Challenging the Zionist Narrative of Palestine | Dr. Yasir Qadhi, Dr. Hatem Bazian, Miko Peled ...

foreign islamic center community to this very very important conference one of a kind truly with its guests and with the knowledge inshallah that they will shed upon us today titled challenging the zionist narrative facts versus myths inshallah today we will be discussing a very important and dear subject and topic to everyone every muslim ummah and every person with a conscience all over the world inshallah ta'ala today we will just to break down the schedule inshaallah we will begin with a recitation of the quran by our beloved sajad ghoul and then we will hear a short address from our president here is plain islamic center in our amir brother imran chaudhary and then inshaallah we will go to our first guest dr mustafa abusway and after that we will go to a short q a and then with dr yasser until lunch we will break for lunch at 4 p.m inshallah where we will serve refreshments and lunch inshaallah ta'ala for everyone who attended jazakum allah said after that we after you go for a 15-minute break inshaallah we'll come back to our to listen to our two guests that are coming from different parts of the united states dr hattan they will share some knowledge with us as well insha allah and with that we will conclude at about assad time about 6 30 inshaallah but before that we will have a short q a inshaallah so we will share with you a link that will be on the screen so you can just copy the link and send the question and i will be able to read the questions and insha allah share them with our guests in the panel q a at the end of the talk and now without further ado with our beloved sheikh and hafiz [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] my [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] [Music] oh [Music] i [Music] [Music] m [Music] in [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] me foreign heartwarming recitation reminding us of how important and the land of philistine is to the muslim ummah as it is embedded in the middle judo in the heart of the quran al-aqsa is something in the heart of every muslim insha allah and today we will dedicate it to learning how to present the facts about al masjid al-aqsa and know exactly what is going on to our brothers and sisters in palestine and how we can help them from right here where we live in sha allah first by shedding awareness inshaallah now with a short word by the amir of epic masjid brother thank you brother and uh if you don't know brother is our youth director and alhamdulillah we're expecting a lot of good things from him inshallah in the coming years on behalf of east plain islamic center management and our religious clergy i welcome you to east banu islamic center our annual major conference alhamdulillah we thank allah that he brought us back after a year and a half of covet in person so that we can inshallah communicate with you in person and also i want to welcome the people that we have online and also all of you i know that you have come you know far and fast we have come from you know the whole dfw you know inshallah and we really are welcoming you in our masjid um as epic this is the least we can do as an epic community as an epic message as an institution the least we can do is to provide information to provide knowledge to all of you to our community and the communities around the world and this is the purpose of this conference we want to be a very small part of our responsibility to fulfill our responsibility in this important topic that we have and here before inshallah i go off i want to thank all of our speakers we have a very diverse panel of speakers who have diverse topics and for them you know we have dr mustafa abu sawyer who is online he's going to be inshallah coming in and he's going to be talking very soon we have doctor hatham bazian he should be here any minute also mr amigo pealet they're on their way inshallah they should be here any minute and lastly i want to thank our own resident scholar dr yasir khadi he's the one who put this program together mashallah he brought the speakers together so thank you sheikh masha'allah amazing job assalamu alaikum um just before we begin inshaallah i want to make sure that you guys can actually hear us is the voice okay inshallah is the sound okay now or higher lower just to make sure okay good all right yeah my voice is kinda low so our first speaker inshallah for today is a renowned palestinian scholar he received his education early on from bethlehem university and then boston college right here in the united states he taught in many universities including the international university islamic university of malaysia florida atlantic university and bard college in new york more importantly he is an actual resident of al-quds so his local masjid that he prays in is subhanallah and he will be joining us today with this beautiful program inshaallah he is the holder of the integral chair for study of al-ghazali so al ghazali's works have a chair to be taught in al masjid al-aqsa and he is the scholar that is dedicated to this chair and he works in al kudz university there in and now without further ado uh dr mustafa abu suay jazakumallah thank you very much for this kind invitation and it's it's extremely beautiful to be reconnected with with your mosque you might say how come some of our children live in the dallas area and i do pray at your message inshaallah in the future when i come to the masjid you might recognize me amongst the uh you know the community within uh alhamdulillah for this chair really it's the uh his majesty king abdullah the second uh chair that he said that he established al-aqsa because the holy places both christian and muslim holy places in jerusalem are still under the uh they fall under the custodianship of the hashmiking uh jordan and the walk department in jerusalem belongs to the jordanian ministry of walk and religious affairs and we might be able to talk about al-aqsa most but we i have a different introduction before we reach al-aqsa mosque the usually people might jump to when they speak about uh the issue of uh palestine uh they might uh go to 1967 they might go to 1948 they might go even to the battlefield declaration of 1917 or the even the first zionist congress at the end of the 19th century i would go a little bit further i go to uh 12 000 years ago to jericho and jericho ariha is the oldest known agricultural settlement in the world why it is important to speak about jericho because there were no muslims christians or jews at the time the way we we know them of course we believe as muslims that throughout the history of revelation all prophets are muslim not as followers of prophet muhammad peace but they themselves were prophets of islam the religion that allah subhana tala sent to humanity but in as as communities of faithful they were not present in the holy land and for a long time so at least for 9 000 years before before jews showed up on the map of of palestine we have had so many communities coming to palestine or emerging or being there even we have human remains in the caves of mount carmel and haifa that go back to 40 000 years that community in jericho as i said it's the oldest agricultural settlement in the world what does it have to do with with zionism the claim that zionists made the land bloom green it's really fake news as you well know palestinians knew how to cultivate the land and to till the land and to harvest this is carbon-14 test of the stored wheat that they found in in jericho i heal from a family of of people who walked the land we lived in silvan just next door to al-aqsa mosque south eastern corner outside the old city immediately and that's exactly where jerusalem began because of that the only spring that exists in the in the area and whoever lived there until even the uh the historical narrative though there are no archaeological uh evidence to this the historical narrative is the the uh i'm talking about the coming of uh prophet dawud king david if you if you will when he conquered yabus that palestinian city and it falls immediately south of the old city today some about thousand years before the common era so 3000 years he did not change the name of the city he did not you know do anything that we know in terms of ethnic cleansing and that's exactly jerusalem so jerusalem the new city we know the old city we know within the walls of the of the old city today but almost nobody speaks about the ancient jerusalem south of the old city and it's a very modest place when we say this the ancient city of jerusalem yabus the jebusites it's almost like a a large citadel and such people along with the uh with the people of uh the prophet islam they cannot really build a massive place like the city as we see it today it would be basically the romans the byzantines but definitely not tribal nations and we have a reference in the quran in this story of of yusuf of joseph when he was in egypt when his when his brothers and his parents ultimately they uh joined them he praised allah for many things included including he mentioned and he brought you from the state of being bad ones that state of being bid when it means they they did not leave behind any civilization i'm talking about structures this is not for us we are believers we have the utmost respect our prophets too and any history incl any history of of palestine uh should include basically the history of any uh component uh in this case even the uh our prophets and uh we as i said it's uh here we talk about yakub jacob uh but being a bad one even it corresponds to a biblical story when he was in the in what became known as became a settlement and here we have even the israeli court approving building settlements on privately owned policy and land the story of uh prophet jacob yakuba islam there is that the whatever vision he had about the the ladder or going up to heaven when he