We teach life, sir

Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits filled enough with statistics to counter measured response.
And I perfected my English and I learned my UN resolutions.
But still, he asked me, Ms. Ziadah, don’t you think that everything would be resolved if you would just stop teaching so much hatred to your children? – Rafeef Ziadah

Black / Palestine solidarity forum on 9 March 2023 at Jagera Hall in Meanjin (Brisbane). Organised by Institute for Collaborative Race Research + Justice for Palestine Meanjin – Brisbane.

INTRODUCTION

The Black Palestinian solidarity night threw up a number of interesting questions. One of these was how do we give solidarity to people who are in struggle or part of a resistance. The two groups I’m thinking of First Nations people and Palestinians.

I think one of the main messages that came from the night was that giving solidarity does not mean giving advice or telling people how to conduct their struggle. For example, the Australian government has, for many years, been telling the Palestinian people that the only solution available to them is the ‘two state solution’. This cannot be true but, more than this, who are we to tell the Palestinians engaged in a deadly struggle with an occupation army about what they should do, that they should make concessions?

How are we to tell them how to go about resisting that occupation? It doesn’t make any sense, it can’t work. Our role is to provide them with support.

Another example is that a number of years ago Palestinian civil society asked solidarity groups around the world to conduct a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel. Even though that was hard to do. In Australia, where there aren’t many Israeli goods in supermarkets locally, the Justice for Palestine (Meanjin) group took up that call and conducted a number of campaigns in shopping malls against Israeli products.

The problem that we have is that BDS is outlawed by the Australian Government. It will not produce sanctions against Israel.

So, the second lesson that came out of the discussion last night from Ramzy Baroud, was that Palestinians are seeking alliances and seeking to influence people in the Global North. That is people in Western countries to adopt their cause.

We should be putting pressure on the Australian government to do that. When you look at it, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa came about through an armed struggle. And then there were sanctions imposed against the South African regime to such an extent that it had to give up apartheid. So we have a task before us.

Equally the First Nations people present made a similar plea: ‘Don’t be telling us how to resist when our children are being locked up’. ‘They are being taken from us. In effect the Aboriginal Protection Boards has been replaced by the criminal justice system, the Department of Children’s Services and other government agencies. It is up to us to support Aboriginal people in their resistance against these departments. Have a listen to what the speakers had to say at the Black / Palestine Solidarity forum. – Ian Curr, 10 Mar 2023.

SPEAKERS

Amy McQuire, Ramzy Baroud, Jamal Nabulsi (Chairperson), Chelsea Watego, Samuel Woripa Watson and Phil Monsour.

Poem
We Teach Life, Sir – Rafeef Ziadah

Transcript (apologies for any typos, inaccuracies)

Jamal 

Start by introducing our stella panel here, we’ve got Professor Chelsea Watego. Chelsea Watego is the Mununjali and South Sea islaner woman with over 20 years of experience working within indigenous health, as a health worker and researcher. She’s Professor of Indigenous Health at QUT School of Public Health and Social Work, as well as the executive director of the Carumba Institute at QUT. She’s a director at the Institute for Collaborative Race Research and a founding board member of Inala Wangarra. Her debut book ‘Another day in the Colony’, released in November 2021 was met with critical acclaim.

And next to Chelsea we’ve got Amy McQuire … Amy is a Darumbal and South Sea Islander writer with 17 years experience working as a journalist across indigenous and independent media. She’s an indigenous postdoctoral fellow at the School of Communication at QUT. Her first children’s book ‘Daybreak‘ was published in 2022. And her first non fiction book ‘Black Witness‘ will be published this year. And we’re all very excited for that one.

And last but not least, we have Dr. Ramzy Baroud joining us tonight. And Ramzy Baroud is a US Palestinian journalist, media consultant, author, internationally syndicated columnist and editor of the ‘Palestine Chronicle‘. He’s the author of six books and a contributor to many others. His latest volume co edited with Elan Pape, is ‘Our vision for liberation – engaged Palestinian leaders and intellectuals speak out‘.

So I want to start just by basically asking each of you just sort of what like ‘What brings you here tonight?’ What brings you to stand in solidarity, specifically with Palestinians or First Nations peoples as the case is? For each you?

I want to ask you, Amy, first, because I know you’ve been doing a lot of solidarity work with Palestinians for a long time now, and I think quietly have become a real leader on this front, not just here, but across the country. So I guess I’m wondering what sort of initially sparked this solidarity? Was there a particular moment? Or was it something that built more slowly?

Amy McQuire 

I think it definitely built slowly, but it really came through just knowing Palestinians and seeing not just the violence, the overt violence. I mean, I don’t think it’s even hidden anymore. But seeing the just strong resistance to it from Palestinians, and just seeing the similarities over here. Yeah, I think it just grew through that and just through connection, and everything like that. And just seeing us as both indigenous peoples under settler colonial societies, seeing the strength, but particularly seeing the silencing tactics. I think that still happens over here in different ways.

But I previously used to work for or write for publications that were complicit in the silencing of policy and voices, particularly Morry Schwartz media. So ‘The Monthly‘, ‘The Saturday Paper‘, all these other things, not really realizing just the breadth of the censorship, you know what I mean, and just how you couldn’t even speak about it. So it was very important for that advocacy to come to light to be able to see the violence in the same way that we’re seeing the violence and being able to talk about the violence in our own country. And I just didn’t feel as an Aboriginal person, I could be complicit in that silencing, writing for those sort of publications. And it’s very hard for Palestinian people over here, to get a voice in the media, you will not see it at all. And it’s the same way that they silence Aboriginal voices, there’s a very limited way that you can speak on certain issues. And if you step out of those confines, you face consequences. And there are similarities in the way Aboriginal voices and ? witnesses are treated in the same way Palestinian voices are silenced and treated. So I think it was sort of a gradual thing, but really, through seeing the shared resistances to that violence.

Jamal 

I’ll turn to Ramzy now, to ask you, because you’re in the country, primarily for the Adelaide Writers Festival. And when you were approached to do some speaking events, in some other cities, you mentioned that you said you are particularly interested in engaging with indigenous writers and activists. So I guess I want to ask, like, what makes that engagement with indigenous peoples, so important to you.

Ramzy Baroud 

Thank you very much for this and for the opportunity to speak to you today. And, and, you know, for all the work that you guys do, I mean, you are the real soldiers on the ground, you are the ones who are fighting this battle on a daily basis, we just, we just come and go. But at the end of the day, without you there is no frontlines to be fought, and there’s no battles to be won. So thank you for that. If I may just take us back a little bit. If you look back at the history of the Palestinian struggle, and I’m talking about 50s 60s 70s, all the way till the mid 80s. That’s when the PLO left Lebanon after the Israeli invasion. And that’s how the Palestinian resistance in a way became one big company, with funds and millionaires and that sort of thing. And that, that that initial act of corruption that happened to our revolution, with time translated to ‘Oslo’, we keep talking about Oslo and the Oslo peace process, and it was a bad deal for Palestinians.

But we think not to talk about the history that leads us to that particular moment. But something else happened during that time. And that is language and language, particularly around the area of solidarity. If you look back at the definition, that Zionism is a racist movement, that definition which was adopted by the United Nations, I think, in 1975, and was eventually rejected by the United Nations under American pressure after Oslo, I think, in 1991. That definition actually did not start by Palestinians themselves. It wasn’t pushed by the Arabs themselves. It was by the Africans. The African countries gathered together a few months before that resolution passed that the United Nations and they declared that the racist apartheid regime in South Africa and other African policies is very similar to the racist Zionist regime in Palestine. And therefore, we reject this kind of racism and apartheid. A few months later, the United Nations reworked that language and the General Assembly adopted that very definition. The point I’m trying to make here is that solidarity with Palestine has historically been situated within the global south within indigenous movements, it wasn’t opportunistic. It was … it didn’t involve money and geopolitics and power paradigms. It was genuine. It was innate, it was grassroots.

