu is here claiming to speak in the voice of all Israelis, when in fact, that's clearly not the case. And so many of the things that he said yesterday during his speech to Congress, and we'll get to that, you know, I think to be perfectly honest, would have been mocked and ridiculed by Israeli audiences who know better than at least so many Republican members of Congress. And then during the speech yesterday, because we had encouraged members not to participate. We partnered with a range of organizations with Center for American Progress, Center for International Policy, Win without War, and others to come together and host an event where instead of listening to Netanyahu, and you know his rehearsed lines and listening to him bask in the applause for the Israeli soldiers and others who were there with him. We gathered with members of Congress and with people who are really peacemakers people who are working toward these efforts, with Aziz Abu Sarah, a Palestinian and Maoz Inon an Israeli who some of you may have been on our webinar with them. And we've been working together for peace with our colleague and Nadav Weiman from Breaking the Silence and with so many others. And, you know, we spent that time talking about what can we both we as organizations, we as leaders here in the US, but also members of Congress, what can we actually do to get past not just this immediate moment of conflict? But this whole frame of conflict? How can we move from what has been Netanyahu is referring of we will just continue to live by the sword into a better future. So, apologies for my rambling. What we want to talk about now is really, you know, what did this visit from Netanyahu, the speech before Congress, the White House meetings, all the rest of it, the protests outside of which there were, as I said, both Israelis and Jewish Americans, but obviously, many, many Arab and Muslim Americans, and many others, you know, with an array of different meanings and messages. So, you know, how is this playing? What is this look like? What does it mean for US-Israel politics? What does it mean for the American-Jewish community, the Arab-American community, and also Rebecca's adorable dog, which I think is hiding just off screen, so might as well just show up? Because Rebecca has an adorable little dog. They've seen my dog on webinars before, on my lap. So with that, Rebecca, why don't you kick us off a little bit and tell us, you know, share some thoughts?
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 06:18
Yeah, thank you Hadar. Look, I mean, one of the things that I thought was so interesting, watching a bunch, particularly so many Democrats kind of standing up and applauding. Netanyahu, for me is really just the Israeli version of Donald Trump was that he came to Washington and got a reception that he never could have gotten in Israel. Right. So the way that people responded to this speech, totally ignored the fact that for months, and not, not just since October, but for months, even pre October, there were 1000s and 1000s of Israelis in the streets calling for this man to resign, saying that he is a threat to Israeli democracy. And now more recently asking for a ceasefire so that the hostages can come home, I cannot imagine what it would have felt like to be the family of a hostage member, watching American members of Congress who talked about wanting to bring home the hostages and to end this genocide in Gaza, standing up and applauding him when he was lying. I mean, he lied about so many things. And we'll kind of talk through those. But really kind of as an overarching response to that was my first response, just how strange it was to kind of watch that. And I know that, you know, many, as you said, that there were many members who boycotted. And then there was one soul member who sat there silently, the only Palestinian member of Congress Rashida Talib on her birthday. And I think, clearly terrible way to celebrate terrible way to celebrate your birthday. But I think to make clear that, like, I think she wanted to speak for, an her guest was Hani Almadhoun much one who has lost over 100 members of his family, including his brother and his nieces and nephews. But But I think her point in being there was was so that he had to see her to see her face. And so that the thing that we have been so upset about as a community for the past nine months is just how invisible Palestinians have been in the US kind of conversation and debate over not just what's happening in Gaza right now. But, you know, the the entire conflict, and for decades Palestinians have been, it's so strange to say, but have been absent from the cover station, happen to their lives. And I think having Rashida there was really important, as difficult as it must have been, to be there. I think it was really important. So you know, that was my first. You know, my, my first kind of reaction was just that he came there because he can't get that reception in Israel. People are people he's too well known in Israel. And, you know, even now, they're said he's the worst leader that the the State of Israel has had. And so you would never have been able to get a reception like that. And so he came here to gaslight, the US Congress, and the US people about what's going on right now. I also think that you didn't hear you know what we all know what it sounds like when you hear a leader who's trying to find peace. That's not what we heard yesterday. We didn't hear a leader who, as Secretary Blinken said is on the 10 yard line of a ceasefire. We didn't hear any plan for how to end this conflict, how to bring the hostages home. We didn't hear any plan for how to actually come up with a peace deal afterwards, because we all know that there is no military solution to this conflict. In the end, Palestinians and Israelis are going to be sharing this land, they're going to be living side by side. And and you know, I thought it was really so interesting the moment where he acknowledged a Bedouin soldier and really kind of made made it clear to everybody that he was Muslim and It seemed important to Netanyahu to kind of say that we have a Muslim fighting for the State of Israel. And what it said to me was oh, which is not what I think he meant, not that message I think he meant for, which is that like, oh, so I guess there's no kind of ingrained Muslim animus towards the Jewish people, that you're always trying to convince us that there is no kind of in read anti semitism here, that people in the end might be able to actually live side by side and fight for each other's security if we were in a different situation than the one that we are stuck in right now, in large part because of leaders like him. So, you know, all I heard was total victory. And I think his version of total victory is total annihilation of the people in Gaza. And that is not going to be a victory. And that's not going to bring security to the State of Israel. You know, and there have been a lot of fact checks on there, he lied about a lot of things. And I think we'll have a chance to talk about them, like he, he was not honest about the number of trucks that have made it into Gaza. He was not honest. And we heard from the beginning of this conflict, we have heard Israeli leaders, and as you know, members of his cabinet, say exactly what they were going to do and exactly what they did, which is a total ban on food and water getting into Gaza. And so, you know, during different times there has been increases up and down. But in general, it has been a strategy not to allow food and water and other humanitarian assistance into Gaza. And so, you know, like, I don't think Vons, what's going on, that it's going to convince anyone to say that there's 3000 calories a day making their way into Gaza, and the only reason that Palestinians are hungry is because Hamas is stealing it. I just don't think that's credible.