awoke he put some stones on top of each other he did not build a building he did not establish a settlement of course as i said there were no civilizational force at the time it could not be uh it could not be the uh the case now from from that image of of jericho of thousands of years of palestinians who have been part of the land those palestinians whatever is there you know whatever their you know the pool of their genes when when the prophets of the children of israel showed up on the map of palestine they became some of them at least they became jews and when jesus christ peace open him showed up some of them some of all all of both sides meaning that including jews became christians and when muslims showed up uh in afternoon 6 30 8 6 30 7 during the time of uh uh some of those and those became muslims so blood blood wise we all come from you know pretty much the same background you don't qualify you don't qualify for to be ex for exceptionalism that you know that this land belongs to you because you are the child of someone who was historically in this land because you know uh who is who who's going to track who and in fact there are studies not done by muslims or palestinians and arabs i saw jewish names there that that the palestinians who exist today in the land of of palestines have the blood of the kohanim of aeronaites for those of you who know what this what this means so it's not really a blood and in the in in the sense of uh is it really a divine uh promise well we do have something very close to the idea uh sayna musa invited his own followers to enter the land that allah has prescribed for them well what does it mean it's not really an ethnic you know group it's not it's so no ethnocentricity in in this invitation a community of believers and as much as christians saw themselves as a continuum like talk about the uh you know the new testament versus the old testament it's the new israel if you if you will we perceive ourselves as community of believers as the culmination of the history of revelation but again with many references in the and the beautiful recitation just minutes ago about the uh israel there are so many elements that talk about this relationship between mecca and jerusalem ibn badis said that jerusalem is the sister of mecca and medina i say sometimes that this relationship is what we call today a twin ship but it's not really about between two urban centers it's not between two cities but we talk about faith we talk about belief system and al-majid haram and masjid laksha they have been connected organically in the quran but in terms of in terms of prophetic traditions and there was already an invitation for muslims to go and pray and even stay and even the hadith of maimona the relationship with al-aqsa mosque is primarily faith-based and its people are invited to to come and worship e2 luffy of course the prophet sallam began by saying you know making reference to end of time scenarios if you will and the land of uh gathering and resurrection exclaimed about those who could not make it in the prophet sallam uh said after saying e2 of salafi through using grammatically imperative language go and pray in it he said after the exclamation then people can send the gift of oil to be bent in slanted and i understand this hadith as saying primarily relationship is uh is a spiritual relationship uh that of worship then its maintenance and today it's extremely hard for the work for the department of vac to do its job because of all the restrictions that we have the types of restrictions that we have bringing material normal material for maintenance the bringing even a sack of cement is a big deal to replace a broken window and they have broken several historical windows lately at the end of uh of uh of ramadan these are historical windows they climb the uh the uh the and when i say it's the privilege it's the southernmost building for al-aqsa mosque is the all 44 144 uh dunham's about 36 acres and even the courtyards as we know with the courtyards in the mosque in damascus or courtyards in medina our courtyards in the mosque in istanbul the courtyards are part and parcel of the of the mosque and mujered in hambury literally 500 years ago for those who come to jerusalem and please uh come inshaallah we'll see you here uh in front of lion's gate babel asbot just just about hundred meters uh downhill uh in the vicinity of the church of the gethsemane you have the only standing muslim grave there it's of muji radiant humbly he said that al-aqsa most is the name of the space for all the buildings are novel and he's right when we talk about israel the jeremy at night night jeremy if you will uh it was to this space it was the place there were no buildings all these buildings were built later on a modest building built by the umayyads developed most of what you see today and the last we have the abbasid maybe not much we have the the ayurveds and what the during the time of uh salaheddine they built so many mosques we have so many historical mosques in the old city itself one of them in particular existed uh with the mother of daria in the moroccan quarter and we talk about an endowment walk for all north africans uh wakfilm uh and that historical uh neighborhood was demolished in 1967 since you know today we uh we commemorate that uh that event uh we call it next versus the nakba of 1948. we uh that murabi quarter was totally demolished the historical buildings the mosque the school it was flattened build buldozers used against uh you know to destroy that history that rich history to create space for the uh for the jews and building really massive jewish buildings inside the uh the old city that did not exist prior to 1948 which brings us really to the uh to the uh to the issue of uh just a little bit about palestinians in 1948 in jerusalem the west the western part of jerusalem was ethnically cleaned literally in total 100 percent ethnically cleansed and the method that it was used many of you i'm sure know about the massacre of derry esteem and jeff halper which who basically came from the united states today he is sure that he would probably describe himself as a different person compared to when he immigrated from the united states he said about the reason that the men and the boys were paraded before they were killed and this is why in 1967 when news of massacres took place in news but they were it was uh it was not true when you people thought there would there will be massacres uh like in 1948 and at that time i was about 10 years old and the eldest of the of the children my dad father was outside the country when the war took place and when my mother heard about the rumors as again there were no massacres in uh 1906 seven when my mother heard of the news and we talked about the story we took about five minutes walk away she decided that we will run away and we ran away to jericho and it's a it's a long story but it's something that is vivid in my mind as uh literally we were cleaning a cave beneath our house preparing for the uh for the war when uh a spree of bullets came from what we call today in nebidahud really it's uh mount zion on top of the mountain where the the israeli soldiers were stationed and really it's the valley only the valley so we took about probably about maybe 400 500 meters and with that for us that was the beginning of the of the war and many changes that took place in jerusalem one of the things that took place uh first of all jerusalem all of it was annexed an exchange jerusalem annexing the land but not annexing the people the people of jerusalem the palestinians we became residents they passed the law the past fellow in the israeli department parliament they cannot said that we we palestinians are immigrants so we qualify for residency and this residency could be revoked and they came up with different laws we have about more than 50 laws that discriminate against palestinians we if you're if you stay outside the country outside israel though it does not have you know constitutionally they don't have borders if you are outside of israel for seven years you lose your id but outside israel could be ramallah or jericho or bethlehem or new york or basically um you know london or paris or whatever and they change the seven years law into if your center of your your life not only living our you know outside for seven consecutive years they decide whether you live whether the center of your life is outside of israel and then again you lose your id well how about palestinian youngsters who cannot afford to buy and live in jerusalem jerusalem is probably one of the most expensive cities in the world you know a very expensive life and those youngsters young young couples they they buy apartments in the west bank and they keep you know an address with their families for fear of losing the their ids in 1998 when elieshai from shas religious nationalist uh jewish party when he was the minister of the interior he revoked the ideas of 4577 palestinians from jerusalem kicking out from their own city and is it possible that the person who revoked their id is himself an immigrant yes why is why on earth basically you would create a alone to revoke the ideas of those jerusalemites if your intention is to make peace with those with those palestinians to live with them and you know when we when we talk about the when we talk about uh what's happening because i i think that many leaders if not all leaders today uh especially in the western hemisphere when they speak about you know the palestinian issue they uh they uh always speak about security uh and they don't go beyond you know they might speak about peace they speak about security but they don't speak about the prerequisite for uh security they don't speak about justice and for justice we need basically the truth to be to be out so by speaking like this it's in the hope of you know bringing peace closer uh bringing security closer but as a result of uh of justice