A Jewish Israeli On Islam And The Palestine Israel Conflict

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Episode Notes

“Miko Peled is a peace activist who dares to say in public what others still choose to deny. He has credibility, so when he debunks myths that Jews around the world hold with blind loyalty, people listen.”

The General’s Son. Miko Peled is a peace activist who dares to say in public what others still choose to deny. Born in Jerusalem in 1961 into a well known Zionist family, his grandfather, Dr. Avraham Katsnelson was a Zionist leader and signer of the Israeli Declaration of Independence.

His Father, Matti Peled, was a young officer in the war of 1948 and a general in the war of 1967 when Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and Sinai.

Miko’s unlikely opinions reflect his father’s legacy. General Peled was a war hero turned peacemaker.

Miko grew up in Jerusalem, a multi-ethnic city, but had to leave Israel before he made his first Palestinian friend, the result of his participation in a dialogue group in California. He was 39.
On September 4, 1997 the beloved Smadar, 13, the daughter of Miko’s sister Nurit and her husband Rami Elhanan was killed in a suicide attack.

Peled insists that Israel/Palestine is one state—the separation wall notwithstanding, massive investment in infrastructure, towns and highways that bisect and connect settlements on the West Bank, have destroyed the possibility for a viable Palestinian state. The result, Peled says is that Israelis and Palestinians are governed by the same government but live under different sets of laws.
At the heart of Peled’s conclusion lies the realization that Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace as equals in their shared homeland. All rights-Alternate Focus under educational learning aid.

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WARNING!!! AI generated text may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Muslim Central's views. Therefore, no part of this transcript may be copied or referenced or transmitted in any way whatsoever.

AI Generated Summary ©

The Israeli conflict between the Israeli army and the United States has been ongoing for over 70 years, with the Israeli army leading the war and the Jewish population living under two separate systems. The conflict is a conflict between the two groups, with the United States leading the Israeli community and the Israeli government leading the Israeli community. The conflict is a conflict between the two groups, with the US leading the Israeli community and the Israeli government leading the Israeli community.

AI Generated Transcript ©


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Real, real Sally key

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ad greetings apiece. Welcome to the dean show how you guys doing exciting episode every week. If you're like most people, you have no idea. You hear it on the news. We've covered it before. Metairie occupations are meant to be temporary. But after 40 plus years, this one looks permanent and entirely unjust. In the West Bank, Israeli Jewish settlers and Palestinians live on the same land, but Miss live under two completely separate and unequal systems of Israeli law. The Jewish settlers dominate the natural resources, including water and agricultural land, and they're backed by the Israeli army. To maintain the occupation. Israel has demolished 1000s of Palestinian homes

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and orchards, confiscated Palestinian land, bombed captive civilian population in Gaza, and punished resistance with raids, arrests, and assassinations, all to gain maximum land, while making life so difficult for Palestinians that they will either leave or be too afraid to resist.

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Palestinians have fought back. For decades, they tried to achieve National Liberation through armed struggle. Some groups still do. But the majority now support the popular protest. instead.

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The deeply harmful pattern of control repression and violence profoundly harms Palestinians living under occupation and Israelis living as occupiers. This must be broken to reach a peaceful and secure future for both peoples. Now that you understand the problem, what about the solution? What about peace talks? so far? over two decades of us back peace talks have actually made things worse, by helping Israel continue the occupation. It's been years of talking while Israel massively expanded the Jewish settlements, and literally redrew the map. peace talks are good if they're real, but not when they're theater to cover a land grab. So now what the current world superpower The

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United States has been a terrible friend, enabling Israel's destructive and self destructive expansion onto Palestinian land by funding the Israeli military, the biggest recipient of US foreign aid in the world. But there's another superpower that can make the difference. You and we have an expert in the area but like most people, you have no idea you hear is real. You hear Palestine things blowing up up there. And you're like watching family guys that I know time for that. These are these Muslims really trying to extinguish all the Jews from the face of the earth? How do we know what's true and what's false? So we're going to be clearing up some misconceptions. Getting to

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the bottom of this with an expert. We've had him on the show before Nico pellet get this his father was Israeli. It's my friend, Nico, father was a reason is really general. His great grandfather, one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence, so we got no fool on the show. We have an expert. We'll be right back.