Hadar Susskind 11:53
You know, he didn't, was interesting, because I was I was watching again this morning again, you know, I didn't watch the speech in real time, right? I was at the counter event, but I was watching this morning, and he talked about those numbers. And he said, that's enough for 3000 calories for every man, woman and child and Gaza. He didn't say 3000 a day. And so I actually just wondering, and I don't know the answer, maybe over nine months? I don't know. I don't know the answer of whether he actually literally meant that which is totally conceivable that that amount of food that, you know, Israel has allowed in, like, maybe that number is true. And he didn't say a day, or maybe he, like many other things was anywhere from twisting, misrepresenting or lying. I think, you know, I wrote a piece, also this morning about the many different things. I mean, his talk about how he was doing everything possible to bring the hostages home, and his greatest commitment was bring the hostages home, when seven members of hostage families got arrested, arrested. Yeah, because they stood up, the only reason they went I spent a lot of time with them, they stood up with signs that said, seal the deal in our with shirts, which, you know, I was at an event with them the night before and with other hostage families that day, they seal the deal explicitly. And unfortunately, it's not great messaging, frankly, because it doesn't say this, but they said it when they speak, they may end with the war and bring the hostages home. And so they were willing to get arrested for that. And he was standing up there claiming and like you said in a claim that no one in Israel would give any credence to that he's doing everything he can to bring the hostages home.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 13:22
Yeah, I mean, look, it should be shocking to American members of Congress, many of whom, thanks to organizations like yours, met with a lot of these hostage families. But it shouldn't be shocking to people that hostage families have to fly from Israel to the United States to get the attention of the Prime Minister of Israel. And that's what they had to do. I mean, they had to like it's, that is shocking to me. I mean, I can't imagine the you know, that if something like that were to happen in the United States, and the American president just ignored the families of people going through this. I just think that that would be that should be completely unacceptable. I mean, if nothing else that should have meant he never got a, an invitation to speak to a joint session of Congress.
Hadar Susskind 14:08
So one of the things that I thought was fascinating. And you know, Rebecca, I know you remember last time he was here. Also, there were there were organizing efforts to tell members of Congress not to go, many of them didn't last time actually was more explicitly partisan, because of course, he was knighted by the Republican Speaker without the veneer of bipartisanship that this this one brought because Schumer and Jeffries signed on. But, you know, according to report, about half of the Democrats skip the speech, about half went, but both House and Senate members, it's really just about 50%. And that is shocking. And the fact that Netanyahu has always presented his self in Israel, as you know, I'm the person who can manage America. I'm the one who can always build bipartisan support. I know how to do Do American politics? I think he thinks because when he speaks in English, he pronounces Israel, like he's from Kentucky says Israel, which I always think it's very weird. It's my little pet peeve. But, you know, the fact that he has so broken, what, for good or for bad, and people have different opinions on this, obviously, but what has for many years been largely bipartisan support, even, you know, with tweaks around the edges, but he's completely broken that, and I think the, the state of the US Israel relationship today is very different than it's ever been.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 15:37
Yeah, look, I think he's a particularly bad leader for this moment. I mean, he's not a courageous leader. He's, you know, I will let the Israeli courts if they ever get the chance to actually adjudicate it likely a criminal, you know, like he's corrupt. And so there's also intertwined in all everything that he's doing is just like Trump, again, a very personal effort to keep himself out of courts and out of prison. And so that's what's driving. I mean, when that's what's driving your leader, you know, that you're in a bad place. But I also think
Hadar Susskind 16:14
He only been indicted three times to Trump's 34.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 16:18
But I also think just like, America's problem is not Trump alone, it's Trumpism. If you remove Netanyahu, that wouldn't solve a lot of the problems. And so I think the same members of the caucus who didn't attend his speech, are the same members that you've seen starting to kind of speak out. And what they're speaking out against is what looks now two for all to see is a permanent occupation is an apartheid system is right, like nobody could credit you know, people still talk about two states in the US without acknowledging that the Israeli Knesset voted to say there will not be a Palestinian state. And the Israeli Prime Minister keeps saying there will not be a Palestinian state. And so we keep holding on to this, because it's the only thing that we can kind of conceive of in this moment, ignoring kind of what's on the ground. And I think that that's really dangerous. And I also think that the way that the United States like elected officials in the US have related to Israel is as if Israel doesn't have internal politics, the way the United States has internal politics. And so one thing that I remember from the last time Netanyahu came, was a friend who's now back in Israel, and was B'Tselem's US director at the time, Uri Zaki. He said to me, I don't understand why you're Democrats, like why you Liberal Democrats in the United States, who say that they love Israel don't understand what they're doing to the Israeli left, when they welcome. Remember that, and it's, it's a really important point to me that we have, we have not, on the American left, spent enough time thinking about how we can support and make common cause with the left in Israel. And because we haven't done that we've actually harmed them over the years.