‘Oslo’ changed our political thinking entirely. We were told that the only way that Palestine can ever be free (is) if Washington would allow it. And that’s where our our campus began shifting. If you notice the cities that were officially affiliated with the so called peace process, from Madrid, to Paris to London, to Camp David to Washington, it was no longer conferences of solidarity that (was) happening in in ??? and Brazil and Pretoria; it was no longer something that is relatable to us from a historical point of view, at the end of the day, we lost everything. Not only we did not win any independence, and (it) also made things a lot worse. But that strategic depth that we had in the Global South was basically being lost, and we will not paying any attention to it.

Thanks to BDS, thanks to grassroots movements, thanks to engaged  academics and intellectuals and activists, we are going back there. And here’s the thing that … I’m sorry if I’m elaborating too much here … because I’m really trying to get the word solidarity, actual political meaning right. What I noticed that whenever I speak, and I’ve spoken to over 50 countries so far, whenever I speak in the north, my language,  first of all, my position, as a Palestinian, I become accused somehow, I have to explain myself, I have to justify myself, I have to talk about suicide bombings, and about Hamas, and about factionalism and so forth and so on. I never experienced that in the Global South. And that gives me a lot of hope that when I went to Nairobi, and when I went to South Africa, and when I went to ??, when I went to other countries in Asia, the conversation is not Ramzy, explain yourself. Ramzy, oh, why are your people doing this, do you? You know, Israel doesn’t have a peace partner, you guys won’t … No, that’s not the conversation, we built back into that historical trajectory. And we continue the conversation, as if this disruption of 30 years of Oslo never happened. And I think this is should always be the main focus in order for solidarity to become truly meaningful.

Jamal 

So yeah, I want to ask you, Chelsea basically the same question, like what brings you to stand in solidarity with Palestinians specifically, also feel free to, you know, riff on anything that resonated from what Ramzy said …

Chelsea Watego 

Thank you, Shane (who gave the welcome to country), for joining us here.

Look, for me, I feel, I’m relatively new on my journey. And I feel only what number anyone else to possibly fitting in the ??? of conversation, so I feel a bit thing about that. What brings me to this conversation is, I guess, as a black fella of trying to make sense of the violent machinery of settler colonialism. And it’s through conversations with Palestinian people and scholars that found a shared understanding, make sense of, of what we deal with, to what we live, we try to live within. And, you know, the hopelessness of the situation. And I’m not a fan of hope, necessarily, but what I find in these places is a larger home from which we can collectively (be) strategizing in and share the learnings in a way that better preserves the bodies of those who are subjected to violence of settler colonialism going forward. And so selfishly, I mean, I’m in this conversation to learn and to better strategize, but I’m interested in solidarity in terms of the reciprocal nature of solidarity, and what does that mean, in a settler colonial state, whatever position we, we hold and, you know, as Black fellas, we’ve seen the lack of solidarity, in this place from the settlers. But it’s also, you know, thinking about us as black fellas as an obligation being in solidarity with adults that are experiencing violence that we know too.

And so I’m interested in solidarity as something that helps reciprocal what’s our obligation as well as how we hold people accountable to the claim of solidarity at the same time. And so yeah, I found, you know, coming into the race and thinking about racism and indigeneity, there’s a limitation or sort of ”critical race theory” in other places.

And I just think some of the conversations we get to have in terms of dealing with the violence of settler colonialism. It gives me a space to think and with in the absence of literature that we normally lean to, that doesn’t exist to this unique experience that we share. And I think that’s the challenge of people claiming solidarity. But, when it comes to it, will, like, pay the costs for that. And true solidarity is such willingness to to be there when it matters. And that’s where we find people falling short, on solidarity. Who say the right things and but when it comes to what, when we’ve been betrayed, yes, still seek proximity to settlers here and to whiteness, and I’m not prepared to be disliked and hated in the way in which you know what that feels like.

And so yeah, I struggle with the flimsiness of solidarity at times. And, but also had to hold myself accountable for that as well. So if I stand for that, more than, yeah, being women, that backlash comes and standing in that, and not shying away from that. And I think that’s that’s the practices and ethics of solidarity that I think we need to be speaking about, and being honest about it, like and owning it. Because it is an ongoing practice that we really need to be talking about and reflecting on and, and holding ourselves accountable to that as to do to others, that we accept.

Jamal 

And I think these ideas really resonate as well with the notion that you mentioned yesterday, Ramzy of a ‘functional solidarity’ …

Ramzy Baroud 

Solidarity means … it’s kind of this open term that can be defined in different ways by different people. Solidarity could potentially mean that when you go to a grocery store and you see, find an Israeli product, you make a conscious decision not to buy it because you want to boycott Israeli products, which is good. I mean, that makes you a political agent. And there’s an element of initiative. And that’s important. But also solidarity means what Dr. Mads Gilbert, for example, the famous Norwegian doctor who goes to Gaza during times of war and, and he gets actively involved in saving lives, and so many of them that’s solidarity too.

There is solidarity in language that kind of persists within academic and intellectual spaces, and doesn’t really translate to anything meaningful on the ground. We’re not very good at this, I think, I think we kind of, in a sense, we resolve issues within small spaces, but we constantly fail in translating it to something meaningful, outside and how do we do that? My latest book with Elan Pape is our vision for liberation, engaged Palestinian leaders and intellectuals engaged. And that, really for me, is the fuel. The term ‘engaged intellectual‘ like ‘organic intellectual‘. These are Gramscian terms. 

Antonio Gramsci, the Anti-Fascist, you know, the scholar, who pretty much perished and died in a fascist prison all these years ago … what he argued that, that anyone, any person is capable of playing the role of the intellectual in any space, you don’t have to be a professional intellectual, you don’t have to have an academic degree and you don’t have to be perceived as such by society, but you are still capable of being an intellectual if you position yourself as such. So, anyone is capable of being an intellectual, but the most important and relevant intellectual is the ‘engaged intellectual’, that person who navigates his space between various groups. What Edward Said described as, as the, you know, the insider and outsider, you know, and this is a public intellectual that we need, and that’s the kind of intellectual work that is capable of translating such terms as solidarity to something meaningful.

And and you know, to go back to the original question, why are you why are we here? Well, we are here because we need to explore that concept. We, you know, enough for you know, this feel good moments of feeling that we all sorted this out. Yes, solidarity brothers and we end up bleeding but what does it mean for our brothers and sisters who will sleep on the street? What does it mean for Palestinians in Huawara? Who had their town burned by the settlers? What does it mean, for our brothers and sisters in America who are being shot, point blank, mainly for being black? What does it actually mean in that regard?

And if we can’t figure out the answer, then our solidarity is just empty rhetoric. And if we know how to figure it out, and it’s not an easy issue to figure it out, because settler colonial societies, the powers that controls the societies do everything in their power to destroy and to dismantle our attempt at displaying any kind of resistance, they try to break us in every possible way. So this is not an easy process, even if we all agree that we are going to translate our solidarity to something meaningful in whichever platform we operate in as intellectuals in society or as engaged intellectuals, it could not mean anything, because we are fighting against powerful forces. And I shared that story with you earlier. I want to share that with the audience.

So and it just happened that we were having great coffee earlier today. And I was trying to explain the concept of ‘functional solidarity’. ‘Intersectionality‘ is more or less the same concept. But I tried to translate this kind of thing … bring the academic hold on language, so we can all relate to it.

I grew up in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. My family was like every other family, we were all poor. There were there were no classes in our society, we had no rich people in the refugee camp, all refugees are poor. At times, we did not get money to buy food from school, we didn’t have lunch, you don’t have a school lunch, you just go and just you know, because there’s just not enough when we were six brothers. And if everybody is getting some money for lunch, my father would go broke. So we had to allocate the our money, so very carefully. But once in a while, I will be given a very small amount of money that is small enough maybe for for a piece of candy or something back nation. And I came up with this idea. With friends of mine at school, we were I think in the third grade, right. And the idea was this, everybody seems to have a small amount of money by itself, it did not serve any purpose. But if each one of us invest that money in buying a single item, I bought the falafel, others bought the bread, others the pickles and olives, others for the tea. Suddenly, we’re all sitting on a newspaper in the schoolyard. And we were having this picnic. And other kids would walk around and they would give us dirty looks, like we were the rich kids? We were as poor as everybody else, we just decided to invest our money in such a way that we can actually eat, individually, we couldn’t eat (but) together we could eat!