uh the un uh general assembly resolution 194 speaks about uh the right of return for palestinian refugees who are ethnically cleansed from their uh homes in the uh 1948 area within the uh within the green line uh why would why would someone like uh ivanka trump who became you know a jew recently practically when she married jared kushner she became a jew and now as such she qualifies for immediate immigration and citizenship and rights immediately and we don't enjoy even his jews reminds who have we have been living through and through in in this land for example the new cyber family just to mention one one family they held from nusabe cyber mezzanine the companion of the prophet without the cemetery in east jerusalem uh the baba rahman you talk about some people of course they refer to it as the golden gate but it's babur rahmat the gate of mercy in that cemetery we have two companions at least two companions of the prophet who were buried there who are buried there should that be house and even assange so those from the family on the silver mezzanine and the nusaber family they have been part and parcel of the uh of the uh of the jerusalem uh you know social mosaic they have been there for 1400 years and out of a sudden they become residents in their own city and they are subject to losing their id if they live outside of uh of jerusalem this is of jerusalem but really it's outside the country as defined defined by the israeli authorities and what happened in 1967 also israel confiscated 86 percent of the land of east jerusalem we were very restricted in terms of the area where we can build to 14 including the buildings that exists even from the time of the from the romans all the buildings that exist are included in 14 and it's extremely hard for us uh to uh get the uh uh the uh the pyramids uh very very limited and this is why uh many palestinians either to leave the city or build without pyramids and one of the most uh you know uh one of the most difficult things is when uh when you are caught building without a pyramid and you are forced to either pay the municipality for the for the fees for demolishing your expenses for demolishing your home or you will demolish your home with your own hands in order to avoid these exuberant fees i have asked people from the united states canada europe new zealand australia i've asked about how much does it cost you to build them like a single family home you know to like an apartment and they spoke about thousand five hundred uh dollars maybe two thousand dollars but something in that with trinity tens of thousands of dollars here just for the pyramid and i of course and we have almost some 30 committees that have to approve the department before you get it and it's very very expensive the average person especially new graduates those youngsters they will never be able to make it and i think it's the whole the whole thing is politically motivated because there is a ceiling this is probably the only city in the world today where you have a ceiling for a certain community the palestinians cannot be more than a certain percentage of the city by design uh so around 30 percent though we have reached 40 percent for you know uh i hope for all the good reasons because we have we are steadfast we have nowhere to go and uh i don't think that we would repeat the 1948 and you know being refugees in 1948 being refugees again in 1967 so those in sheikh were refugees from 1948 after the and the the they were given that that part of the city that part of the city to to to live and at the time it was the jordanian government and they have sent documents to to prove their legal status but what at what is at stake here is that israel in 1970 passed a law that allows jews to reclaim property in east jerusalem but does not allow palestinians to reclaim property in west jerusalem and where jerusalem was pretty much for affluent palestinians i still know personally people who were literally were born in west jerusalem and if you walk in the old neighborhoods in west jerusalem just just just have a walk if you come to juicer man you'll see many houses the entrances adorned by verses from the quran or arabic writings or blessings on the on the doors of these of these houses so their owners rightful owners are denied that right so that 1970 law allows the jews to reclaim property in israel but does not allow the palestinians the same now the problem is it's not only the houses we have mosques that are still intact and with jerusalem literally a walking distance i would walk it in 10 minutes from damascus gate up to the prophet's road and there is a mosque in about 10 minutes walk that is still intact since 1948 but we don't have access to the most symmetries i will give maybe one example only it's the mamela manilla symmetry this is a historical symmetry companions of the prophet people this is north northwest of the old city a walking distance from the new gate or jaffa gate literally maybe three maybe three four minutes five minutes at the most and you'll find these uh muslim grapes uh sometimes uh there are you know acts of vandalism uh you know toppling down some of these stones but the most the the the problem is that israel tried to justify building different projects on the cemetery and they refer to islamic jurisprudence to to approve the use of the cemetery the latest the latest major project is the jewish museum of tolerance rabbi heyer from los angeles divisional you know center he convinced the municipality to build amusement tolerance on top of the muslim cemetery israeli newspapers wrote about this and i would like you to know there are hundreds of israeli if not more thousands even more who opposed this uh you know the building of jewish museum tolerance on top of the cemetery so when we talk about all what we have today i hope you know and i say this wholeheartedly let's refrain from any judaeophobic usually usually they say anti-semitic any judeophobic statements let's not put people in you know known over generalizations so people opposed because i have read and i have seen this with my own eyes people opposed this but unfortunately the israeli court uh israeli high court rather approved the uh the the the the pyramid and the plan and they they went ahead and they broke the you know ground and they exhumed and i know this from the israeli newspapers they exhumed 400 boxes of human remains from the cemetery to uh to make room for that jewish museum of tolerance for me i commented like many people on you know online there's a place where you can comment on that article and my comment was pretty simple i said that i am palestinian i'm muslim and i approve the and i hope that you listen to the to the rest of my uh statement and i hope that nobody will you know will edit it in the future to say here we have someone who approves that museum tolerance and i said in my comment i am a palestinian a muslim and i approve the building of the museum of jewish muslim taurus on top of the muslim civility on one condition that you line up all these 400 boxes of human remains at the entrance and you'd say where they came from i can see that the uh you know our immigrants can see basically also smiling probably it's time for a couple of questions uh from the audience from you and i hope that uh there are many things that we need to cover but i hope that the questions would allow me to cover more dr mustafa thank you so much for everything you explain to us subhanallah i'm sure it's very new for everybody here we don't know the situation of the people of the khuds because even people in philistine perhaps that live in the west bank or gaza don't know exactly what the people of jerusalem the people of ilkuts are going through and it's it's very interesting i'm sure one fact that really hit everyone is that a palestinian who lived in jerusalem whose parents grandparents and great-grandparents for centuries in the past were buried in jerusalem if they leave jerusalem for five six or seven years they are revoked their permit to go back into jerusalem and automatically lose their property whereas someone who as uh the doctor mentioned someone who converts to the jewish faith automatically owns a property there and has the right to reside in it you know so it's a very interesting it's a very interesting dynamic and it appears that it's very systematic these what we saw was happening during ramadan to our brothers and sisters in and in other neighborhoods in jerusalem was only a small example of a systematic exile that has been taking place for years and years before this subhanallah may allah aid and assist our brothers and sisters there in defending al-masjid al-aqsa um one question dr mustafa if you don't mind so in in like two minutes because we're you know on a time crunch what do you think the solution is to the problems that we're seeing obviously today we are still seeing videos of brothers and sisters losing their homes in shaykh it didn't stop because the conflict stopped doesn't mean the exiting stopped and just right now on my way here i saw that the al-jazeera reporter actually was dragged and sent to jail and her camera was broken and and now so we see that these things are happening and it's still active and going on what do you think the solution is dr mustafa the solution i made a reference to the palestinian inalienable rights by referring to the rights of palestinian refugees but this goes into every aspect of of our rights this solution is to recognize the the uh the uh the palestinians and when i say organize the palestinians uh in the battlefield declaration we were reduced to invisible people who became non-jews in the battle for declaration sent remo agreement we became non-jews as if we don't have faith as if we don't have history otherwise if we don't have roots our uh our history our rights and to recognize the injustice that befell the palestinians this is extremely important uh you know you know the when