Hadar Susskind 18:07
I think it's a really good point. And, you know, we talk about the US-Israel relationship, we talk about what American politicians, you know, whichever ones or party we're talking about, what they think of Israel. And again, it's, you know, it's, it's exceedingly unsophisticated. And there's a very polite way I can think about it, you know, Israel has, as we all know, very intense domestic politics. And right now, 72% of Israelis want Netanyahu to resign immediately, all these other things. So he, of course, does a good job of presenting himself. As you know, he is Israel, he speaks for Israel. But we all need to do a better job of not only understanding the difference ourselves, which I think probably the folks on this on this Zoom do, but helping our elected officials understand that. And one other thing I want to pick up from what you said, you know, the conversation about two state solution. So again, another thing that Netanyahu was very happy to tout is, this is the fourth time he's spoken to a joint session of Congress more than any other world leader ever more than Winston Churchill, you know, so he's, he's very excited. In previous times, he talked about a two state solution. He claimed support for a two state solution. Now, lots of people could, obviously correctly argue that he never meant it. But the fact is, he used to say that that used to be his policy and the policy of the State of Israel, even under we could and specifically his leadership, and like you said, it is explicitly not anymore. This government that came into power at the beginning of 2023. Has in their coalition agreement, plans for annexation. It has in its coalition agreement statements that say we will not allow a Palestinian state and like you said they just had this Knesset vote, which was, you know, one more horrific state It meant, including the fact that Benny Gantz and his party voted for it. So, you know, everybody, I shouldn't say everybody, but everybody here, most likely, and, you know, was waiting for new elections calling for new elections. The assumption among most people because of the polling is that Benny Gantz will be the next prime minister, and, of course, will lead a much, you know, a center left government as opposed to a far right government. But it's worth noting that he and his party voted for this. And so, you know, just continuing on, like you were saying of like, oh, this is how we relate to Israel as if that doesn't change. It's, frankly, a failure on the part of American politics.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 20:37
Yeah. Yeah, I think I agree with that. And then I, I think one other point that it's important to dig into, especially because of the response that we're seeing today. From US protests. I mean, you mentioned that you were out there. And were clearly, you know, bad actors out there. Like, there were clearly and I don't know who these people were, like, you know, I don't know who's burning an American flag, which is not something, you know, I condone, but it's protected free speech. You know, I don't like I don't know who was out there. I don't know, if they were in good faith. I don't know if they were meant to, you know, I don't know if just nine months in to this, people have started to just kind of snap and are so frustrated. They don't know how to be productive anymore. But it's it's really important to me, and I cannot believe that a foreign leader would come and criticize American protesters, Americans exercising their First Amendment rights, say that they're paid by Iran, call them Iranians useful idiots and then get a standing ovation from members of Congress, like those are your constituents. And this is their right. And that's what the United States is about. And, you know, it's just like, I don't I'm not asking anybody to condone these, like the small number of people who, you know, said whatever they said, like, I haven't actually seen it, but I've just heard about it. I haven't I saw it. And I'll tell you a little in a minute. Yeah, I mean, I'd like I'd like to hear but but the point being that there were also bad actors during the BLM protests. And as collectively, we didn't allow ourselves to say this delegitimizes the whole movement, that this characterizes the whole movement. And we didn't allow ourselves to take our eyes off the ball, which was that George Floyd was murdered, and that we have a problem with police brutality in the United States. And I think similarly, we have to hold our friends and our opponents accountable for the same thing, which is the same standard, which is to say, we should not allow, I mean, I don't want the protests that you organize to be ignored. I don't want right like, there's similarly to not seeing the complexities in Israel. There are also many people who don't see that the nuances within the Jewish community here in the United States and think, right that like there's the Jewish and Arab American. Yeah. So like, there's the Jewish community and on one side, and the Arab American community on the on the other side, ignoring the fact that for nine months, there have been protests across this country that have been overwhelmingly peaceful, and that have included both Jewish and Arab Americans within the that coalition. Yeah, I think that's just really important. Yes.
Hadar Susskind 23:27
And I'll tell you yesterday, yesterday was interesting. So again, like I said, I started out the day, at something organized by T'ruah, it was rabbis, there were, you know, 100 people were in kippot and talit and literally doing morning prayer in Hebrew. So it was very obviously visibly Jewish. There were a lot of protesters, you know, walking by in groups. A lot, just walked by that was, you know, the most common was like, okay, they looked and they kept going fine. There were a few who stopped and engaged in really good, interesting conversations, you know, people who had because getting people everyone's looking at everyone else's side. So folks are walking by with their Palestinian flags and free Palestine signs. And, you know, there were some people who yelled Free Palestine when they saw the Jews. And then there are other people were like, wait, no, no, look at what they're signed, say, Look at what they're saying. And we had some really interesting conversations.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 24:19
I think that's okay, like, that's the point of being there is to have the chance to have conversation.