That is intersectionality, is just the idea that you offer certain expertise, and you will have certain influence and certain power in your community, I have the same thing in mind. If you operate against the same machinery on your own, you will be crushed. If I operate against it, I will be crushed. But if we unify our camps and operate against it, all together, we will eventually prevail.

Chelsea Watego 

When I think about solidarity in terms of traditional academic work, and I guess the thing that gets shipped to me the most is the idea that solidarity is having the most sophisticated take on someone else’s struggle, and becoming the knower of it. And that’s not what that is. But sadly, that is what happens in this place. And you know, it was this that gave me the ability to see a freedom in being the engaged academic, the marginalized scholar, and the joy, the beauty, the freedom that comes with doing things on your own terms, but finding community to do that with hence ICRR (Institute for Collaborative Race Research) and, and the community that we’re building is to define new ways to do the work and (I) think there is important intellectual work to be done. And it’s not the domain of academics within the field … universities, everybody like we’re all theorizing about this place. And to open up that space for us to collectively strategize and think just even.

There’s only so much stuff a scholar can do. You know, there are limitations to that. And I just think about like, the role of the journalists and I think we have to do with a to me and the different, how we work together, but in different ways to influence and shape thinking and take people or bring people in and make the understanding of this, this, this, this structure that we’re fighting against, it has to be accessible to people who experienced the struggle. What’s the point of it if we don’t?

Amy McQuire 

(To Ramzy) I mean, I was just even reflecting on it reading your work in the Palestine Chronicle. Because my thing is how we build up some sort of insurgent media or some sort of indigeneity, or some sort of sovereign media. And so when I was reading your work, you’re directly speaking back to violence that you’re not supposed to name, that you’re supposed to take as normalizing.

You know, when you’re doing journalism, you’re supposed to be objective, like, there’s all these core journalistic principles and use values that ultimately work against what you are trying to do. There are certain values tastes on certain people’s lives that places people about somebody’s above others. And so we have to think of new ways of doing journalism that breaks through that. And so when I was reading some of your articles, that’s what I saw, you know what I mean? And so I think it’s what we can learn from other people as well, in building our own sovereign media to speak back to balance and so often concealed. Yeah, I think we can take that from so many different places, you know, just not just see academy, journalism, art, so many other different so many other different arenas.

Jamal 

Yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, you’re all sort of in in different ways. So actively involved in, in the media. And, and, yeah, as you were talking about Amy, you know, like Palestinians, and First Nations here are so you know, misrepresented, vilified in mainstream media, ultimately, to justify violence against these two communities and to ultimately steal that land. And so I’m, I’m wondering, and you’ve very much touched on this as well, Amy already. But wondering if we can dig further into basically, what role solidarity can play in the fight in this fight in this fight that you’re talking about Amy against these misrepresentations.

Amy McQuire 

I remember a few years ago now when Eurovision was in Tel Aviv, and our representative for that year was Jessica Mauboy. And so we felt very strongly about her going over to perform at Eurovision which obviously is a case of, you know, propaganda and white washing. So we wrote, we decided to write an open letter that was co-authored by three Aboriginal writers, three Palestinian Australian writers and three Jewish Australian writers. So we went to great lengths to try and get this letter published strategically to have all those people represented. But of course, we couldn’t get it published, we ended up getting it publishing in the New Matilda. But the letter wasn’t even calling out just to come out Jessica Mauboy. It was an attempt to show what her presence at Eurovision meant in the wider scheme of things.

[FACT CHECK – The Australian representative at Eurovision in Tel Aviv in 2019 was Kate Miller-Heidke.

Jessica Mauboy did not represent Australia when it was held in Tel Aviv in 2018; Jessica represented Australia at Eurovision when it took place in Lisbon, Portugal in the following year. I note that Jessica Mauboy did perform at an event called  Israel Calling in 2018 so that may have given rise to Amy McQuire’s confusion.

I agree with Amy McQuire’s sentiment that artists who perform in Israel are being used in ‘art-washing’ apartheid. Artists who decide to promote their own careers and who can be bought by Israel will find themselves on the wrong side of history. – Ian Curr, WBT Editor.]

Amy McQuire 
But I think there are just so few avenues to contest a lot of the language that Ramzy talks about. And you only really can do it in independent media or Black Media, there is no other way. And we’ve seen that in Fairfax has seen that at News Limited just over the past few weeks. And we see that continually with Black Ink with ‘The Monthly‘ with ‘The Saturday Paper‘. And so we have to circumvents that. But that’s something that black fellas have been doing for a very long time over here. Because the media is complicit in the violence that is being continually perpetrated on black fellas over here, and we’d see that continually. And you sit in the equation. So let’s sit in the court. You sit in community, and you see all of this language used to obscure the sheer brutality of what is happening to Aboriginal people. And Chelsea will talk about it as well.

The ?? aspiration of the settler colony is to eliminate black presence from black lands. And that’s what’s happening over in Palestine as well as eliminating indigenous presence, disappearing them into jails. Gaza is the largest open air prison in the world, starving them of resources. There are so many ways and you’re not supposed to speak back to that violence and the media is complicit in concealing that violence. And so our work over here has been actively finding ways to contest it for our media to be used fundamentally as a tool for our communities as a weapon for our communities. It’s not objective, it’s not there to promote your career. It’s ??? of them to use for those on the frontline. And that’s a totally different aspiration from the majority of the mainstream media today. Yeah, so I think that…

Chelsea Watego 

… one of the challenges in terms of analysis for both of you, I think in terms of making visible the violence and ??? Fiona Foley’s work as an artist who talks about the challenge or representing violence without reproducing it. And I’m just curious about how you both navigate, you know, making visible the violence and the ethics around around how you navigate that decision making. Because, you know, our context here.

You know, you want to make visible the violence and, you know, we see families who have to go through the courts to get CCTV footage released of the death of their loved ones in custody. And then there’s a political strategy, the effectiveness of that is showing our wounds, what change does that? Does it does that affect change? Or what’s the function of it? And what does it do to ourselves in that, so I’m just really curious about how you navigate representing violence and bringing attention to the violence.

Ramzy Baroud 

… so many important issues have been raised. And I’m gonna try to so very quickly touch on that, but I’m gonna just start with with this issue, because as I have, I served as a full time journalist when I was 16 years old, in in Gaza, in the in the camp, and my job was to chase after ambulances where Palestinians were shot and killed and tried to get their names and get quotes from the, you know, bereaved families in the hospital, it wasn’t the best job in the world, and certainly the least comfortable for a 16 year old child having to do it and and since then, I haven’t stopped I mean, I can deal with it in a different way, different platforms, different representations. But essentially, it’s the same thing. We are still, you know, talking about the the six who were killed in Jenin yesterday, and the eleven who were killed in Nablus last week, and those who (were) killed ??? before that, and so forth.

So the basic element of the discussion is still people being killed. And it’s quite worrying because at the end of the day, when that becomes us, when death becomes us, when destruction becomes us, with burning and an ethnic cleansing, you know, and you know, in expropriation of land, and all that becomes us, you start wondering sometimes, like, do you lose sight of who you actually are, it’s like, you kind of allow your enemy to define you, even though you are fighting against that very definition, but you start internalizing it over time, as well.

And as a journalist, if I tried to challenge that, by like, if you go to the Palestine Chronicle, you’re going to find news about the eleven killed, the six and seven and the three and the four and the five.

But you will also if you go to the Palestine Chronicle, today, you’re going to talk about the achievements of Palestinian women on International Women’s Day, you aren’t going to see human developments, you are going to see children doing karate in Gaza, you’re going to see a Palestinian doctor who won an award, and so forth and so on. So, you know, our societies believe it or not actually do exist between Israeli wars. We don’t just drop everything and just wait for Israel to come back and kill some more. We do exist.