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Real, real Sally key

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ad.

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Show, we encourage people to come join us.

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Welcome back to the D show. Guess who's my friend, your friend? Mikko Phillip, how are you, Nico, how you been? I've been great. Thanks. It's good to see you again. Good to see you also, can use kind of summarize that I hit it right. Your father was a general in the Israeli army. Your grant, your grandfather? I said, it's like, can you compare him to like a George Washington, one of the founding fathers? Can you go ahead and elaborate on that? Yeah, founding fathers.

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So my, my maternal grandfather was one of the signers of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. He was one of the early Zionists he was a leader of the Zionist move within the Zionist movement.

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So yes, this is a come from a pretty patriotic

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family, I have to say yes. Now for the people taking a break from the sitcoms from the nighttime daytime drama and they want to get into some history some current events, but like most people were just ignorant about what's going on but there's nothing wrong with you know if you're if you're trying to learn so you can overcome that ignorance right you want to you want to grow you want to learn and we have a Israeli, Jew, Jew Jewish Israeli here someone who's an expert scholar in this area to educate us to educate me to educate you so give us like a summary what's the whole for the average person has no idea what is going on over there? Why don't things just blowing up wire you

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know, and then you have this term just terrorists in our over there. We're trying to you know, all the common mantra is, can you just in a nutshell, like summarize bring people up to speed how this started What's going on?

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I know you can talk on this for days. But in a nutshell for your comment person, average person who just has no clue? Well, I think

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I think it's important to limit ourselves to Palestine. And so that's what I do.

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Not to try to overextend and try to understand every single conflict in the Middle East and every single place and a bunch of altogether. So I'm going to focus on Palestine, which is what I do. It's what I know is what I understand. And the issue of Palestine is really actually quite simple. It's a it's a, it's a story of,

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of colonization. It's a story of oppression. It's a story of ethnic cleansing and genocide,

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to which Palestinians have been victims for 78 years now. And the colonizers and the oppressors.

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Contrary to what people seem to think, or what people say, in mainstream media, are, these rallies are the Jewish immigrants who came to Palestine, like my grandparents, who came at the turn of the last century, came to colonize Palestine came to establish a European state, in land that belonged to the Palestinians Arab Muslim land.

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And that is really the beginning of the story. That is really why there's a conflict there is really why there's a problem.

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Naturally, Palestinians tried to resist. So when they tried to resist the oppression when they tried to resist the confiscation of their land, they are called terrorists. And this kind of fits in with today's

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you know that with today's

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demagoguery and mythology that demonizes Muslims and demonize Arabs,

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but the reality is that for 70 years, more than 70 years now, Bostonians have been victims of terrorism, they've been victims of genocide, they've been victims of ethnic cleansing. And today, all of Palestine is governed by a single government, which is the Israeli government.

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It's not a democratic government unless you're an Israeli Jew. If you're a Palestinian, you live under a completely different set of laws. It's more like an apartheid regime than anything else. And Palestinians are resisting and they have a right to resist. And most of the time they resist using nonviolent means. Most of the time, they try to use diplomacy or they try to use nonviolent means of resistance like BDS, boycott, divestment, sanctions, and so forth.

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And using whatever it means at their disposal, from time to time, they do engage in armed violence. And that is the reality and they are always met by terrible violence from the Israelis. Israel has a huge army, it is well equipped, equipped by the US with the latest technology, the latest warplanes, the latest tanks, the latest

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artillery, and Israel uses it predominantly against Palestinian civilians. So that in a nutshell is the problem that is in a nutshell is what is happening in Palestine. And it's really, relatively speaking, quite simple. It's not It's not an easy problem. It's not an easy thing to fix, perhaps but it's really quite simple. What about for for many of the people who say that, look, Israel loves freedom, unlike their neighbors, Arabs want to wipe us out. Right?

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And, and many other things that are said that, look, the people there want to live in peace, but it's the Arabs, you know, the Muslims, who are just trying to wipe us out. And this is our extinction. They try to do it before they try and do it. And now they're the ones that are sending the bombs over there trying to blow us up. What do you say? Well, it's factually not true. There's absolutely no evidence, no truth at all to any of those statements.