Hadar Susskind 24:24
Sure, for sure. We had a little I, I experienced what I would call a small scuffle. There was one of the protests that was set up by UnXeptable. They put sort of around the area, they had to protest for probably 100 Israeli flags up and they put them up interspersed with the yellow flags representing the hostages and the hostage families, but I'm pretty confident that 99% of the people who walked by didn't know that about the yellow flags. Anybody who wasn't there for that protests, anyone who's not part of, you know, the that movement and people came by and said they're things that was fine. At one point. You know, a young woman tore down one of the Israeli flags, kind of I say violently, I mean, she didn't assault anyone. But she's, you know, kind of ripped it down. And, and then one of the Israeli, one of the Israeli men who was part of the UnXeptable, grabbed it back and the two of them started pulling, and it got an immediately a crowd came on both sides, and people were screaming, and people were yelling, and I and a couple of others, like, kind of got in the middle. And there were police there. There were no, there was no, you know, no punches, no violence, but it was it was very tense. That was the worst things so to speak. I saw in the morning, again, along with a lot of like, totally good conversations and engagement. I will say I'm in the afternoon walking back after the congressional meeting, we walked by Union Station, which is where the big
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 24:24
Yeah, that's where.
Hadar Susskind 24:26
I think that's where, you know, the, quote, bad protest, like the bad actions happened. I got a little, just just a little whiff of the tear gas that had been used, we were far enough away that we were just kind of got a little, a little cough and a little runny nose. But you could see on the fountain at Union Station, they're completely, you know, graffitied and deface. It's said in big letters, you know, Hamas is coming, you could see many things had been burned. So, again, I don't think that that that does not reflect the many people who I had conversations with throughout the day.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 26:25
But, it was nine months of protests that we've seen.
Hadar Susskind 26:27
More than nine months of protests. But it was definitely, but it happened. And, you know, and the police response. You know, I don't know what I was not in that. So I don't know, kind of what escalated how it escalated. But I mean, I saw the 200 riot police in full gear, pushing toward the crowd. And you know, in whatever country, we know how that goes. Yeah. So it is it was a difficult part of yesterday, like it's not, you know, this is this issue is hard for all of us. And how to respond to it is hard. That's not the right answer. But it was difficult. I want to ask you, and I want to like put a period and move because it's not in response to that. You know, I spent most of my day with Jewish Americans, with Israelis talking to people with Palestinians. Also, you know, and I've been spending most of my day talking to people within my community about how this visit is being seen how these meetings and all the things are being seen, you know, what is your takeaway on the kind of 30,000 foot of like, again, it's a mass mass generalization, but like, how's the Arab American American community, its leaders, it's organizations, you know, seeing and responding to the engagement of Netanyahu here this week?
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 27:41
Well, you're asking about like organizationally?
Hadar Susskind 27:45
Yeah. I mean, it was a poor question. Apologies, like, look at what the Jewish, you know, the American Jewish community doing there are those leaders who chose to go meet with Netanyahu. There are people obviously, you know, cheering him on, but there are many of us, it's not happily, it's not just APN saying like, No, this is not right. What you're saying isn't true. You know, what do you what are you seeing in the, how's the Arab American community looking at, I would say, our own American political leaders and how they're, you know, how they're relating to Netanyahu.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 28:18
Yeah, I mean, I think there was a lot of effort similar to yours, which was to ask people not to attend, to kind of send that message that the invitation itself was the wrong thing to do and was offensive. And a lot of efforts to kind of have conversations. Because what I can say, again, is just that the community has felt invisible during so much of this. Right. So a lot of like, the conversations that we've had with our leaders, with members of Congress with the administration is an effort to say, we know you can see the full humanity of the Israeli people and the way that you talk about the hostages, why can't you see the full humanity of Palestinian people? Right, like, why is the only answer to a Palestinian when a senator calls a Palestinian constituent, a Palestinian American constituent, was lost 70 family members? Why is the only thing that they can think of to say to her is, well, Trump would be worse? Like that? That's that's not an answer. Like, that's not an answer that shows that her family has as much value right as anybody else's family. And that's been, you know, deeply upsetting to kind of see from our own leaders. And I'll say look, I mean, I won't be too partisan here, but I am a Democrat. And you know, a lot of President Biden's campaign for president was about his decency, and his empathy and his ability to kind of connect. And that's who he has been, as a public figure, his entire, unfortunately, because of the great loss that he suffered. But it's been really shocking and really jarring to us. That that that ability seems to have just been turned off, like that empathy has just seems to have been turned off when it when it comes to the loss of Palestinian life in Gaza. And that has been surprising, frankly, to see and really disheartening to see. And so, you know, it's something that I think we've really struggled with the last nine months and something I know, Rashida, as the only Palestinian in Congress has really struggled with, like, how do you know, with all of the hateful things that have been said, in in Congress in the last nine months, the only member who has been formally censured is the one Palestinian member of Congress. So you know, that that's just been a hard, you know, and so they're friends of mine who have, you know, everybody now is part of many chat groups, right. And so you'll be in a chat group where a friend will tell me, I lost 15 members of my family last night, and I'm meeting with my senator this afternoon. Right. So it's like people who don't even have time to absorb the loss of members of their family, and are still just like doing whatever they can from an advocacy perspective to try to make a difference. And that's been the existence of the of their American and Muslim communities the last nine months.