In fact, we thrive in many ways. I mean, the artistic movement in Palestine is a still very powerful our films, we international awards, our books, our authors are poets, our rap artists, and I know this is your area of research. Jamal we do exist, and we have to celebrate that not as a way of deflecting or like, oh, forget about this talk about happy things for change. No, because you are both connected. They try to give primacy ? of life and land and freedom. And we insist on our rights to live in on our land in freedom. And it’s just that, that that push and pull it what defines our society? What makes us strong Palestinian women. I mean, since we’re talking about the International Women’s Day 19.6% I think I’m correct with this 19.6% of all Palestinian adult women have university degrees and higher.

This is happening within the framework of colonialism and military occupation. Imagine if we didn’t have these restrictions imposed and by the way that is like one of the highest percentage in the entire region, Middle East and North Africa. That is something worth celebrating. That is something that is the alienates the power of it. of our communities as collectives, to fight back fighting back is not about firing rockets. Fighting back is not someone with a knife or a dagger or a gun fighting back, is that every day resilience insistence on education, we always complain about Israeli checkpoints, you know, preventing kids from breaching their schools preventing people from going to work.

But we don’t talk about the fact still, despite the fact that this happens every single day, you still have 10s of 1000s of people who stand on these checkpoints, insisting that they want to go to school, they want to harvest the olives, they want to live the lives, that insistence is we are making the life very difficult as well, they are making our lives very difficult. But we refuse to walk away. We refuse to walk away and not just we exist, you know, existence is resistance. Yeah. But for Palestinians, it’s not just existence is the resistance in a whole different way, exists. Like, just really one last quick story. When I went to Gaza few years ago, I kind of internalize this whole or poor Palestinians, the war and all of this. And so I go with this deep sadness. It’s been many years, since I went to Gaza. And I, you know, the news that we are living this tragedy from far away without being part of the community, the everyday community.

So I go and I’m sitting in an internet cafe, somewhere in very ??? neighborhood in Gaza City. And when I look at … all the posters, there’s only one of the posters in the streets, you know, pictures of entire families, and I assume that they’re all these are the people who were killed in the last war and those people killed in the previous war. But then I start kind of looking closer, and I start realizing no, some of them were killed in previous wars.

But some of them are you graduate standards, congratulating other families for you know, ultimate ???, you know, a thousand congratulations for the graduation of your son from the university or, or picture of couples who just got married and, and people who want to do pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, they came back and, and then I looked at this using this mix of tragedy and hope, at the exact same time, pictures of families that died that pictures of newborn on top of one another. And I’m just trying to make sense out of it.

I was born in Gaza. But sometimes these things escape you. That’s the secret of continuity of Palestinian society. And then I hear this ?? racket coming from somewhere, loud, loud music. And in this massive caravan of cars, people go to a wedding hall, from a refugee camp to a different refugee camp. We’re talking about months after one of the most destructive wars, right. And they wouldn’t wait until they got to the wedding hall to celebrate, they will all have terrible hurts on top of the trucks. Even the music dance was in the back of this big truck, all playing their music and people dancing in the streets. And yeah, that’s what I now this is the Gaza, I remember it’s it is that mix, they come and they blow things up and white phosphorus and children and people get buried and, and then the following day, we go back to our mosques and churches and we pray, we go to our markets and we bargain. We go to our schools, and we celebrate and we carry on with our plan as if nothing has happened. We refuse to internalize and be defined by our victim-hood and by their wars. And that’s, I think, is the secret of our society. And that’s why we keep going 75 years into this ongoing genocide. And yes, we refuse to be defeated or to surrender under any circumstance (applause)

Jamal 

Did you want to pick up on any any threads from that?

Amy McQuire 

Yeah, um, I mean, I think that’s been one of the big issues in relation to reporting of Aboriginal Affairs. Over the past decade, you know, it’s just that we continually see these images of the ?? of black bodies of black women, women, black children of black men, particularly in the justice system, but even outside of the justice system, and it fails to when these images come out. They fail to shock. Australia if it’s shocked Australia’s only for the next probably a week if it fails to lead to any concerted action. And I suppose to look particularly around the deaths and disappearances of Aboriginal women particularly, but the way that they were spoken about that denied them justice in any form, but also in a way that the courts in the media continually reproduce that violence through representational violence through failing to see them as people, but always seeing them predominantly from the lens of their bodies, only speaking of them as body parts or wounds, and ways that denied them for person-hood and ways that fail to continue deliver justice, in the ways that Aboriginal people wanted justice. And that’s been continual from the days of the frontier to now and that we have all of these anonymous tales of Aboriginal people who have been killed or being disappeared, and that there is no justice to any of them. And the media has been so complicit in that continual brutalization. And so I felt that we needed a way to speak back to that violence in ways that continually did not bury the women again, or repeat, perpetrate those things in those same ways.

Because when we show those images of trauma, it does not do anything except feed this insatiable appetite that white Australia has always set upon the brutalization of black bodies, because that’s the beginning of the colony. And so I felt we needed a different way to speak to this. And I started to look into particularly an amazing Aboriginal Canadian academical, ????, he speaks of presencing. And speaking back to this violence through acts of presence. And it’s my phone and I started to see it as not particularly humanisation because when media humanizes Aboriginal people, it’s often to make them closer to what they seem as human, which is always closer to whiteness.

So you’re always humanized in relation to the traits that are most palatable to white people. And that obscures many things and obscures a lot of levels of violence that Aboriginal women are blamed for when they could be resistant, you’re resisting violence, but then you’re framed as being violent. And so and so I felt we needed a different way to speak to these stories that continually just didn’t see us as bodies that are open for violation, but instead of, of people who have a right to live free of violence, you know, I felt like why Australia is not ready to hear those stories.

And so we must tell those stories, not particularly for White Australia, but to be given back to the families to be given back to communities. And because right now we do have that issue in this country, we have a crisis for Aboriginal women, Aboriginal children and men are being funneled into really violent systems that are electronic, or like to really popular which we see in Queensland, particularly around the Aboriginal children, and the targeting of Aboriginal children, the opening up of neutral jails. And that is something that is sustaining the state of Queensland is harsh on border policies. And it is sustained by a lot of these images that you see of these violent Aboriginal children. They’re just children, you know what I mean?

So I felt we really needed, the media had such a huge responsibility. But the more I looked at the media, I felt like they were never going to be up to that task at all the mainstream media, and then I said, look at you know, it’s always been the mainstream media in this country has always been a tool of imperialism. It’s always been a tool to colonialism. You look back into the archive, even the ??? voices were incredibly racist, as we know. And I don’t think they should be given any excuses because they are of their time, you know, they are working towards what we know now is the invasion of this country and the continual invasion of the country.

This is happening in real time in Palestine. And so speaking back to that, through independent media, through social media, through different forms of media, and I often talk we’re, we’re in a time of crisis, climate crisis, and our media has utterly failed everyone. And so why are we still looking to reform the media? We’ve why are we still looking to have a place in the mainstream media, we need to have a place outside of that media to be able to inform our communities to start building these things, to start speaking back to the violence that is so normalized, that people take it as a given.

You only have to look at what’s happening right now in this state of Queensland, the state of disappearance so they continually wanting to brutalize the most vulnerable people, and everyone is okay with it. You know what I mean? I feel like the mainstream media as a whole is completely just, it can’t be. You can’t reform it. You can’t get in there and change it. You literally just can’t, you’re working in this. It’s no different from any other colonial apparatus in this country. You know, the police symbol in the media, the media inform the police, regardless of the of the stories of the racism and agenda boxes, police in the media, they still go back and use the police as the primary informants. They’re still using the politicians as the primary informants. They don’t interrogate any anything, you know what I mean? And they They normalize those really horrific logic, which is sitting here looking at anything, how on earth could we think that this is okay? You know what I mean?