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The Palestinians were the and still are the victims of a cruel campaign of ethnic cleansing. The reason today, we have about 5 million refugees living Palestinian refugees in refugee camps that have been there for almost seven decades, is because of an ethnic cleansing campaign that Israel engaged in when it was established in 1948. It was a long and cruel

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campaign that lasted more than a year where Palestinian towns were wiped out, wiped off the face of the earth, Palestinians were forced out of their land and into refugee camps. Many massacres took place many innocent civilians were killed by the Israeli forces. So there's absolutely no proof, no evidence to support any of those claims that the Arabs or the Palestinians want to wipe Israel off the map that the Palestinians want to kill it. I mean, there's no evidence and it's never happened. You know, what did happen is seven decades of what I call an attempted genocide, because when you kill innocent civilians, by the 1000s, as Israel has been doing when you deport people by hundreds

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of 1000s, as Israel has been doing, when you deny millions of people the right to return to their homes, when you deny people water, Palestinians even though they're the majority of the pot

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in Palestine, under Israeli control,

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are allocated only 3% of the water. Well, denying people water is a sure way to kill them rather than shooting them.

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And so none of these claims are based in fact, when we actually look at the facts, we see that Israel has been

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the aggressor, and the Palestinians have been victims and the Palestinians are still quite willing and quite interested in peaceful coexistence. Now from from the perspective, I mean, I'm, I'm a Muslim, you're Jewish, Israeli, and this myth, a lot of times have perpetuated that, you know, Islam teaches, you know, the hate of Jews, but historically, is that true? I mean, from from the Islamic perspective, you see, like, you know, the, the Quran honoring, you know, you have 34 times mentioned, you know, this honor the people of the book, you have Moses, who is his one of the greatest messengers ever sent to mankind, he's, he's the greatest messenger in Old Testament, in

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Islam. He's mentioned over 130 636 times. You had the Medina charter where Jews were given safety, and they were given protection. So do they do people know this? Do they know these facts? You know, there's a professor, I believe, from the the journal, JC journal, David Warren Steen, where he said that Islam had saved the Jewish people. I mean, when, you know, do people know these things that they know that, you know, these facts are out there, and I'm, well, I think I told you this before I was born and raised in Jerusalem. And although I was raised in a part of Jerusalem that was predominantly Israeli,

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Arab East Jerusalem was just, you know, a couple of miles away.

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And Arabs, Jerusalem is a deeply Muslim city. And my impression growing up of Islam is from what I saw in Jerusalem.

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And it was an impression of great beauty, of kindness of hospitality, a warmth, honesty, sincerity, that is, you know, the beauty of hearing the call to prayer, you know, from the mosques from the minarets everywhere to Jerusalem.

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acceptance, that's that was my impression of just as being being a being a young man and a kid growing up in Jerusalem and knowing the Arab East Jerusalem, particularly the Old City.

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Now, historically, Jews have lived in Arab countries and Muslim countries very well and very peacefully and thrived. Jewish communities all over the Arab world all over the Muslim world thrived.

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When Jews and many times when there were prosecutions of Jew, there was post persecution of Jews in Christian Europe, they found safe havens in the Arab world, they felt safe havens in the Muslim world. And I think religiously, to theologically to Islam and Judaism or sister religions, really, they share more in common than most other than in almost any of the two religions that you can think of. And so

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again, none that none of these none of this

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violence and intolerance. image of Islam is based on facts, particularly not when we're talking about the relationship between Jews and Muslims, and between Jews and Muslim in the Muslim world. None of this is none of this is based in fact, in fact, facts point the opposite. And when we talk to Jews, old Jewish people, and Muslims who lived in cities, in Palestine before the State of Israel, before Zionism came, we're talking about people who live to Jerusalem and some of the neighborhoods and the Old City, and Hebron and some of these older cities where Jews and Muslims lived together for you know, hundreds and hundreds of years. The story is always told stories of

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tolerance. The stories always stories of people getting together, respecting one another, often, Jewish, older Jewish people tell you how, on the Saturday they have Sabbath, their Muslim friends wouldn't smoke, out of respect for old light fires out of respect for the Jews, who on that day, do not smoke and light fires, you know, and similar stories, you know, during Ramadan, where Jews would respect the, you know, the wishes and feelings of their Muslim neighbors. Those are the stories that you hear from people who really lived.