Hadar Susskind 31:45
Yeah, I mean, even just yesterday, seeing, you said, Congresswoman Talib brought a guest who lost many family members in Gaza, I presume, you know, many, many, many of the members of Congress, members of Congress brought hostage families as guests, or, you know, Israelis who had lost lost family members. And even in the event we did in the afternoon, with Aziz and Moaz, you know, they start off talking about how they built their relationship and about empathy. And, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna spend all the time telling you their story. But the quick version, as you know, as he's lost his brother, who was taken and tortured, and ultimately killed by the Israeli military 25 years ago, Maoz lost both of his parents on October 7, and I think it was the eighth, the eighth or the ninth, as these reached out to us, who they did not really know each other. So they were, you know, Facebook friends, but not really friends in real life, sent a Facebook message, you know, expressing his sorrow and his empathy. And he said, I didn't expect him to answer me, I figured he'd be, you know, dealing with his own grief with his own trauma and Maoz immediately reached out to him and said, Yes, you know, the only path forward is understanding each other's pain and empathy and finding a way to use this to move past, you know, constant conflict, and the way that they talk about it, and I've been with them a number of times in the last, you know, bunch of months, and many of you who are with us today, probably were on the webinar that we did with them. But it is, it's shocking to me how rare that is to actually talk about empathy, and to talk about understanding each other's pain and understanding each loss of lives between Israelis and Palestinians. And in the American political system. We're so used to people expressing, very rightly, their, you know, sorrow and horror and sadness at the loss of Israeli lives. And it's true that you basically never hear that about Palestinian lives.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 33:51
And look, the reason that empathy is important and humanizing people is important is because if Palestinians had not been dehumanized in this country for decades, there is just no absolutely no way this would have continued this long. There's just no way we would never accept it. We would collectively as a as a, we would never accept it if we fully absorbed. I mean, I've never even heard the president or any of his senior advisors talk about Palestinian Americans who are stuck in Gaza. Right, I've never heard it like we know that there are American hostages, but we don't think about the fact that there are Palestinian Americans who are stuck in Gaza who couldn't get out people who were like, you know, trying to get to Rafah and trying to get out and they have to pay $5,000, and you know, a lot of these people are trying to reach out to the State Department and weren't getting any help and, and while all of the attention has been on Gaza, it's also been the most deadly year in the West Bank. Right. So I mean, I, I was introduced to a family, a Palestinian family based in Georgia whose mother was arrested. She was arrested because of Facebook posts. She's an American citizen. And for weeks, we tried to get we were pushing every day for weeks. And the answer from the State Department, we don't know, we don't have any information. We don't have an answer. We have no idea. We're trying. I just, I cannot imagine that would be good enough as an answer. For, you know, for other American citizens and other countries, I just don't understand why that's good enough. And, and I really think that I mean, so what's amazing about Aziz and Maoz isn't just that, like, empathy is not important for the sake of like feeling good, or like the kumbaya moment. It's not, you know, like, there were there were so many, I think, during the Oslo, yours, like, conversation groups, discussion groups, between Israelis and Palestinians. And, and those have, since I think people kind of look at them and derived them. But the point of them was not just that individual people, can we become friends and get to know each other like it was so that if you actually humanize these other people, you would never allow this level of violence against them in this collective way. You would never allow a 2000 pound bomb to be dropped. And what is supposed to be a safe zone, where children are playing soccer. You know, like, I just, I think that that's what's really important about it, too. It's not just about getting members of Congress to say, like the nice words, those are important, but it's because the policy should flow from that.
Hadar Susskind 36:47
Yeah.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 36:47
I'm glad we have empathy for Israelis, I have it too. And I want us to maintain it. I just want people's humanity like I just want human beings to be deserving of it, regardless of you know, where, where they are living where they were born, or or who they pray to.
Hadar Susskind 37:04
Yeah, absolutely. So with that, I want to go back to the policy discussion a little bit, actually, one of the things Netanyahu said that, you know, got got big applause yesterday. I mean, as you said, rightly, he didn't present any plan for, you know, as people often talk about, you know, the day after, right, what's the plan? How is this gonna work? He did have some line, and I'm paraphrasing here about, you know, a demilitarized Gaza, ruled by Palestinians, which was surprising to hear him say, but you know, Palestinians who don't want to see Israel's destruction from what he said, right, so not not Hamas, I believe it's the implication there. I mean, again, it's clear that
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 37:47
With Israel's Israel maintaining some kind of security presence.
Hadar Susskind 37:53
Right, he wasn't necessarily clear about that yesterday, but he's always better than that. Yeah. I mean, I'm not you feel free to talk about what you think of his non-playing if you'd like. But yeah, I think that's probably pretty clear. I guess the one of the questions I'm interested about is like, when we start thinking about what are the policy things, and we did this in our conversation with the members of Congress yesterday, like, what are the actual policy things that the United States could do? And what are the things that you would want to see? You know, we're talking about Congress taking actions because, again, we know, you know, there's the administration to do certain things Congress, what are some of the things that you would actually want to see them taking up? You know, once we assume let's, we assume that empathy and say, Okay, now we're ready for action? To go?