Ramzy Baroud 

Many excellent points, particularly the one about reforming the media, because we’ve had to set in stone that trap for a long time, we thought that if we just try a little bit harder, and use the like language, we’re keeping in mind Western sensibilities in western audiences, and so forth, and so on, eventually, we will be given a little bit of space in the media and with time, we are going to change everything. And that is just foolish simply. I think it’s just, I think it’s just part of the mental and intellectual colonization that was imposed on us in the process. We call it keep going, keep referring to it in the US in the West as mainstream media, it’s not mainstream media. It’s corporate media. And corporate media, by definition, it’s a company. This is a company that wants to make profits. It’s not there to raise issues concerning human rights and bring justice to everybody and equality, for all it foresight, and don’t be stupid to think otherwise. So you have these corporate media machines, I’m sure that many of you it’s an academic setting.

So I think many of you are really familiar with Noam Chomsky’s book, Manufacturing Consent. And the idea that the way that the media works hand in hand with governments and the, you know, it’s all part of the same apparatus, these are not two independent elements. I feel so guilty when I take more time than I have done that I should say, keep apologizing. But there’s something we call superstructure. Okay, what is superstructure? Every every economic mode anywhere in the world doesn’t just exist on its own. Yeah, it has to come with the kind of language that that justifies it. That explains it. That defends it. That’s the superstructure. So think of what is the what is the biggest industries in this cell? Can you can you give me an example? What is the biggest industry here? What is the local economy?

Jonathan Sriranganathan:

Construction.

Ramzy Baroud 

… construction? Excellent. So you will have construction, we call this superstructure. Yeah. In order for the construction business to continue thriving, a lot of people would have to be involved in lobbying with the government in writing positive articles about it in the newspapers, churches, maybe you know, when Quinn gets a little bit of money, and you do some a little bit of promotion, if he was involved in defending that, you know, that economic mood, that’s what we call the superstructure, right, the superstructure there is the ideas, the politics, even the music.

It’s all part of the superstructure, what American government, for example, is constantly promoting mainstream musicians. And because they are all pushing their own country’s agenda, but at a cultural level. Yeah. So to assume that the New York Times and The Washington Post and a, CNN and everybody else, it just this independence out these independent outlets that are making moral decisions, and professional decisions, completely independent of the economic powers that control the United States, the power of the lobbies, the people with the money, it’s crazy, because it wouldn’t never happen. And so for us to just assume that they are going to change overnight or ever, ever. It’s just a waste of time. So what we need to do alternatively, is alternative media, truly independent media, community media. Now this may seem like Okay, so we are going to open a website and talk about indigenous struggles in a sort of like an everyday use reality. We’re not going to get so many views. But here’s the thing you are building, grassroots movements. It’s a long process. It’s going to take years when we started the Palestine chronicle back in 1999. It was it was a pathetic little project that used to have few people coming to the website every day, then the Palestinian intifada happen, that was September 2000, or 2000. And then suddenly, 1000s of people are coming in. And then whenever there’s any breaking news in Palestine, you have hundreds of people that any given second on the website. Now it’s the leading Palestinian news website. anywhere in the world. And then we under the French website called ???.

And now we are working towards launching a Italian website, but it’s on chronicle Italia. And we’re going to keep going and doing this. And to the point that at the festival, I was told Ramzy there is a guy from The New York Times who wants to talk to you. Now, if this happened 15 years ago, I would drop everything, and I would go running to talk to him. And the little mention even positive, one positive sentence about Palestine would have been worth it. And I actually had a meeting with two indigenous activists who needed to leave the country all the way to the airport. And I said, I want to talk to him. And I went, and I spoke with indigenous activists. The point I’m trying to make here is that our salvation is going to come through our own mediums of communication. And we need to start believing in ourselves.

By the way, I know many Palestinians who elect you will be thinking about your work that we do they think it’s ineffectual, it’s irrelevant. They would rather pay money and donate to organizations that speak on behalf of the Palestinians. Because you know why people have no legitimacy. So they listen to us, you see, which is sad. So we need to start believing in ourselves and understanding that, that Palestine would never be free, through the editorial pages of the New York Times, is going to be free through the everyday dedication, resilience of the Palestinians of Palestine, but also of people who genuinely and truly support and communicate the Palestinian message worldwide. That’s how

Jamal 

Did you want to want to add anything to that Chelsea? Before I open it up to the, to the floor for questions?

Chelsea Watego 

Yeah, I think that’s just yesterday that I think people forget, also the violence of the concessions that need to be made in the appeal, to have someone speak on on your behalf and not believing in yourself and the freedom and joy that comes from building on your own terms, because you suddenly realize how much lighter you’re exhausting in an appeal to exist in those spaces, or to find carve out space in those spaces. And that you actually don’t get time to do the work with your own people, because you’re constantly in this appeal. And I think that’s, you know, took me a while to arrive at that. And I guess everything you said about the new year is the same for the Academy, that why do we believe academic institutions would do any better. They’re built on stolen land and profit from that. And so coming to it, you know, the big ICRR it’s a small house, it’s just this little house, but it is about that building, in places that are not predicated upon, you’re not existing. And the Edit may be the hard road and the long road and that’s you know, it keeps you from certain tables, we believe power resides. But that thinking that means you forget your own fucking power, when we can’t forget that. And so that’s just in that yarn with your really relate to that and giving up on the hope that somehow our humanity will be seen and recognized and realizing and standing your own power and I know, after saying sitting here for someone who helped me arrive at that place, or you know, knowing our power, and I think we talked about solidarity, sovereignty, when we remember who we are, where we come from, and work from that basis. We are so more powerful and more effective. And not not just in our time, but for those that follow for generations to come. Because that’s our responsibility in this time is for those that follow thank you

Jamal 

free to ask your question to a specific person or to the power in general

David Alberquerque (JFP Meanjin)

Uh, thank you for coming here. And thank you for letting us ask questions. You know, the system, the white man system audit what you will, in response to the suppression comes up with offers an example would be here in Australia, you’ve got the voice, and it could be a parallel or not in the offer made to the Palestinians. Uh, how do you, Ramzy … and how do you and the other speaker see these offers? Are they enough on a par three to something better? How do you evaluate? And that’s my question. Thanks.

Ramzy Baroud 

My answer is going to be very quick. So you guys can elaborate. We’ve never been offered anything. So sure. If the reference is also an all of that, not only we will not really offer anything, we lost a lot more since you know what was promoted in the media as some kind of an offer. You guys remember when the candlestick talks were taking place? And Yasser Arafat, Whoo, hoo, Barak, and Bill Clinton, you know, we’re negotiating, you know, some sort of a settlement. And then and then the media could say that Yasser Arafat rejected a generous offer a generous others. And this was like this the buzzword, the generous, our people like you Palestinians are so ungrateful. And the end of the day, there was actually no offer generous or otherwise. And the whole thing was immediate ploy. But it registered with millions of people that Palestinians were the ones who are responsible for the, you know, the end of the peace process because they rejected. So if, if the term offer is ever involved in the Palestinian discourse, it’s always a media ploy. It’s a lie is deception. Never, no offers have been been made. And honestly, I don’t think Palestinian freedom will ever be exactly two offers anyway. I think it is just a process and organic process of the people’s resistance themselves. And eventually we will arrive at that moment when we feel that whatever situation we had created through our resistance is going to bring guarantee the you know, what we perceive to be the minimal amount of rights that we’re fighting for, and only then we can start engaging with that new reality.