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Were in these mixed communities. Then if you want to talk about stories of

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Jews and Arabs, Jews and Muslims who lived in proximity in Baghdad, in Yemen, in North Africa, and all these other Muslim cities and Muslim countries, the stories are always stories of tolerance and great friendship and great neighborly relationships. None of that other stuff is ever happened. You know, none of that stuff is true. And like I said, none of it is based on on

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Factor history. How true is this when you study? Is this something documented? It's I had caught I quoted the professor David Warren Steen, who mentioned this in that in that journal, and you have other prominent rabbis who come out, I've had my friend, Rabbi Weiss, you know, Rabbi Weiss date substantiate this also, and this kind of like, you know, it brings down some of those barriers and walls and clears that great misconception, like, you know, Muslims hate Jews. But I mean, it's the fact now, before before

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history shows, there's also another example. Tell me if you know about this, you can elaborate on it. The Albanians, at the time when they were the Jewish people are being World War Two, Hitler was, was persecuting and killing the Jewish people, that the Albanians were making documents and saying, These are people that you were not going to touch. You know? Can you elaborate on that? I don't, I can't elaborate. I have heard about it. But I don't know the details. But but the stories of Jews finding refuge among Muslims, even within Europe, not just going out into Muslim countries, but even within Muslim communities, even even in central government, even places like France, where, where,

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where Jews found refuge in and mosques, and certainly another Muslim countries, this is well known as well documented. Absolutely. So what happened? How do you know the neighbors who were together? You know, I heard they would watch each other's kids. It was we have a long, rich history, history of peace. What happened? Well, what happened is colonialism.

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What happened was intervention by European powers. What happened was the colonizing of Palestine, by Europeans.

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And then they changed the narrative, you know, the conquer the conquer, always, always, always gets to write the history. And so the stories that they invented were stories of, that are stories that perpetuated this image of the Muslims and the Arabs as

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irrational and violence and

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an educated and then capable of living together with others, and uncivilized and so on. And all of this to justify the conquests to justify this new order that the the that the Zionists brought to Palestine, and that the Europeans after world war one and created in the Middle East.

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In order to in order to maintain

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colonized reality to colonize, project, you have to justify why you're oppressing the other, you have to justify why you're kicking the other out of their homes while you're killing them, why they're arresting them, you have to justify it somehow. So the way you justified is by creating myths by creating a different story. Now, some 70 years later, go back and start telling people that it wasn't the Arabs of Palestine that were attacking the Jewish community. It was the other way around was the Jewish community in Palestine designers community, who came fully intending to ethnically cleanse the land and, you know, take the takeover, they came fully intending to destroy

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Palestinian towns and destroy Palestine as an Arab Muslim country, and take over and create this European colony there, which is what Israel is. So we have 70 years of this of this mythology that has been perpetuated here in the West, it's been perpetuated here in the United States. When you look at schoolbooks here in America history school books, what do they say about the Middle East? What do they say about the ancient Middle East? All of these stories perpetuate this myth that today's Jews

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today's Israelis are the descendants of the ancient Hebrews, you know, even now, after the United Nations passed this resolution condemning Israel for building settlements in the West Bank, the Israeli Prime Minister, the Israeli ambassadors are going back and saying, We lived there and you know, 2000 3000 years ago, and so on and so forth, which is all mythology. You know, none of us European Jews are descendants of ancient Hebrews, it's, you know, it's a complete myth. But the story is perpetuated, the story is told very well, it's a good story. It's a story that's easy to accept. And they're very good at telling it. They're very good at pushing their agenda and pushing

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them mythology to justify their agenda. That's what happens when people lose track of what actually took place. Now, we're not again, talking to some layman. This is my friend, Mikko pellet, the general son. Father was a general in the Israeli army. Great, great, great grandfather, grandfather, one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. We got an expert in this area. Mikko, do you get a lot of heat speaking up for the oppressed? Do you do you do have a lot of backlash because of your strong voice? for justice? Not to be honest, No, I don't.