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 38:37
Yeah. So I think, for me, if I got to kind of write the letter that they all signed off? We would, until there is a ceasefire, we would end and it's now the administration is now willing to say I mean, in the beginning, they said, Oh, Hamas is the one like stopping this, if they are now willing to say that Netanyahu keeps moving the goalposts on a ceasefire, we should stop offensive weapons to Israel period. Our our policy is a ceasefire. And so if our policy is a ceasefire, we should not be giving offensive weapons to a party that is dropping them on civilian populations. And we should and by the way, we saw what it looked like when the administration was very serious for that brief moment after the World Central Kitchen bombing. There was I think it was clear to Netanyahu and others in Israel that the United States was very serious about this being a problem. It shouldn't have taken that, by the way, but that was a moment right? I mean, Jose Andreas is a beloved figure and and people really responded to what happened to his workers as they should have, but it shouldn't have gotten there, but we need to surge food and aid to the people of Gaza. I mean, I can tell you statistics as you mentioned, I'm on the board Anera but, you know from I got this this morning from our from our Palestine Country Director I'm not speaking on behalf of Anera, obviously. But from for the in the first 15 days of, of July, there were 1288 trucks. So that's about 86 a day. In June, the average was 76, a day in May, it was 94 a day, that is just nowhere near what's needed. We had the average before October was 500 a day. And so we need massive amounts of food and aid. And look, I mean, we built that pier and the pier never worked. And we, you know, had to dismantle that. It's like, sadly, the perfect metaphor for our policy, which is, we say that we believe in things, but we're just not willing to actually see it all the way through. So if we think that when Russia uses food as a weapon of war, that that's a war crime. And that's deplorable, we should just, we cannot allow our allies to do it either. And if we continue to allow them, we are complicit in that. And so those two things to me are the easy and the obvious ones, which is we need to end offensive military aid. And we need to surge food and medical supplies immediately. And then I think like for the long term, we need to get really serious, we can't just like, again, the mantra of like two states, two states, two states is just not going to cut it. Like we know what people will say, during a campaign season. That's not what we're talking about. We really need to get an End If it's get our European allies together, if it's get the and I hate the term, moderate Arab states, because all we mean when we say that is states who are willing to sit down with Israel, that's it that way, they're not in no other way or they moderate Arab states. But we need to get those Gulf States, we need to we need to invest the region, in something that is real about what comes next. Because, again, Israelis and Palestinians are going to be living together in that land, that there's just, that's it. That is what this looks like. And we we need to get really serious about that. And I haven't seen that to date. But if you're asking kind of what I would want to see, that's what I would want to see.
Hadar Susskind 42:09
You know, I think that some of those particular pieces that you were talking about, of course, are things we have been advocating for, among others. And it's really interesting, because everything you just said, I think, you know, certainly taking the beginning points, the no offensive weapons and the need to surge aid. That's just glaringly obvious. Yeah, that we should be doing those, not just because I think those are the right thing. But because those are consistent with our policies, those are consistent with our laws, right. And the problem that we run up against is the United States when it is dealing with Israel, and it deals with each country differently. So I'm not comparing it to everything, but it doesn't apply those things equally. And we have these conversations with people, both, I'll say, for me, within the Jewish community and others, but also folks in Congress and folks in the administration, you know, we three and a half called Getting close to four years ago now came out talking about conditioning aid, right. And so stopping offensive weapons, you could do it lots of different ways. But it also falls into the category of conditioning aid, right, you're using our our aid for things that are opposed to our policy, as opposed to our values, you can't do that we're not going to give it to you. And when we did that, when we came out with that was not the policy. There's never been a bill in Congress to do that. It was not the policy. I'm sure there were some folks who agreed with it. But it's not the stated policy of any members of Congress. And people just looked at us like, you know, you're insane. You can't do that. And now, like you said, it has, I mean, for horrible reasons. But it has happened, to some extent, the concept of conditioning aid, and not enough, but it is certainly a very mainstream part of the political conversation right now. And I think that so, so much of what we, as an organization, and as a community, and all of us, as allies need to do is help push our elected officials past the oh, well, that's how we do it. Or like, oh, that's the, you know, that's the safe piece to do and say in in this particular moment of crisis, but also in this crisis situation of, like you said, you know, seemingly endless occupation, right. It's not just about the the nine months and, you know, October 7th, and the war in Congress and the war in Gaza, it's this whole issue is breaking out of what is simple, easy, accepted, and following things that are not radical, but just actually our laws and applying them across the board so that they do meet with our policies and our values.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 44:41
Yeah. And look, and also just being honest about the fact that like, I understand why Netanyahu would come here and talk about Iran, I understand that. I mean, that that's where, again, you know, China and Iran are where we have bipartisan consensus on foreign policy in the US and so I understand why that would be smart from his perspective. But the fact is that the threat to Israel is the occupation, the existential threat to Israel is not Iran, it is the occupation. And for a bunch of American elected officials who are always kind of professing their love for Israel, that's that's a message that they haven't kind of loved Israel enough to send very honestly, to say, cannot continue this.