Chelsea Watego 

I mean, yeah, there’s always the voice question. You know, I think about the voice and also three here in the state of Queensland, suppose a treaty. While you know, bringing in new horse, silicate, black kids and target black kids, specifically, you know, we’re told treaties that renegotiating relationship between the state government and black fellows yet we’ve seen a big it’s reinforced in real time right now. So it’s not an author. It’s, it’s, it feels like these processes being used in a way that we forget who we are, where we come from whose land but on two, separate with some more comfortable about occupying stolen land and giving nothing while making a steal and grateful natives. I mean, the fact that we’re being offered a suppose if all we saw which we don’t get to decide whether we have it or not. And there’s no actual sense that it comes with any actual power. I mean, it has a whole Native Title vibe about it. And so this is, I guess, the violence of this place is the way in which it’s disguised, that the state can present itself as somehow a solution to the problem. It’s, it represents, and that’s where a slug goes, we have to know the truth. So remember who we are and where we come from, whose land it is, and who should decide and on what terms and not to buy into the idea that that’s some awful or a gift because it isn’t…

Amy McQuire 

just add to what Chelsea just said, it’s being framed as this once in a lifetime chance. Which is crazy, because when this whole debate began was about how we protect more from racial discrimination, because apparently we have a racist constitution and a watered down to such an extent that it became something that could pass at a referendum that the Australian people would be proud of. And so it’s always been something that’s been sold to the rest of Australia at the expense of black Australia, who at the heart want to talk about these issues that are currently happening in our communities, that that we do not have any protection against racial violence, gender sexist violence, and we’re seeing it right now. And so you know, You see even Annastacia Palaszczuk putting up a video about International Women’s Day and tape maintaining the radial at the same time she’s looking up like kids. But same time we have Aboriginal women who still disappeared in this state with the Coroner’s Court and, you know, laying the groundwork for impunity. It’s just, it doesn’t really give us any protection. You know what I mean? It’s just been watered down so that white Australian can have it feel good moment. And it will be really scary as we go into a referendum and we see the inevitable racist dialogue that is going to be drummed up in a referendum. So it’s hard to see how it is an offering, as you say, or does it give

Chelsea Watego 

you only have race discrimination legislation that puts us suspended at any given time and even tells us that the state will still compete for costs on your watch those signs.

Thanks so much.

Jamal 

Yeah, who else got questions? Come on. Don’t Don’t be shy. This one down here as well afterwards?

Gareth Evans from Bryon Bay Friends of Palestine

My question is directed mainly to you Ramzy. Today is ??? an incredibly interesting article about Scotland ??? There’ll be Israeli Air Force threatening to go on strike unless the regime took the heat off the Supreme Court of Israel. And that rebellion seems to have a potential to spread. So I’d like to know how Palestinians who are currently still fighting their frontier wars. So how could they best exploit what’s happening in Israel?

Ramzy Baroud 

It’s your lucky day. Because today I was actually doing research and writing about this particular subject. It’s very funny. So, Mark Gruffalo (The Hulk), a really famous Hollywood celebrity tweeted yesterday … Yeah. He tweeted,  calling for sanctions against the current Israeli government. I thought that was very interesting. Now I know Mark. And I know that he is a very smart person. BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. We have been talking about boycott. And we’ve achieved divestment, but we haven’t yet achieved sanctions, because sanctions are state centered. Right. So he saw that in that opportunity, is the Israelis, after all, who are diligently managing their own government are saying it’s a fascist government. So he was strategic by saying, let’s sanction this government, not all of Israel all the time, this particular government, he threw the S word over there, right sanctions, the same way that Jimmy Carter through the apartheid war, were over there as well, when he wrote his book, Israel, and Palestine peace and apartheid.

And ?? two people call them anti-semitic at the time. But eventually everybody caught up with him. And now, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch many other human rights organizations, including Israel’s leading human rights organization, but seldom is calling what’s happening, apartheid. So that’s where the opportunities come in. We can explore it this margins, because now there is a lot of anger against Netanyahu, and we could kind of push ourselves in them and try to expose the Israeli government for our own reasons.

But it doesn’t mean that what is happening in Israel is in any way related to what is happening in Palestine. The fact is, the leaders of this movements are the former ministers of Netanyahu’s government, which in 2022, according to the United Nations opposite Palestine, has killed more Palestinians within one year than any other government since 2005.

And that includes Netanyahu, his own government, so will be again sleeves, this Anti Fascist solution, and the man has himself killed so many Palestinians, we know that this is not our revolution. Right? This reminds me of so many scenarios that transpire in the United States in particular, for example, if you remember, the Wall Street movement, the 99 percenters years ago, and then you have the Black Lives Matter movement, these are completed in two different movements, upper middle class white kids, you know, demanding jobs, greater equality within the own class. A space as opposed to people who are fighting for mere survival. Right? So so there are no overlaps in actuality maybe is what it is one day they will develop enough class consciousness and realize that maybe their fate is connecting to that or the policy, I’m still hoping that maybe that is going to happen. I mean, after all, 60% of all Israeli Jews or Arabs, or Arabs or suffer, deems they are, they are you call them Spanish, or they call them or of Jews, the group and better aren’t Jews, but the majority are actually Arabs.

So there’s always this part of me that says, Well, maybe one day, that is going to happen, but it’s not happening. Now. One final point I would like to add to this, is let’s imagine that these protesters succeed in resort restoring the status quo in Israel, where the Supreme Court is independent from governments and intervention and that sort of thing. But what is the status quo that existed prior to the decisions made by Netanyahu?

After all, it was the Supreme Court the sanction or the demolitions in Palestine, or the theft of Palestinian lands, they are the ones who approve the nation state law that says only Jews have rights in Palestine, and nobody else has any lives. So their status quo is still our death anyway. You see, so we have to be very careful about it. But that does not preclude the fact that we could use this as an opportunity to expose the fraudulent democracy that exists in Israel, and it has always existed.

Palestinian student
Thank you very much speakers. I hope I communicate this clearly. But going back to the notion of engage intellectual and solidarity, on grounds like Meanjin here, how could we manifest these notions once also maintaining enough credibility … to maintain adequate living status? So I hope this makes sense. You said that again? The same exact question are the old kids are in prison?

Chelsea Watego 

What do you mean by credibility?

Palestinian student
Not credibility, maybe an adequate living status to give some context, I’m a Palestinian who’s studying in Australia, and I know that I need to maintain diplomatic colours. So it may seem unclear to me how I can do that.

Jamal 

I don’t know if that’s allowed, actually. Yeah, I mean, this is obviously a big struggle for many Palestinians. If I understood your question correctly, in different circumstances, in different ways, like Palestinians, like yourself coming here, there is the you know, there’s always the threat, if you’re really openly engaged in resistance, that kind of thing. Probably honestly, particularly in indigenous struggles, the way that the you know, the Australian government sees that as, you know, such a threat to their state sovereignty. There’s always the, there’s always the risk of, you know, being kicked out of the country, basically.

And for someone like me, myself, it’s almost it’s like the same thing. But the inverse, there’s a risk of not being let back into Palestine, by the Israelis obviously control the borders. So not being left back in there. And this is one of the really kind of insidious ways that like, our Palestinian resistance is quelled, right. And like, I’ve felt it, you know, for myself as well. And like, it works through things like anxiety, like paranoia about surveillance and that kind of thing. And yeah, I think for me, personally, anyway, I got to the point where I just had to let go have have the kind of hope of returning again to Palestine, basically, in order to buy Palestine. So, and but it’s always a personal choice as well. And it’s a different circumstance. I don’t know your exact circumstance, but it’s obviously a very different one. So I think it’s, it’s yeah, it’s a struggle that we all individually face. And we have to work out the ethics of that in conversation with each other. Yeah.

J M

I have a question for Ramzy. You know, the status of Palestinians in Jerusalem in that Palestinians do not have citizenship there, but they have a residency status. Do you think this current Israeli Government will impose annexation, either in the whole of Palestine and create a situation similar to Jerusalem in not allowing Palestinian citizenship and imposing a residency scenario? Is it a similar situation?