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Not at all. I mean, I get

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invited to speak who where I get invited to speak I, you know, I, I don't suffer any backlash at all quite the opposite. I mean wonderful people and make great friends like you.

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And not at all, I think this has been, this has been a great rewards speaking and I don't really feel that I speak for the oppressed, I feel that I speak for my friends, my Palestinian friends who are living in a very harsh conditions. But when you know, Palestinians even in the most harsh conditions, Palestinians who live in Gaza, where they're denied water and food, and there's malnutrition, you know, for the first time and Palestine in Gaza and things like this, I look at my friends, I look at people that I know I speak to them, there's nothing oppressed about them. There, they are strong and the spirit is strong, even though they're suffering a great deal. If you had a

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chance to sit with Larry King, and if you've ever met larry king, and he got into a discussion with him, how do you think he would respond? And then what would you say to the term institutional discrimination, you had to start institutional discrimination? And how do you think the conversation revolved between you and Larry King? Well, I was born and raised in a country that that has institutional racism, the State of Israel is an institution is based on institutional racism, institutional discrimination, favoring Israeli Jews, like myself over Palestinians rather than native over the land.

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where I was born and raised in Robben Island, Jerusalem, where I live, is a completely different reality.

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Both legally in terms of the laws that govern my life, the environment, the amount of water that I get, the opportunities that I have, it is completely completely different. And in a way that is privileged, then Palestinian friends of mine who lives sometimes no more than, you know, 1015 minutes away. So institutional racism and institutional discrimination is the basic foundation of the State of Israel. So I was born, I was raised with that I've seen it all my life. Living in America, there's also an America wrote a book about institutional racism in America was was was was established

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on the foundation of genocide of the native people, and then slavery. And there is no worse institutional racism and discrimination and slavery. And of course, the reality

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of blacks in this country and people of color in this country has always been one of institutional racism. So in a way, every country I've always ever lived in almost has been, you know, has had institutional racism as part of its reality. What are the common

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responses to what you're saying? And then how do you respond to those? Well, the common the common comments are that Palestinians a terrorist in Israel has no choice but defend itself. The Jews somehow have some kind of historical rights and a moral right to take over Palestine and create a Jewish state, even if that means infringing upon the rights of Palestinians, because Jews have some kind of a special case because the Holocaust and so far,

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you know, I think it's really quite simple. It's a question of values. If you believe that one person has more rights than anyone else, because of their race, their religion, their color, their nationality, their gender, whatever, if you believe that one life is more valuable than another.

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I remember after the massacre in Gaza in 2008 2009.

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It's called the Israelis call the Cast Lead.

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I was in Palestine during the time and then I came back to the US and I was getting talks about it. And after a certain talk, I think I was in San Diego and members of the Jewish community came up and criticized me for speaking up like this and criticizing Israel.

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And I said to them, Do you think that

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it's okay to kill a child?

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If you think it's okay.

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To drop bombs on innocent civilians, then there's really nothing to talk about. Because the conversation is over. It's a question of values. And if you asked me, I will tell you, even if the devil himself lived in Gaza,

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it wouldn't justify harming a single hair of a Palestinian child in Gaza.

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And now you're telling me it's okay to kill civilians and kill children because there's this thing and

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it's a question of values. There's nothing to argue about. You think it's okay to drop bombs on civilians and kill children? What do you think it's wrong? There's no justifying it, there's no gray area. It's the same with racism. You either believe you either racist or you're not or you oppose racism. There's no gray area here. So my response to people who come up with these claims, who say, you know, whether they're saying that, you know, blacks deserve less, or that Muslims are terrorists or the Palestinians have no rights or the Jews have more rights and Palestinians, it doesn't really matter how it's framed. it all stems from the same racist beliefs.

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Well, if somebody has racist beliefs, that's their values, there's really nothing to argue about. If you believe that this is right, at the end of the conversation, it's not politics. So as I said earlier, it's really a very simple reality, it's really a very simple situation.