i refer to the problem of uh seeing problems as security i was in my mind i always see the uh the statement of the emissary that came to see you know say the khattab and when he saw him sleeping under that tree he said few words in arabic that are really it's it's a treasure for all uh people who will be involved in uh diplomacy and uh uh trying to bring uh you know uh to solve uh intractable uh um you know uh conflicts uh you know colonization uh he said adulthood you must have been just therefore you felt secure and you slept like this and he began with the adult the solution is uh the solution is justice let's see what uh happened to the palestinians um the uh the uh we we were not part of the jewish uh problem jewish question the the pogroms that targeted the jews whether it's in russia um crystal nacht the holocaust that european if we read today if we read very well we see that it was not germany alone it was it's not the there is no uh it was a european uh problem and i uh i listened to uh listen to a friend of mine now she's 90 plus years old in switzerland and she said the jews need they need a place to protect them not from us in the middle east very originally she was being she was being about europe uh we were not part of the of the problem that they faced in europe what happened is really tragic it's inhumane but that's not you know that's uh not the work of our hands of course this juncture in history they are inflicting injustice let me just simply state the following i know that i'm probably taking more time than i should but just recently the israeli soldiers in hebron detained probably a three years old kid and it's hardly the family rescued the child a couple of years ago we have the same story with a four years old five years old and he was detained and the israeli soldiers insisted on detaining him and delivering him to aliya's own officer with the palestinian security forces that's not only we might say okay that's an isolated case the israeli attorney general approved the action of the soldiers vis-a-vis that four years old and this is really what needs to be changed there's a certain structure that allows this kind of relationship with the occupied with the palestinians the solution is to start with these you know just simply recognizing palestinian rights and then out of a sudden you will see that we could be working out uh you know our future uh together but no to any structure that would maintain uh superiority or exceptionalism or any um you know i i i spoke to benimarus once in my life a revisionist historian who's atheist he wrote about the massacres that took place in 1948 but at the same time he moved to the right and i when i talked to him i told him you are you are atheist so by by by definition you don't believe in the existence of god there is no divine promise of this land to the jews how do you explain now to yourself uh the the whole zionist project and he said look at how many jews have uh nobel prize they are nobel prize laureates that's racism that's pure racism and there are leaders who fed this kind of racism to the to the public and we need to detox and those who claim themselves to be friends of israel amongst the evangelicals friends don't let friends drink and drive and in this case it applies to the drinking it's not the alcohol it's basically they are drunk with with power and this is maintained by those evangelicals unfortunately the situation is is worse than we can imagine subhanallah we ask here in this in this holy place in the house of allah to hasten justice being given to our brothers and sisters in palestine and the ending of their occupation and all the injustices that are befalling them and now but dr mustafa before we we end and shall i have a last question and this is something that is perhaps on the mind of of everyone and we don't have too much time because we're on time constraints um do you recommend the visitation of al-masjid al-aqsa by muslims from around the world or not yes yes i know that some people would uh would hesitate and they would say that we will wait until uh the end of the occupation and what have you this is uh not the uh a good position uh the the prophet assalam said in clear terms using grammatically imperative language uh you come and you will see for yourself uh what we are speaking about and much much more you become you return as ambassador of gold goodwill on behalf of laksamos on behalf of the old residents of the city of all colors and faiths because you see on the ground what's going on to to listen from a distance i know that your hearts are attached and you are concerned by coming also you'll be supporting the the economies of the uh very very we tailgate the israeli economy by the way we are subservient to the israeli economy we became like dormitories in east jerusalem and our youngsters work in west jerusalem and even in cities like today like tel aviv they commute every day you come our our hotels are empty ours our markets are empty the covered 19 year or more uh devastated whatever is left of livelihood the old city is practically dead and when you come you'll basically bring it to life insha'allah again for your kind words and shedding light on the situation of our brothers and sisters we all pray that allah protects you and rewards you for everything you're doing and we ask allah to unite us all with you in sha allah in a better situation than what it is with your permission it's very round of applause [Applause] [Music] after shedding light on the situation in el cotes and in masjid al-aqsa we want to hear a word from our own resident scholar dr yasser godly who does not need an introduction everyone here inshallah knows dr yasir inshallah he's going to be with us all the way until lunch and shedding light on the situation of palestine how to be proactive with it yes we praise allah subhanahu wa ta'ala who knows what the hearts conceal and what the tongues will not reveal the one to whom all shall appeal and in front of whom the believers kneel brothers and sisters history is something that the majority of us find boring and difficult to memorize and yet it is in knowledge of history that we have the best the best weapons and tools to take on the zionist narrative and the myth so i was thinking for a long time how can i summarize in these 25-30 minutes the key features that i want all of us to know about the history of palestine and of the creation of the illegitimate state of israel because in the end of the day this is a history that the majority of us are not aware of and yet when you read it when you study it any neutral observer cannot help but be astonished at the blatant arrogance at the trampling of human rights at the insensitivities of the global superpowers you don't have to be a muslim to see the injustices of what has happened in palestine so i was thinking how best to summarize history for our audience and what i decided to do insha'allah is to tackle it not from dry facts not from giving you dates and whatnot but rather from asking you to write down and to memorize five questions so i encourage all of you to take out your phones or your pieces of paper and to write down five questions these five questions shall be your arsenal or the beginnings of your arsenal when you engage in dialogue with those who don't know what's going on in palestine who don't know the reality of the situation in israel now you can begin your journey of knowledge by memorizing these five questions and then i ask you to read and i ask you to listen to lectures and automatically information will come that will help you support each one of these five questions the way that you learn history by the way is simply by reading and reading and reading and the facts then slowly get absorbed into our dense minds right you don't memorize for your high school history exam then remember it for the rest of your life on the contrary history is a slow process to absorb so instead of bombarding you with dates and names i want you to write down as i said five questions now these five questions are skeletons these are just the outer framework as you read and as you listen to lectures you will get more information that will help you defend the five questions but the five questions in and of themselves are your first line of defense the first question the first question what gave the united kingdom britain england what gave the united kingdom the right to promise palestine to a group of europeans involved in the zionist movement at the beginning of this century that's your first question what right did england have what right did the united kingdom have to promise this piece of land to fellow europeans neither did england own this land nor did the europeans they promised it to have anything to do with it in recent history this is your first question because this is where the history of the illegitimate state of israel begins before this point in time there is no actual history and the biggest culprit to set everything in motion is the united kingdom the united kingdom england britain is of course the last of the colonizing uh forces our own country of america broke away from england 280 years ago because of the uh because of the tyranny because of how they felt about people of their own ethnicity people of their own language so england has a history of colonization and a history of trying to be an imperialist power palestine is the last project of colonialism palestine is the last settler colonization of pre-modernity and we are still suffering from the consequences we are all aware philistine had been ruled by the muslims since the time of uninterrupted except for a brief interlude under thee under the crusaders for around 90 years and during that point in time it was open for anybody to come to live to worship to pray there has not been a single case of civil war of religious strife in the time of the muslims muslims lived with christians with jews together until the crusaders