Hadar Susskind 45:29
Sorry for the bad. just interject there, even the ones who claim they stand very clearly for two states, right? I mean, you've got a bunch of them who their love of Israel is just whatever Netanyahu says, but even those for whom they say, you know, standard resolutely by the idea of two states seem to often forget that one of those states is Palestine, like two states is not Israel and Jordan, two states is not Israel and Sweden, Uruguay, right? It's Palestine. And to do that, it means you have to end the occupation. Sorry. Okay.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 45:59
No, no, I mean, that's where I just think. And, look, I mean, that this is not today's topic. But I think two states is like one version of what could work, you could also have like an Confederation that has two states of one bucket, like there's different that we are all in agreement, that the human beings living from the river to the sea, deserve equal rights, and freedom and dignity, regardless of their religion. That's it. And if you agree on that, and if that's the bedrock, and if all negotiations flow from that agreement, then you can come up with different versions, and what do you figure out and, you know, did the settler state but there's citizens of Israel and like, you can figure things out that solve the, the problem is not the logistics of where you draw the line, and the settlers. And that's not the problem. The problem is this core, like inability to mean it when we say that Palestinians deserve freedom and equal dignity. And I see that I mean, that's just that's been the core, I think, from the beginning of the conflict, but through now, and until that changes, there will not be a solution. Because if you're trying to kind of come up with some solution that draws lines of blah blah blah like, but but without acknowledging the humanity and the dignity of half of the people in the conflict, then clearly, you're not going to like if they're invisible to you, and you don't hear them, and they're not an equal part of the conversation. Like you're not going to solve the conflict between Palestine and Israel by talking to the Saudis. You're just not.
Hadar Susskind 47:39
That's called Managing the conflict. Right?
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 47:42
I mean, and that's what we've done over decades. But.
Hadar Susskind 47:45
Netanyahu has pushed is.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 47:47
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've managed the conflict for decades. And I guess what is the most frustrating to me is I would like people to see that equal dignity of both peoples. But even if you don't, and all you care about is the Israeli people. You're not doing them a favor, either.
Hadar Susskind 48:03
Right. So I want to remind everyone, if you've got questions, please use the q&a function. And with that, I'm going to ask one of them, Rebecca. Well, I'm going to ask you, maybe I'll answer it too. But I say this to you. You know, the question is actually pretty simple. One is, is a viable, sovereign Palestinian state, so possible? I say, simple, you know?
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 48:27
Yeah. Simple. Sure.
Hadar Susskind 48:29
Short question. More and more accurate. It's not really simple. But
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 48:33
Look, anything's possible. Right? Like, it's not a question of like, can we figure out how to do it is the political will there. And again, for me, like, I don't know that it needs to be like that. We remove all the settlers, and we do this and we move all these people and we like, and we put a border, it could be something else. It could be, as I said, like two states, like we have many 50 states, it could be two states in one country and a joint, like, it could look different ways. But it's something where Palestinians have their civil and political and human rights still possible. Yes. And can that be separated from the Israeli policy? Yes. So the question to me is not whether we can figure it out.
Hadar Susskind 49:21
I lost you there for a second? I don't know if it was you or me. But I'll but I got that. Look, people ask me this often, right, especially every time there's an announcement of you know, Israel has, you know, taken x number of dunams as state lands and, you know, legalized 1 million new settlements, and all of these horrible things that, as you said to happen more this year than any year in history, as you know, the eyes of the world have been focused more on Gaza. And there are lots of people I hear from say, oh, you know, there's just like, we missed it. It's done. Which first of all, I'm not sure what their conclusion is they're like, so does that mean we're just supposed to say okay, or like, I don't know what they think we're supposed to do with that. But I also absolutely don't think that's true. And it really is, because of what you were saying the, the settlements are horrible as they are, are a challenge, they are not something insurmountable. And all of those other things, again, where the line is, what the what the configuration is, politically, as well as geographically, all of those things can be solved with the political will. And, you know.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 50:31
I would also say, though, that I, I don't have like, so I'm not going to live in whatever configuration there is. So it's also like, not my decision to make. But my family is from Lebanon, and my grandmother grew up in a neighborhood that was Jewish, in Beirut, and almost like overnight, that community, you know, was emptied out almost completely. And, in my opinion, we lost a lot when we lost our Jewish community, you know, like there is still a very small Jewish community, and they've rebuilt the historic synagogue in Beirut. And right now, Lebanon, still if we have problems, like any country, but like, I'm very proud of the fact that we have 17 different religions living more or less with each other in that country. And so to me, it's also just not impossible to imagine that within one generation, it would just seem fine for Israelis and Palestinians to be living together in one country where they each have their their rights like that just to me. Right, like, that's not scary to me. I know it can be it's feels scary to a lot of people. But I think that's not a scary thing. And I think it's very possible.