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And if you look at your values, and you examine your values, it's going to tell it's going to show you which way to go, you know, it's really quite simple that my value is pointing in one direction. And obviously, other people's values point them in a different direction. And there's nothing to argue about. Give us a live story because the people there have been

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dehumanized, so put some put a human face to it, I mean, from a live experience, and if somebody Viet a Christian, the Israeli, a Jew, wanted to go over and meet some Palestinians to make that human connection, which is so powerful, you know, share with us some real stories, you know, that people can can can, that good from every human can come out, because that dehumanization has really

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taken blinded a lot of people. Well, it seems perfectly natural to me because I'm when I'm in Palestine, and I'm with Palestinians all the time. You know, I sleep go to sleep at friends houses, where Palestinians and Palestinian towns and Palestinian villages and cities, online Apicella and Blaine, I mean places that are in Palestine all the time. I sleep in their homes, I eat with their families, I sit in a light and we talk about things. We sit in a big circle in the village and, you know, drink tea and discuss politics. I mean, this is something that I do and all the time. And it's interesting to talk about Palestinians as being as as less than human or being savages. Across the

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street. We have Israeli settlements, Jewish towns, that still their waters that sit on the land of these Palestinians of the Palestinian village that take the water of these Palestinian people that have served in the army that arrests them, and shoots them and often arrested shoots and tortures their children. Yet the Palestinians are called inhumane or savage or terrorists

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and they've never engaged in violence they've never they've never had an army they've never there's never been a Palestinian army there's never been a Palestinian tank. So So to me, it's perfectly natural. I do this all the time. I mean, I'm an I'm with Palestinians, in their homes in their towns and their villages and their cars and cities, everywhere and all the time. And all I ever experienced is friendship and kindness and warmth or you know in difference I'm just another person who's coming and going and doing and doing whatever I do.

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We just had a conference a wonderful conference last month in November in the village of

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speakers I spoke there was a group of people came from the US some of the people who came from the US had never been to Palestine so this is the first the first trip

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you know, every night we sat together we talked and so on too late in the late in the night we stayed in Ramallah for a few days is it's it's it's it's an excellent a wonderful experience. I encourage everybody to go to Palestine and does it Palestine and, and travel to Palestine it's very easy to travel, it's inexpensive, it's friendly, you're always going to find somewhere to eat and somewhere to sleep and a friendly face. And that is the reality of Palestine if people do go to Palestine or do get involved with the struggle for justice in Palestine always come back with the same impressions of how kind and warm and friendly and and you know, easy to travel and so far

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Palestine is and and Palestinians are as a people trying to ascertain the truth. And we have the son of his Israeli general my friend, Nico pillet. here helping us to remove much of this ignorance on what's going on over there. And tell me Mikko how much money is actually spent. Here our tax dollars are sent over there and what is it? Is it to help the poor what what's going on with the money that said, you know, because we got a lot of, you know, people here who, you know, we got towns in America that are upside down, and

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we can use some money here. But what's what the taxpayer wants to know what's going on with our money over there? Well, Israel gets the largest foreign aid pack for an aid package from America than any other country and Israel is not a developing nation. Israel doesn't need for an aid, doesn't deserve foreign aid doesn't need foreign aid. It's a wealthy country with a strong economy. So why is it that the US gives billions and billions of dollars to a country that doesn't need it every single year as a mystery? And that's a question that the American taxpayer has to ask because these are American tax dollars going there.

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What the money is used for is to purchase weapons and kill Palestinians. It's as simple as that Israeli army. It's huge. It's well equipped, and the only

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The really the only people that that suffer are the Palestinians and they suffer directly from this foreign aid. Now besides the foreign aid, all this taxpayer money that goes to Israel, there are tax exempt organizations that support the Israeli military, with support Israeli settlements that support all kinds of groups within Israel, Jewish groups that go in and steal Palestinian land and take Palestinian homes. And we're talking about billions and billions of dollars on top of the foreign aid, which is about money that comes in

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from from from tax exempt organizations, American tax exempt organizations. So they're exempt from tax.

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But they're using the money in order to support settlers in order to support terrorizing Palestinians in order to support the Israeli army even more.