Ramzy Baroud 

Right. So just a little bit of context to that questions. A very good question, just a little bit of background. So Palestinians, are kind of all living under various types of rules and divisions and lines, you have the besieged Gaza Strip, the Israeli says that we have disengaged from here, the international community says, Nope, it’s still an occupied territories, then you have the West Bank divided to three areas A, B, and C, and I don’t, if you are getting confused, and you will get confused. That’s the whole point is to create this confusion. That, you know, the west bank is a separate discussion, area C is a separate discussion from Gaza, Jerusalem is something different, and so forth. It’s just the same military occupation, the same apartheid, the same racism, the same, you know, mechanisms of controlling and dominance, but there’s really sort of break it down in such a way, because they want to divide the Palestinians, because some Palestinians for a while, so that they are a little bit luckier than other Palestinians. So if you are a Palestinian, who is a native still living in Palestine, today’s Israel, you have a citizenship, you don’t have equal rights, you don’t have equal rights, you are still a second, third or fourth status citizen, but you still have a passport. That gives you a little bit more freedom than a Palestinian living in the West span. But Palestinians in the West Bank also have Jordanian passports, that makes them feel a little bit luckier than those like the unfortunate some like us in Gaza. We have nothing. I remember when I used Gaza, for the first time, I had what they called the Law, say per se, like an Israeli travel document just made for people in Gaza. And it says nationality and defined.

So when I went to the first like border crossing paths Palestine, the officer is looking at that and he says, Who are you? I am a Palestinian. He says, I don’t care what your passport doesn’t say anything. It has no nationality. It’s meaningless, right? So all of these kinds of, you know, Israeli mechanisms have been aimed at dividing Palestinians, administering them in different ways, but ultimately, the ultimate objective, take more land, build more settlements into the land from its people as much as possible. But then something happened and it culminated to the May 2021 revolt in Palestine, a revolt that in my opinion, is still ongoing and manifesting itself every day in various Palestinian policies. And I think that’s the moment that is what is have realized that their plan has failed. The Palestinians, the quote, so called Israeli RFCs are the Palestinians who are living in the so called Israel proper. This is Palestinian land that was pronounced in 1947/48. Having forgotten or abandoned their identity.

Palestinians in Gaza who were supposed to be isolated from the West Bank, still stood in the same card. If you remember, you guys, the whole thing started with a shift around the house demolitions. That is Jerusalem. The resistance in Gaza ??? ?? Israelis. In retaliation, Palestinians in Haifa and Jaffa and rose in rebellion against the Israelis and suddenly Israel was in a state of civil war. The army is in the streets and there was a complete panic that is what your immediate described this as.

This is 1948 all over again, like everything that we have done to break them If we think we have done to divide them, at least at least we were able to attack what area that time without the others retaliating now and as citizens are developing this new political discourse, that is a lot resection organ, it’s ever been new groups that are not affiliated with any other pre existing political groups, young people who are very smart, very connected, and developing this whole, you know, slogans that ideas that the Caesars all as one and the same.

And that’s where the the risk of Israel is beginning to take actions against, you know, to kind of use that passport as a leverage to use that presidency as a leverage. Now we are passing a large have passed its first reading and the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, that basically says there’s any Palestinian that that carries out a terrorist attack. But it’s written in the weirdest possible way, not any Palestinian, who carries out the terrorist attack, but someone who has who tries to harm the interests of the Jewish people, whatever that means, is to be executed. So they are bringing back the executions that they have stopped 6070 years ago, Israel is in a state of panic.

Israel is in a state of panic.

And the real panic here is that Palestinians in terms of numbers, they are now equaling the Israeli Jews, in terms of political identity, they are becoming again unified in terms of political discourse, they have completely abandoned the entire Oslo framework, nobody is talking about that. And even in terms of one state versus two states, majority of Palestinians in the West Bank, for the first time in history, are now demanding equal rights in one state.

And that’s where the panic of Israel is happening. And this is why the rush to change the nature of the Supreme Court and alter the judicial system. They are trying to do everything in their power to stop that collapse. And I think there’s a lot of hope. In all of this. I know sometimes when you were talking about hope you go to the US and you realize another number of Palestinians were killed. It’s like, Where’s this coming from? But if you actually look at it from from a kind of a wider perspective, you would see that Israeli political establishment is collapsing at the seams. And it’s the Palestinians, on the other hand, that are rebuilding their national unity and their political discourse once more.

Question

This is a general question for everyone on the panel. I’m curious to know when it comes to these movements, what role do white allies play?

Chelsea Watego 

Out support instead of evil? I mean, I get flack for this question, because I don’t really care anymore. To be honest. We’ve been trained to, you know, be of service to white balance, even in our own struggle. And so I found a freedom and not investing in that and really about how we build our own black collectives where we find them, because that’s where the power lies. It’s not with white people. I mean, I like to think that and we’ve bought into that, but we have, yeah, I’m just not exhausting my labor anymore on teaching white people how to be better settlers. If there wasn’t many would have been written by now that I’ve read it and followed it. So yeah, I think Yeah.

Chelsea Watego 

I think I think why people need to teach people how to be well, you’re ….

Ramzy Baroud 

So this is really interesting, because because for us, as silly as we do need all kinds of alliances, and I wouldn’t put it that way. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t even use the term white allies. I mean, you know, the term white people is relatively from a historical point of view is a new term, like maybe but mid 17th century, and the term was created prior to that people were Germans and French and Polish and Russian they were not white.

White was was a concept that was created to the elite power. Relations, especially during the slavery of black people in the United States, in order for us to keep the slaves in their place, we needed to create a power paradigm in which there are people who are doing the domination, and another group that is being dominated. Therefore, the white people rose out of the the misery of black people. And if you ask me, what do you expect from these white people? I just told you it’s a power relations, it’s about dominance. What do I need from someone who defines his very existence based on dominating me, I have nothing to do with that person. So I would widen that definition. And I say people from all over the world, first of all, indigenous peoples, people who went through the process of national liberation, anti colonial movements all over the world, these are the first line of alliances, because, number one, they completely relate to what you have been through.

And they know that by our freedom, I mean, when Nelson Mandela said, the freedom of palette of our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians. He was not writing poetry, he understood, he understood the freedom cannot be sectionalize. And this either, we are all free at the same time. We were no one of us is free. And that’s true. So that’s our first line of defense. But but we also we want to delegitimize Israel internationally, I am keen on De legitimizing Israel in France and Spain and Canada, as well, because that’s what Israel gets its power, its money. We believe when Netanyahu says things like they are trying to delegitimize the State of Israel in reference to the BDS movement. And he’s right, for once in his life, he’s actually telling the truth. Right? We are trying to but we’re not trying to delegitimize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. We are trying to delegitimize Israel as an apartheid racist regime. And that business systemization cannot happen without the solidarity of everyone everywhere, right. And that’s why we have to work with everyone. But with the understanding that solidarity does not mean replacement. These conferences that have always been held in the name of Palestine and Europe. And sometimes you don’t find a single Palestinian on the panel. You know, we can’t go through that. Again, that’s not solidarity. That’s another way of manufacturing dominance, but in a different mechanism is that that control and we can’t allow that to happen. So solidarity means you stand by my side, give me the platform, give me the space. And more importantly, please do not teach me how to resist, please, if you Oh, who was the thief, that person and poets or thief zyada a whole lot. We teach live, sir. We teach resistance. We’ve been doing this for a century, we know how to resist. In 1936, Palestinians carried out a gentleman strike that extended for six months. And that led to a rebellion that lasted for three years. Imagine the political consciousness of a group of people who were called Fela heap peasants. They didn’t know how to read or write. But they had enough political consciousness that they would they would persist despite of British violence and Zionist violence, and they would carry on with that kind of mobilization at a mass scale. We don’t need anybody to come and say, we don’t use violence, do this. Why are hummus? No, no, no, this is not your business. That’s that’s our own fight, we are going to fight for that. And we will win. But your responsibility is to look at the actions of your own governments. Right? The taxes that are collected on your behalf, and a portion of the sack taxes pays for the weapons and the guns and the bullets that kill our children. That’s your responsibility. And if if you being a true ally, you will work very actively to reverse this, this devastating mechanism that keeps feeding Israel with all these weapons and with all this money, we need that kind of solidarity, because that’s meaningful solidarity, but not as solidarity of imposition of power relations and dominance once more.