Hadar Susskind 51:49
Yes, I'll tell you, Somebody just wrote something about this in the questions, but also, actually, I literally spoke about this at the protests yesterday, one of the things I did I talked about was quoting, you know, there's a very famous quote from Theodore Herzl, when he's talking about the creation of a Jewish state, right, the Hebrew the interior, to and Zaga da, right, if you will it, it is not a dream. That's his famous statement. That is like the idea of Zionism of creating a Jewish state, when and when he said, that was 1892. Right? People thought that was crazy. It was totally fantastical, it was inconceivable, it was not like, it wasn't about to happen thing. And there was no particular way to imagine that it would. And yet he and many, many, many people who eventually gathered behind that idea, kept working toward that goal and ultimately achieved that goal in 1948. So one of the things that I tell all the people who say right now, that peace, whether it's to states or configuration or whatever, whatever combination, like you said, the people who live there want to see it end up in that, as difficult as that is to imagine right now as far away as that feels to so many people when they see October 7, and settlement expansion and everything else, that it is no further away, and no more fantastical than Herzl's idea was, and saying, if you will it, you know, it was no dream, because the next part of that sentence was saying, but if you don't, it will remain a dream. Like if you don't do it, it will remain a dream. And I think, you know, that's why we do this every day. And I know for you, that's why you spend so much time with so many people who like want to see that better future for Israelis, for Palestinians, for everybody in the region.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 53:29
And I think bringing it back to kind of the American context. What I think if we are ever going to be serious about this is we just have to we have to match our policies with our what we say our policies, our with our actual behavior. So if we say that we that to states is our policy, then there have to be consequences when there is continued land seizures and settlement building. Right? It's not just like, we've talked earlier about conditioning aid, because of Gaza, but there are many ways in which we have levers that we can we and we just refuse to use them. And again, if we believe in these policies, then we should like we would with any other country, we should say you are doing something that is against US policy. And so we will not accept it. And we will behave differently based on your behavior. Right. And our behavior never seems to change based on the behavior of you know, of the Israeli government. And I just don't understand that. Yeah, the message that I would get if I was the Prime Minister of Israel is I can do whatever I want.
Hadar Susskind 54:38
I, I think that's clearly the message he's gotten. But when we when we first again came out with that, that position, you know, it was years ago, it had nothing to do with Gaza. It was primarily about settlement expansion and occupation. And you know, also when we talked about the need to surge aid, food, medicine, water. That to me is in some ways the most remarkable that the United States has not been willing, because it's not able, it's it hasn't been willing to insist on that. And to say, like, No, it can't be 82 trucks or 74 trucks. And I know, you know, I had the chance to meet with Jose Andres who talked about one of the things that even though it's numbers of trucks is not that useful, because oftentimes now those trucks are not completely filled, they send them when they're not full. So the fact that the United States has been unwilling to just insist on that, and you know, the people, I'm sure you've heard it, I hear it all the time. Like, why are you pressuring Israel as a sovereign nation, they can do what they want. America can't tell them to do what they want. Put aside real politics, like, we're not even insisting that America must force Israel to do something. What we're talking about here is what America should do. And America is not required to send billions of dollars of aid or weapons or any of these other things. So yes, Israel is absolutely a sovereign nation and can and should make its decisions. But this conversation happens in this like bizzare world, where it's as if the United States is not a sovereign nation, like Israel will decide the United States has to keep doing the same thing. Right. Yeah, some little work done. But we're coming to the end of our time here. We're wrapping up. I guess the last thing I want to ask you, and then, you know, add any other kind of closing comments in, we talked kind of at the beginning about the empathy deficit? And how do we, you know, how do we deal with that? So I guess I would ask you like, what do you think? What are the things that we specifically as a general answer, as an American Jewish community, like, what do you think we can be doing more to help?
Rebecca Abou-Chedid 56:42
So look, I think I can tell you then in all of the different groups that I'm in, when we started to see those protests that were like shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge, and Grand Central Station, and it was beautiful, like we were really the community was incredibly moved by that, like that solidarity that has been there for the past nine months saying not in our name, and we're with you has been incredibly meaningful to the Arab and Muslim community. And I think one of the things that we can start to do, and anyone who is on here, Hadar can tell you how to find me, like find me, I really think it would make a difference if we start, like, smaller meetings within our local communities, and then bringing those conversations to our members of Congress to say, like, here we are, right? The people who care about there's been a real effort to kind of say this is a fringe issue. Not a lot of people care about it. And I do not. I mean, I think obviously, to me, it's obvious that that's not true. Right? Young people care about this, progressives care about this, the Black community cares about this, other minority communities care about this. And so the more we could kind of have the communities that care about this, and that, like care deeply about this be the ones that go and have these conversations with members, I think it will start to look very different, they will start to relate to this issue very differently. They will not look at this as, oh, am I going to upset the Jewish community or the Arab American community, but I guess I'll pick the Jewish, right like, it's been falsely fed to them, as you have to choose between these two communities. And there may be political implications to that. I do not believe that is true. And particularly with the younger Jewish community, I just don't believe that's true. And so what we need to do is start building those coalition's within our local communities, and then bringing those to our elected representatives and saying, Look, all we're asking for is for a policy, it is for us to actually enact policies that match what we say we stand for, we say we stand for a rules based order, we say we stand for a two state solution. And we say we stand for all of these things. And we need you to go to Washington and stand for those things and stand up for those things on behalf of all of the people in this room. Because that's really what we've seen in the last nine months is that none of our communities are alone. You guys are not alone. We are not alone. And that's been, frankly, a quite pleasant surprise. But I think we need to now take that energy and mobilize it and really start having those conversations.
Hadar Susskind 59:17
Yeah. All right. Rebecca, I want to thank you for joining us today and you know, sharing your insights, sharing your views, even more than I just want to thank you for you know, always always being a partner. Thank you everybody who joined us again, this has been recorded, we will share it and we look forward to seeing you all again.