00:30:52--> 00:31:10

And President Elect Obama's son in law is one of them. But he's, he's on the board of the Friends of the IDF. And they give millions and millions and millions of dollars to the Israeli military, which I believe is no more than a glorified terrorist organization. So why is it okay for them to give material support to the IDF

00:31:12--> 00:31:50

which, again, is material support to an organization that is engaged in terrorism, and whereas Palestinians will give charity to Palestinians and not give it to any kind of military organization, but give to charity, are accused of giving material support for terrorism? There's a double standard here that is that is impossible to understand. But there's a reality in America that says that Israelis are poor, and they deserve money. And I don't know why that is, and it's time to end it. Because number one, American taxpayer money is going to do terrible things, which makes Americans complicit in such terrible crimes. And number two, these tax exempt organizations are not paying

00:31:50--> 00:32:04

taxes. And they're sending millions of dollars to do very bad things. So why are they getting well why are they getting a tax exemption? Or why is the US missing out on all this, again, millions and millions of dollars of money that should be paid in taxes?

00:32:05--> 00:32:35

And again, it's a vicious circle that needs to be brought to an end. And somebody's got to stand up and say, we don't agree with this anymore. We're not going to give any more money to Israel. Israel doesn't need it doesn't deserve it. And besides that, using the money to do terrible, terrible things, can you explain to us what's going on with the with the settlers moving in? Well, it's actually a lot more simple than that. All Israelis are settlers. We all came from somewhere and took Palestinian land, if not us personally, then you know, our parents or grandparents. So all Israelis are settlers and all sitting on Palestinian land stolen Palestinian land.

00:32:37--> 00:33:17

Usually, when they talk about settlers in that, in this context, they talk about the settlers who did the say the exact same thing took Palestinian land and are living on it in the West Bank, which is a small part of Palestine that Israel occupied in 1967. See, the occupation of Palestine took place in two parts. The larger part of Palestine 80% of it was occupied in 1948, when it was established. And then the smaller part of it, which is the West Bank was taken over 20 years later. So it's a two part process. And for some reason, only the Israelis only the Jews who live in the West Bank are called settlers. The reality is, all these other settlers, all Israeli towns, and

00:33:17--> 00:33:21

cities are illegal settlements and should all be treated as such.

00:33:22--> 00:33:28

So but that's what Israel does. Israel is a settler colonial

00:33:30--> 00:33:53

state. It's a settler colonial country. It's a settler colonial project. It's all about taking the land away from the population to whom it belongs, the native population are the Palestinians, and allowing Jewish immigrants to take over to settlers to take over. This is what happens all over Palestine all over the country. And of course, people call it Israel, I refuse to call it Israel, I think we should call it Palestine, which is what the country is called.

00:33:54--> 00:34:18

But that is what takes place everywhere Palestinians are being kicked off their land, so that Jewish towns can be built for Jews only talking about exclusive exclusively Jews being you know, being allowed to live on the land, to use the land, to build roads, on the land, and so on and so forth. And according to Israeli law, the vast majority of the country

00:34:19--> 00:34:21

can only be sold at least two Jews

00:34:22--> 00:34:34

equal before we come to a close to end, this wonderful session with my good friend Mikko pillet, the general sun you got to get the book will tell us

00:34:36--> 00:34:45

the there is no such thing as Palestine Palestinians. Are people coming from the outside. We've been here 3000 years. What do you have to say about that? Well, I don't know who's been anywhere 3000 years.

00:34:50--> 00:34:52

The story of somehow

00:34:53--> 00:34:55

the today's Jews,

00:34:56--> 00:34:59

particularly today's Israelis are somehow the descendants

00:35:00--> 00:35:02

This Ancient Tribe that lived

00:35:03--> 00:35:06

there 3000 years ago, the ancient Hebrews

00:35:09--> 00:35:34

there's no proof historical proof that that's true, there's certainly no reason to expect that it's true. I think if you look at the color of my skin, and the color of the skin of most Israelis, you'd realize there's no way that we are descendants of anyone who lived in that region. You know, where Europeans were whites, I think it's pretty obvious. How we ended up Jews may be an interesting story for another time, but obviously, we're not descendants of hg Bruce.