came and shed blood for the first time and then the zionist enterprise was founded in the 1940s so here is the first question what gives britain the right to promise palestine to a group of europeans in the zionist movement in the turn of the century because we're all aware that england made three contradictory and mutually exclusive promises they blatantly lied to three separate entities about palestine publicly they promised the arabs independence from the ottomans if they rebelled against the ottoman caliphate and they said to the sharif of mecca the great great great grandfather of the current king of jordan they said to the sharif of mecca they said to him if you fight against your fellow muslims and you fight against the ottomans we will make you the khalifah and we will give you an arab land from iraq all the way to tunisia it will be yours so they promised the sharif of mecca power and they said all we want you to do is fight against your fellow muslims the ottoman empire rebel against them and will make you the khalifa and of course he didn't learn from previous mistakes and current rulers don't learn from past mistakes the promises of these superpowers are not even worth the heir that they're spoken with much less the paper they are written on and so completely coincidentally on the 5th of june today is what day guys today is what day the 5th of june we didn't plan this this way on the 5th of june in 1916 that is 105 years ago today is the anniversary today 105 years ago the sharif of mecca attacked the ottoman empire and do you know where he began the attack do you know which city he chose to begin the attack can anybody guess who knows close medina can you see the mentality and i have to say this even though this isn't the talk here yes the ultimate blame lies on the outsider the ultimate blame is on the superpowers and the imperialist forces but the brutal fact of the matter is that those outside forces could not do what they did without internal traitors and that is the ultimate reality they could not do what they did if they didn't have people from within our own ranks pretending to be a part of us who cooperated with them against the interests of the ummah and so this individual waged war against the ottomans he attacked medina on the 5th of june 1916 thus breaking away from the ottoman empire hoping that he would be the next khalifa because the promise was if you break away o sharif of mecca you will be the next khalifa and you will have false team you will have iraq you will have syria you will have egypt all of it will be yours and of course this misskeen this fool did not know that behind his back even as the british are promising him he will become the khalifa they already have a secret agreement with the french with the russian superpowers and this is known as the sykes pico agreement the sykes pico agreement was a hidden agreement it was a secret agreement already decided that after world war one just like the muslim ummah is a beautiful apple pie each one is going to get a piece of the pie and they already had a map you can google it it's on wikipedia the actual map that sykes and pico a frenchman and a british man argued over and they drew these imaginary boundaries those imaginary boundaries are still in effect to this day so as the british are telling the arabs rebel and you will be the khalifa they already have a secret agreement the sykes pico agreement and they've divided the muslim lands amongst these superpowers and technically according to the sykes pico agreement falsely would be independent mandate nobody would have control over it that was the secret agreement then they had an even more secret agreement three simultaneously three agreements simultaneously and that secret agreement was even more secret than the sykes pico at least the sykes pico was known to the three superpowers their embassies their presidents their czars they knew the sykes-picot agreement as for the third promise and the third agreement this was even more hidden and it only came to light many years later and we have the original these are no conspiracy theories and this is of course the infamous balfour declaration the infamous balfour declaration of 1917 in which the foreign minister of england promised lord balfour who was the representative of the world zionist federation that if it basically if they helped them in world war one that england would then hand palestine over to the european zionists right so this is something that was a secret promise that if you help us we're going to give you palestine and who are the zionists long story here but very briefly zionism is a european project began by secular jewish people not religious jews in 1897 theodore herzl and others they were the first to begin speaking of a modern state in what is now palestine and when they began this project religious jews across the world rejected zionism this is well known american jews in particular had nothing to do with zionism they were not supportive of it at all the orthodox rabbis scoffed at zionism they thought it to be a type of heresy they said god will give us the kingdom when we're worthy of it you cannot politically get the kingdom by killing and by causing massacres this is what the orthodox rabbi said and there is still a small group of them the natura kartai that is still around to this day that have those original beliefs of those rabbis nonetheless the project begun and slowly but surely because of the rising anti-semitism because of the rise of the nazi party because of a number of events including the dreifus affair you can google this zionism gained traction among secular minded and then slowly even religious minded jewish people and so when world war one broke out england felt it to be advantageous if they promised palestine to the zionist federation now what gives england the right to promise a land that is not theirs to a people that have nothing to do with it this is the first question and this is where it all begins remember dear muslims remember this simple statistic at the turn of the century around 1900 there were barely three percent jewish people in palestine this was the normal this was the standard uh uh percentage for many millennia three percent and these are jewish arabs they speak arabic they're living amongst the muslims there has never been a single case of war of civil war of massacre of murder nothing jewish arabs and muslims and christians are living side by side until the zionist project begins so in 1917 england promises palestine to this zionist entity and of course this promise is based on frankly a very racist superiorist nationalistic mindset the fact of the matter is that there must be an outright racism involved europeans still to this day but especially back then did not view arabs and muslims as being equally human those brown and colored folks they're not the same as us and deep down inside they had remnants of their christianity even though they claimed to be secular and they had a dismissive attitude towards islam not that they loved people of a jewish background but they hated muslims more than they hated the jews that's really what it is they hated muslims and they dismissed muslims more than they dismissed people of a jewish background deep down inside they saw jewish people as still being an extension of their own even if they didn't like them as fully equals but at least the judeo-christian culture is a whole and the islamic culture is outside so they felt that by promising israel by promising palestine to zionists they are fulfilling a christian a messianic promise that jesus will only return when the jews have gathered in the holy land this is their belief it is the belief of baptist to this day and deep down inside there is an element of associating modern judaism with the ancient children of israel and modern palestine with the ancient kingdom of david this is really what it is there is no actual secularism their deep seated religious convictions are coming to light with these types of promises so this is the first question i hope you've written it down the second question what gave the united nations the right to legislate the majority of the land of palestine to europeans of a jewish background this is the second question what gave the united nations the moral right what gave them the moral right to then take the balfour declaration and make it a part of their constitution or their resolution the united nations was a newly formed body after world war ii and in the second year of their existence 1947 it's a new organization the united nations in one of its earliest resolutions resolution 181 if you want to write it down and one of its earliest resolutions resolution 181 without consulting the local arabs without caring about what the palestinian delegates said in their convention the resolution divided the region of palestine into three separate and distinct areas 55 percent of that region was allocated to jewish zionists forty five percent was given to the local arabs and the city of jerusalem was mandated to be independent neither jewish nor arab before we even get to what happened afterwards the second question is what gives you the right or united nations without consulting the local people without doing polls and surveys without asking those that live on the land that you're going to give their land to a group of foreigners now by the way we're not talking 1947. in this few decades the jewish population has risen from 3 percent to 30 percent in one generation it has multiplied tenfold not because they're having children but because europeans are migrating and taking over the land european money is financing the purchase and also terrorist gangs are terrorizing palestinian farmers getting rid of them by hook or by crook they're acquiring land still by 1947 only seven percent of the land was owned by people of the zionist background 93 is still in the hand of arabs and muslims only 7 is owned