Jamal 

All right, unless you have another question lined up Medina. Yeah. Okay. All right. We’ll make this the final question then. And then we’ll get to dinner because I know everyone’s hungry. Thanks. So

the panel. My question is directly to Ramzy. I agree with you that is way of panicking. It is pretty obvious. I don’t think these Whaley projects firming is viable Any way you look at it. I fully agree. So there is hope. However, on the other hand, you have the one probably the most extreme Israeli government since the establishment of the state. You have settlers so in why, in my mind is only what took you so long. I mean, you have the full support of everybody in the world. The smallest weapon any settler carries, it’s probably a noisy anything below that, you know, it’s just not worth it. What? How do you see that evolving with the settlements Gone Wild, and they will go wild and Wilder, especially also in light of the last acaba meeting, where there were direct instructions to Abbas and his crew, and even an American plan of establishing policies, special forces with the sole purpose of crushing the resistance, which is part of the Hokey talked about of groups that are not affiliated with any actors on the ground, specially along Jerry show madness. And, Julie, thank you.

Ramzy Baroud 

There has been an understanding that Israel had with its European and Western allies and benefactors, specially Washington, it’s a Shabbat, everybody knew from the very beginning that Israel was in fully a true democracy. You can’t come and say, I’m a democratic country for white people only, but not black people. Not a democracy, you can say I’m democratic countries have chosen or non Jews are, you know, to be excluded from from from this structure. It doesn’t work that way. Now, Americans knew it, everybody knew it. But they just needed one thing for Israel. And one thing, only keep the Shabbat going for as long as possible. Keep claiming to be the grave, the only democracy in the Middle East and a beacon for human civilization. You are the people who made the desert bloom and all that nonsense. But at the same time, you just carry on with your colonization projects, destroying trees, killing people doing all of this. And now Israel has violated that unwritten agreement. Because now Israel is putting its European allies in a very, very difficult position. When you have someone like smoke, which the the new finance minister declare enough in a public space, that I am a fascist homophobe. What did you leave for your allies? What? What is the give them some material for their propaganda? We are running out of money out. Oh, really, right now. And yet, more and more people are going to become aware that, you know, if you found some sort of moral, acrobatic way of, you know, supporting Israel, no matter what, I think for a large section of the human population, I think this is becoming more and more difficult. If you support fascism, them support Israel, because they are fascists and the admit that you’re a fascist now I think is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And it’s just the nature of things. There’s ways and I’m just not going to give out and just say, okay, you know, what we are, we’re ready to strike a deal or make an offer, as the gentleman over there, suggested earlier, it’s not going to happen, they are going to fight until the bitter end. But I think as they carry on with this fight, more and more voices around the world will continue to rise in solidarity with Palestine. And here’s one last thing, two last things that’s alive. Two last things. Number one, I did an interview with Professor Richard Falk recently. And I asked him, Do you Where does your hope come from for Palestine? He said, Listen, I’ve been doing this for a long time. And I’ve spent many years at the United Nations. And from my reading of history, he’s a great historian, great international law expert. And he said, from my experience in both history and law, I can tell you this, there are two kinds of wars that are fought in these kinds of contexts, like the Palestinian context, the actual war on the ground, weapons guns, at 30, fives and that sort of thing, and the legitimacy of war. And he said Palestinians may be losing the war, the actual war because they have no army, and they are being fed with billions of dollars of American and Western weapons that we hear. But the Palestinians are winning the legitimacy war, and he said Never in history in the history of national liberation movements with anyone, when winning the legitimacy war, yet lost the word of the Korean. So Palestinians are set on a course of victory. It’s only a matter of time. And here’s the second thing you must have heard few weeks ago when the Israelis joined the African Union summit. They arrived as observers and we kind of are being ushered into their seats, what they didn’t realize that the mood in Africa has changed. There’s a new awakening in Africa, France is being kicked out from Mali, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Central African Republic, and so forth. And there’s new thinking that maybe Africa needs to use this massive geopolitical war that’s happening in Europe, to start building up its own independence and credibility. And when that happens, you know, good things are gonna happen to all of Africa’s allies, the outcome was security officers came ashore, because what you missed out, you’re out of here. And that wasn’t an omission or a mistake, the issue the statement, South Africa, just pass have voted in the parliament, Israel has no place in Africa. And that is the legitimacy war, and we are winning that legitimacy war squarely. So that is really panic cannot possibly that anything is going to actually advance our, our, our moral victory. And with time, I think they are going to realize that nothing we could possibly do, no amount of firepower can possibly it is worse this subjective.

Jamal 

So the next ICRI event, which is on indigenous sovereignty, and climate justice, will be on the 25th of March at sellside. House. So keep an eye out for that event. Be it’d be great to see everyone there as well. And then we have a couple of I’m going to pass the mic over to first of all, to to sand.

A salary for Watson, a one year Barbara Barry GABA, socialist activist here in our so called Brisbane, want to pay my respects to uncle and rightful owners of this land? I’m a member of the black people’s Union, where a union that is run by black people, poor black people, you know, focusing on revolution, not reform. I really liked when he said, you know, why would we try and reform a media that has failed us. And I think that that is the exact same way that we should view the government, this government has absolutely failed us. It has made no action on deaths in custody, no action on incarceration, it locks up children as young as 10. It has made no action on the climate crisis. In fact, it was a Labour government that extinguished the native title rights of women juggling their people, and bankrupted Adrian Barry got her in court so that he could not fight them anymore. So, you know, I think, why why would we want to reform that apparatus? And why would we want to trust any offer, I really like to talk about offers to why would we want to trust any author that is given from that apparatus to give us liberation, to give us self determination and sovereignty, it can’t, because that apparatus exists. And it was built and exists on stolen land. And it exists to keep that land stolen, and to exploit wealth and profit from the land and from the people who live here. So next Saturday, we’re going to be protesting the voice of parliament over in Queens gardens at 11 o’clock. You know, and we’re going to be saying as we demand better than the voice, you know, the voice is a non binding advisory council to Parliament. It is a body that is not democratically chosen by Aboriginal people. It is a body that is chosen by the government of the day. It’s going to be created by a referendum which will permanently change the constitution so that every government gets to a point that if that advisory model, that advisory body, can you imagine the likes of Justin surprise, or Warren Monday on the body? Can you imagine what I would say on behalf of Aboriginal people? So I will not have the voice. And I would hope that no one in this room would fall for such a folly. And I just want to say one more thing on solidarity. I really I really like the talk about solidarity and reply to the question from the back there. We want solidarity, not charity. We want people to realize that the same government that is screwing us over through the voice of parliament is screwing over every person in this room. All right, when you pay taxes, and they go to prisons, when you pay taxes, and they go to minds, when banks get bailouts, from your money, when your boss makes profit on your labor, that is using exploiting, and I want you to realize that you have more in common with indigenous people than you do in non Indigenous people in Parliament and stand with us. If you want to find out more about the black people’s union, you can go to our website, it’s black people’s union.org. And you can see a full list of our short term and long term demands there and also details to the upcoming rally. Thank you.

Thanks, Timo. I’m down there with the justice for Palestine table. We’ve been working for more than a decade now in this city. And may this year marks 75 years that we commemorate and acknowledge the Nakba, that occurred in Palestine. So this is a big year for us. And for the first time this year, also, we’re looking to have coordinated demonstrations across the country you need to city. So if you’ve sat here tonight, I hope that you’re asking yourself the question of what can you do? And the answer to what you can do, you can get involved with us, because we work regularly and consistently between each crisis to continue our struggle for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against apartheid Israel. But one of your first steps I should think this may, is to make this rally in this country, the biggest commemoration and the biggest protest, because as we know, everyone in this room knows, the navbar continues, you just have to look at the news over the last 12 months over the last few weeks over the last week. They are continuing this process now for 75 years. And join us on the 13th of May. We’re doing it, we haven’t done for venue yet. We’re still working on that it will be hopefully King George Square, join us for our commemoration and protest. And let’s make this the biggest snack bar we’ve had in the context, hopefully of no intense violence, because the last one we had was very large, but it was associated with another wave of terrible violence. I think we have to work between the violence because the violence continues on a day to day basis. And so Diddy, put the date in your diary, turn up on Saturday, the 13th and make it the biggest protest we’ve had in the city for the navbar for a long time. Thanks

Thanks so much.

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