00:35:35--> 00:35:41

nobody's been there for 3000 years, there are a small Jewish communities that have been in Hebron and and,

00:35:42--> 00:35:49

and place a place like Jerusalem and a few other small cities, very small communities that have been there for a very long time. I don't think anybody's been there 3000 years.

00:35:51--> 00:36:22

But it's part of the mythology that that justifies the so called return or the emergence of designers and states is that it is real, that justifies the colonialism of Palestine, the colonizing of Palestine, justifies the ethnic cleansing. And of course, here we are, again, back to this narrative, or the Jews are righteous people that have a right to return to Palestine, the Palestinians, will the native people of the land, have no rights to live there, and it's okay to kill them and arrest them and force them into exile.

00:36:23--> 00:36:46

It's just one more component of this of this mythology. And maybe just to wrap it up, you know, the entire Zionist ideology is based on three myths. The first myth is that Jews are a nation, as opposed to being a religious group within other nations. So you could have Jewish, Germans, Jewish, French, Jewish, Yemenite, Jewish, Moroccan, Jewish, and so forth and rocking. The second myth

00:36:48--> 00:37:31

is that the Bible is a history book. And we heard this again, said now by the Israeli ambassador by Netanyahu many times and others rallies. But the Bible is a history book that proves that Jews deserve Palestine. Well, the Bible is not a history book. It's a book of faith. It's a religious document. But design is to her never believed in God and are completely secular people said that the Bible is the history book of the Jewish people. And the third myth is that Palestine is the Jew of the homeland of the Jews. And everything else rests upon these three myths. And everything is justified by falling back on these three myths. And everybody seems to treat them as though they

00:37:31--> 00:37:31

were true.

00:37:32--> 00:38:15

So I think it's important to have that in perspective and realize these three myths are myths. They're not true. They're created by the Zionist in order to justify what they do. And if we understand that, then we understand why things are the way they are today. Okay, you see, we see this happening, the world sees it happening. What about the international community? What what's the human voice global voice saying doing? How can people who who want to stand up for justice, how can they make a peaceful protest against is the call for boycott divestment and sanctions, the BDS call, it is a call by Palestinian civil society to the world, providing all of us all people of conscience

00:38:15--> 00:38:26

with a pathway to resist the oppression of Palestinians and to bring about justice for Palestinians. It's a very dedicated, very principled, non violent form of resistance.

00:38:28--> 00:38:45

South Africans will tell you that BDS brought down apartheid in South Africa, I truly believe that BDS will be maybe not the force, but certainly one of the major forces, it's going to bring down the racist apartheid regime in Palestine and will help to free Palestine. So in every country, in every community,

00:38:47--> 00:39:27

people of conscience need to find the BDS group, the BDS branch, and if there isn't one to start wanting to go on BDS movement org and take a look at what they do. They've had campaigns now very large or very, very, very successful campaign against hp. Did that campaigns against other groups that other organizations, other companies that work with Israel and support the Israeli occupation of Palestine and this is what people need to do, you know, starts by not buying is really dates. And and by boycotting big corporations like HP and others who support Israel, how can people have consciousness? I mean, I think every Synagogue Church mosque, you know, should invite you to come

00:39:27--> 00:39:55

on, you know, to go ahead and educate many of the people who are ignorant in this area. Are you open to are you visiting places, mosque, synagogues, churches, how can people get a hold of you? And to learn more? You have a book, tell us about it? Well, easiest thing is to send me an email Nick [email protected] or send me a message on Facebook. I'm everywhere. This is. This is the book, the general sun just came out in a second edition. So it's,

00:39:56--> 00:39:59

it's it's got more in it than the first edition does.

00:40:00--> 00:40:03

So we're very proud that we, you know, just came out in second edition.

00:40:05--> 00:40:32

It's easy to find me like I said on social media or by email, I do speak, I'm happy to speak in my speaking Moscow speaking, you know, any form that I'm invited to. And I'm happy to engage in this conversation everywhere and with everyone. There you have it, my friend, Mikko pillet, God bless you. Thank you so much for being with us on a deep pleasure. pleasure. Thank you. And thank you for tuning in. Subscribe if you haven't already. We'll see you next time. Until then Peace be with you.