by those who have migrated from zionist backgrounds yet in 1947 what does the united nations decide the bulk of the land will go to those who just recently migrated literally in that generation and a small a smaller amount will go to the local arabs the arab delegates at the united nations challenged this they said this resolution goes against your own constitution or united nations the united nations in its constitution says that the right of self-determination shall not be taken away from any group of people we have to get rid of colonization the united nations said the united nations was an idealistic vision they thought that we're going to have global peace after world war two they thought everybody's gonna be treated equally and fairly and within a year of its forming within one year they showed that in reality power corrupts to the core and those people who practice colonization directly are now going to do it indirectly that's all the difference rather than invading directly they're going to use proxies as they did with the zionist enterprise and so the united nations ratified the balfour declaration and they said that we are going to give 55 of the land there is the original map you can still find this online again all of this is public information the original map that the united nations put in the resolution and that map we are very angry looking back at it subhanallah we if we look at that map one side will be well the world would be better if we actually followed that map but you have to put yourself in the shoes of the arabs and the palestinians why should 55 of the land be given to foreigners why who's right is that but even that was not good enough before we get to the third question so the second question what gives the united nations the right to hand over the majority of that land to europeans of the zionist background how did they get that privilege and right this occurred in 1947 that's the second question the third question what gave the newly found state of israel the moral right on the eve of its inauguration as soon as it is born to immediately launch a full-out offensive to immediately force almost a million people to flee to massacre thousands of people we still don't know how many people were massacred and to acquire almost 80 percent of the land from 55 now they within their first inauguration they are declared in august of 1948 right august of 1948 the state of israel declares its inauguration and immediately the next day they launch an offensive against who against armies against the standing trained soldiers no against farmers and peasants against people who have been farming there for generations and centuries against people who don't have weapons people who are still literally just their peasants and the army of israel armed to the teeth the precursors to the idf they now start attacking villages over 450 villages were attacked massacres occurred in dozens of places most infamously deriya seen memorize this name we have not video footage but photographic footage grainy again it's 1948. these are all histories that have been covered up and neglected but now you cannot deny them throughout the 70s and 80s the israeli historians would deny this isn't true we found empty land we found territories that we just walked into there was never a massacre and that's what the average person believed no longer can that lie perpetuate and continue we have documented evidence the israeli ministry has plenty of paperwork that they try to cover up and even israeli historians those of you that are interested the most significant historian in this regard is ilan pape i-l-a-n write his name down purchase all of his books if you're interested he is an israeli born and raised historian at i believe ben-gurion university and he had to leave his position because of his research he was getting death threats his own fellow citizens and he had to leave he's currently living in england but he is somebody who's researched the creation of israel and he has discussed and documented all of the cases of massacres one of his most important works is to document every single massacre that he could find in the archives of the state of israel as far as we are aware over 450 villages were wiped out their people had to flee for their lives and there are plenty of video footage of the memories of elder people in the 70s and 80s they're interviewing old people about the memories of 1948 about the massacres that they saw about their women and children being killed about husbands in deria scene over 100 people were gunned down villagers and then thrown into the well of the village now what's gonna happen if you're in the next village and you've heard that a hundred people have just been killed what's gonna happen you're gonna flee for your life and that's exactly what happened almost a million palestinians mass panic mass chaos and this is called the first catastrophe the nakba the first catastrophe 1948 what gave this illegitimate state the right to engage in war crimes to massacre to terrify and terrorize almost a million people and those people who fled they are the ones now across the globe over 7 million palestinians are in the diaspora i guarantee you in this audience of ours we have people whose fathers and grandfathers were a part of the first nakba and we are we haven't even got to the second neck by yet so 1948 that is the third question memorize it what gave israel the right it was given 55 we don't even agree with that but they were not happy and they're never happy zionist greed knows no bounds no matter what you give them they want more they were given the majority of the land nope they don't want that much they want more the day they're born the day they're born they go to war and they conquer more than 80 percent and make no mistake about this this was a planned and calculated offensive they knew that they wanted more land they were not happy at the u.n resolution giving them 55 of the land they wanted more and they got it just like that video footage of a fellow american from brooklyn right our own fellow american no ties to that land speaks in a new york accent he lands in that state he's given nationality and he walks in to a palestinian's house our palestinian brothers say how could you do this why are you stealing our land and he speaks directly and innocently in his own way but he betrays the reality of the zionist mindset and he says it's not a big deal if i don't steal it somebody else will that is the zionist mindset it's going to be stolen i might as well take it myself it's the same mindset from 1948 that we are seeing up until now if i don't steal it somebody else will so in 1948 they attacked the surrounding lands and they conquered over 80 percent of the lands almost two-thirds of what was assigned to our palestinian brothers and sisters was taken in 1948. can you imagine going to court because somebody has stolen a hundred dollars of yours and you know he's stolen it the court knows he's stolen it the court says okay fine we'll give you 45 dollars back you're angry your protest as you walk back home the thief drops you again and from that 45 he takes another 25 and you ended with 20 dollars that is the reality of what happened to palestine within a year from 100 they move down to 20. and not just that with that 20 they don't have the house they're living in they have to feed five times the amount of people the whole situation has changed this is the reality of the 1948 nakba and that's our third question the fourth question even that did not satisfy the greed of zionists so the fourth question what gave this zionist apartheid regime the right to launch yet another attack yet another war the 1967 war known as the six day war in which their greed knew no bounds and they conquered the gaza strip and they took over the entire west bank and they invaded jerusalem and they marched on the aksa complex with their weapons with their boots with their machine guns they killed people in the masjid and they took over physically a lot of muslims don't know this in 1967 up until 67 masjid al-aqsa was not under the control of the zionist entity it was independent as the united nations had initially asked for in 1967 in the six day war the apartheid regime invaded simultaneously this was again a meticulous plan their air force and their military and their idf simultaneously attacking multiple fronts and they conquered the sinai peninsula they took over what is now the gaza strip and they took the entire west bank now a lot of us who've never been there we don't know what the west bank is the west bank is an entire region that has many key cities ramallah nabolis jericho bethlehem hebron these are historic cities these are palestinian cities and in 1967 still there was some independence of that entire region but zionism knows no bounds when it comes to greed and they invaded and they took over and acquired and now they control who comes in and out and they control the demographics and they control the citizenship of those regions along with gaza and along with east jerusalem the muslim quarters of jerusalem they took over that just grab just invade just take and by the way what is the united nations doing in 1948 in 1967 absolutely nothing absolutely nothing mere condemnations a generic resolution nothing is done no boycott no sanctions nothing and that is why history is so important for us to learn because anybody who has an open mind will see the plight of the palestinians anybody who understands what is justice will side with that of the palestinians you cannot side with zionism if you know even the basic understanding of history of that region so in 1967 another nakba the second nakba the palestinians called two nakbas 1948 and 1967 and in 1967 another large group of palestinians perhaps around another six hundred thousand were expelled in the second nakba and from these two nakbas 1948 and 1967 as we said palestinians spread around the globe we currently have roughly seven million palestinians around the globe in the diaspora roughly seven million people who cannot go back to the land of their ancestors because they were forcibly expelled and either the first nakba or the second nakba a quick show of hands how many of you palestinians in the audience traced your roots to the first night by 1948 1948 we have one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen nineteen sixty 1967 how many how many of you one two three four five six seven eight nine tails twenty five in this audience of ours we have around fifteen whose ancestors go back to the first nukkah and twenty-five whose ancestors go back to the second nakba and why are there palestinians across the globe there's large groups of palestinians in south america in mexico in denmark across the globe why because they don't have a land of their own they were forcibly expelled they don't have a place they can call home they were forced to flee and of course the largest group of refugees by the way the united nations said palestine has said the united nations has said that palestinians are the largest group of refugees of any nationality or ethnicity in the world there is no competition in terms of numbers the number one group of refugees is palestinians why because of the greed of zionism the first nakba and the second nakba so that is the fourth question what gave the state of israel the further right to launch another attack and to gobble up all of these lands the sinai peninsula was taken eventually because of a negotiation with carter jimmy carter they handed it back to egypt the sinai peninsula was taken the west bank was taken and the gaza strip was taken along with jerusalem and of course jerusalem was made the capital under trump as you're aware all of this goes back to 1966 and by the way again complete coincidence that war began on the 5th of june 1967 it just so happens our conference is taking place the fifth of june so 54 years ago was the second nakba literally to the day today surprise attack and what happened happened the fifth and final question the fifth and final question and this is not necessarily a past history it is current situation by what moral right does the government of israel treat those same palestinians that it has kicked out and placed in the situation that they're in with the type of sub-human restrictions that it does what gives the israeli government the right to treat palestinians in a manner that no government on earth treats any other group of people what right do they have to do that and here is where we need to arm ourselves with the knowledge of reality on the ground what is life like for the people in gaza and again for most of us who have not been and by the way this is one of the most important reasons why we need to go a lot of people say what can we do a lot that we can do but definitely one of the things that i'm a huge advocate of you just heard dr mustafa abusway also say this that those muslims who are able to travel to fallacies they should go there but with one condition and that condition is non-negotiable and that condition they must support the palestinian economic infrastructure they must go to palestinian hotels they must hire palestinian buses they must hire palestinian guys they must go to palestinian tourist agencies that is the only condition that i'm an advocate of that we visit philistine to support our palestinian brothers and sisters in their businesses and then to see the reality firsthand i have been there five times every single time i take a group of people from this country one of the largest groups alhamdulillah from america 150 people typically go with me and every single batch they're just shocked how can this be happening how can the world not know when you see it it's different when you see that barbed wire when you see that 30 foot wall that cement wall when you see the reality of life within the settlements and outside the settlements when you're within an israeli settlement it's as if you are living in in california it's as if you're in dallas texas the greenery the the water the electricity as soon as you step outside literally there's a wall as soon as you step outside the trash the junk people are living on the streets and you see the disparity and you see how people are treated you have to see it to believe it and this is a reality that is not shown on western tv when you go there you take video footage you can be ambassadors see for yourself the reality of gaza gaza has been called by multiple people multiple personalities the largest open-air prison in the world over two million people the highest concentration of human beings on earth is in gaza over two million people are trapped they cannot exit or come in without israeli permission the joblessness is in the sixty percent the situation in terms of health care the situation in terms of medicine in terms of education what is going to happen when you have 2 million people locked up for over 70 years what's going to happen and this is not a justification of violence at all but nonetheless and i say this i used to teach at a college i would say this our founding fathers revolted and went against their kings in england because of a tax on tea they couldn't sip their tea anymore and so they revolted against the king and they did what they did what is going to happen when people don't have water to drink when their children die because there's no medicine when joblessness is 70 when there is no future in sight why is it okay for our founding fathers to do what they did but anyway that is besides the point this is food for thought as well the point being our fifth question is by what moral right does the government of israel treat palestinians in a sub-human manner no government on earth treats other people the way that israel treats its palestinians and by the way people from south africa who have lived under apartheid have called israel an apartheid state people that are not muslims that don't have the loyalties to the ummah they have called israel an apartheid memorize these names first and foremost the number one on the list for us in america is jimmy carter our own president he's written a book the title of the book is what is the title of the book guys peace not apartheid that's the title of the book peace not apartheid jimmy carter is an evangelical he's not a muslim he's not somebody whose loyalties are to the religion but he has observed and he has said this is apartheid desmond tutu the senior most bishop of the catholic faith in africa visited the occupied territories and he was so emotionally overcome he was so moved and he said that what he has witnessed has reminded him of south african apartheid standing long in lines people with submachine guns checking you out complete privileges taken away this is desmond tutu and then nelson mandela nelson mandela is anybody going to accuse nelson mandela of being unbiased and unfair nelson mandela has called palestine under apartheid occupation and he is somebody who knows what apartheid is so anybody who sugarcoats this reality you call them out say i'm not calling it an apartheid state our own president did and people who have lived under apartheid know exactly what it is have pointed this out as we come to the conclusion these are the five questions that i want everybody to write down and memorize and as we read and as you study history insha'allah you yourself will start chalking up more details that you can you can use to to defend these five questions but you know what brothers and sisters alhamdulillah the tide is changing and we see this all of us that remember what it was like in the 80s and 90s we now see the very beginnings of the glimmer of the potential light at the end of the tunnel for the very first time alhamdulillah people politicians mainstream media i wouldn't say speaking up that's still too much but at least presenting the other side for the very first time mainstream institutes politicians congressmen and congresswoman for the very first time are now brave enough and able to point out the realities of life for our palestinian brothers and sisters allah azza knows when the victory is going to come but one thing is for sure the fact that is undeniable is that the zionism project has been a massive failure from its very inception it has been a massive failure from its inception and from its actualization and from its current existence zionism the example that i have is like somebody trying to dig a hole to get to the other side of the world and before it's too late he keeps on digging digging digging he thinks he's going to get there and he has deluded himself and he's deluded some people to think he's going to get to the other side but in reality it's only a matter of time before the allies and supporters all see through the vicious lies and eventually as he's digging and digging and digging he shall collapse in the web of his own lies and under the avalanche of his own inhumanity and barbaric practices it is impossible for such blatant injustice to flourish it is impossible for such blatant injustice to flourish it is the sunnah of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the truth shall prevail over falsehood and that eventually those who suffered injustices they will be answered to and their duas will be responded to so we make dua to lift the problems and suffering of our palestinian brothers and sisters we make dua to allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to return masjid al-aqsa to its rightful owners we ask allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that we see the day that masjid al-aqsa is a bastion of freedom and a symbol of the religion of ibrahim alaihissalam we pray that all of us can pray and masjid al-aqsa when it is free and it is safe and when it's secure and we ask allah azzawajal to make us all instruments that will bring about that realization which is allah very informative and inspirational alhamdulillah i hope everybody was taking notes this is the type of information we need especially for the college students university students high school students you know inshallah these are things that always arise in class and you need to be a good lawyer palestine is a just cause but you have to be a good lawyer to defend it inshallah and that's what we're trying to make through these types of conferences inshallah and now before we break for lunch i just have a few announcements the first is the exits the first exit for the front side is the front to my left here and to the back for the men and then for the sisters it's to the back as well the food is going to be outside inshallah keep your bags with you and keep your shoes with you inshallah so you can come back in when the break is over also we have uh the american muslims for palestine uh dallas chapter the right here in the back inshallah ta'ala you can inquire about them and also uh mr miko pellet is selling his books he's going to be back there you can take a look at his books insha allah and we're going to talk a little bit more about them when he gives his talk i'll see you back in 15 minutes so allah can uh everyone just um please be seated so we can begin our program inshallah had a good time out there with the refreshments you know it's always an epic thing right to feed everybody alhamdulillah i mean we take pride in that but uh just before we begin inshaallah i just want to make a quick announcement make dua for a brother that perhaps some of us know he just passed away may allah have mercy on him we made dua for him yesterday after isha as well brother brother tarek from and you know anyone that's been in the community knows him uh he just passed away in the icu uh you know he was one of the people that started pure hands and mlfa he installed the carpet in the masjid very active community member may allah subhanahu ta'ala bestow his mercy on him may allah give him rahman forgive him for his sins we remember him with good and we ask allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as he is he just passed away and he probably less than an hour ago that allah subhanahu wa ta'ala unites him with his family and with his friends and with the prophets and the righteous in jannah so with that inshallah so far you guys learned something new inshallah out in zarai inshallah so today is dedicated to learning about palestine like i mentioned before we need to be good lawyers to defend this just cause because a failed lawyer can lose the case even if the cause is just so now we are learning the proofs and the evidences we are learning what is going on in sha allah so that allah can use us to defend justice so now without further ado i will introduce our second guest for today so our second guest is a co-founder and professional and professor in islamic law and theology in zetuna college and he is a lecturer in the university of california berkeley professor bazian founded the research uh founded the islamophobia research and documentation project at the center of for race and gender a research unit dedicated to the systematic study of othering islam and muslims he is the founder of the national chair of the american muslims for palestine you see their their banner right there in the back in the desk and he's a board member of the islamic scholarship fund he the muslim legal fund of america and president of dollar for dean charity and chair of northern california islamic council very active in islamic causes in civic causes and all over but specifically in the palestinian cause and today inshallah not only will he give us uh a talk and a pr but he will also give us a presentation inshallah that's very unique coming from our first uh in-person palestinian speaker tonight so i'm palestinian too but i'm not one of the speakers i'm only the emcee so barakallahu and without further ado brother and doctor and professor basian thank you all for being in here today so if i could get the presentation up please inshaallah so what i'm focusing today on is from occupation to apartheid and colonization and it's for us it's important to understand how to frame and understand palestine as a cause that both for muslims as well as anyone that is dedicated for human rights at a global level what i want people to so you want to come out of this discussion is one palestine is not a conflict between two people that don't understand each other right it's not a communication problem that you could hire a public relations firm that possibly sells what you call [Music] fair and lovely or coca-cola product and we could get together and have a retreat and come out with a communication problem that is solved so that's important second it is not only it's not a problem of occupation even though the palestinians are occupied because occupation implies that there is one state occupying another state so it's not an occupation even though that it is part of an occupation and what we need is to understand what specifically how to understand palestine so i will get into my presentation but before i go if you could take a scan this qr code and make sure to sign the petition this is the petition from american muslims for palestine we're calling for sanctions on israel we're calling for sanctions on israel so fill the petition online and uh make sure that you engage politically if you are civically engaged with people to call for sanctions on israel countries that are engaged in apartheid and colonization should be sanctioned not rewarded with to 3.8 billion dollars as well as an open-ended access to the treasury from the united states so that's very important if you do so the second thing that i want you to do this is something related to islamophobia we have developed an islamophobia app so i want you if you have a iphone apple does not give me any commission but if you have an iphone or an android i want you to download this app and i want you to report incidents of islamophobia because if a tree falls in the forest and nobody took a picture of it and it's not on twitter or instagram did it really fall need to have the data in order for us to quantify what the muslim community is facing in relation to islamophobia and i know some muslims say masha allah you know is going to reward me for being patient i would say be patient like the camel because the camel is patient but at the same time you need to tie and then do tawakkula on allah subhanahu wa so this is something i want to ask you specifically to do and to make sure any incident verbal somebody tug on a woman hijab somebody says something negative your employment somebody says calling you osama even though your name is not osama all these are important in relation to quantifying uh the problem 80 percent to 85 percent of all the islamophobic attacks often target muslim women because muslim women with the hijab are the most visible in civil society so that's very important for understanding palestine and what happens today we need to understand the six features of settler colonialism i have a book that i did not bring any books but a book that you could access palestine it is something colonial that's the title of the book that title came out of a letter that herzl road to cesar rhodes cecil rhodes was the minister of colonies in great britain and for those who were in the khutbah in jummah i say alhamdulillah that great britain is no longer great because only allah is great it used to be said that great britain that the sun never sat on the british empire because from one side of the globe to the other the british had colonial possessions now the british don't have any colonial possession they have to go to greece in order to get some suntan god does have a long lens of justice and we need to appreciate this aspect of it so when we speak about palestine palestine is the last settler colonial project to be commissioned by western powers so let me repeat this palestine is the last settler colonial project to be had to be commissioned by western powers in order to create a colonial outpost in palestine in order to understand this we have to look at what i call the six features of settler colonialism and colonialism in general one it was global when the british were thinking about palestine they were thinking about how to protect india now you say what is the relationship of palestine to india i know that the palestinians don't eat spicy food they like hummus and kanapha me too and the indian they like spicy food right right therefore when i visited kerala india the biggest struggle for me was the spice so alhamdulillah they found some non-spicy food in order to address my need as a palestinian in kerala india so what is the relationship between india and palestine india for the british crown was the prize they ravaged india close to 15 trillion dollars was the british intake out of india most of that trade was passing through the red sea and as the swiss canal was opened was passing through the swiss canal to the british and to europe whoever controlled the waterways of babel mandib in yemen and the swiss canal controlled the trade global trade you remember a couple of months ago when a ship ran ground on the swiss canal we came to know that 12 to 14 percent of global trade 12 to 14 percent of global trade passes through the swiss canal so it's not only in the late 1800s but also in the 21st century most of the products in the world pass through waterways okay very important in 1914 85 percent of the world's surface was a colony you're either colonized by the british the french the portuguese the dutch the italians the germans and the spanish so 85 of the world's surface so when the british were thinking out of palestine they're thinking about how to secure trade and make sure that their livelihood which was carried out through the waterways is maintained so that's point one second which is global and second it was economic technological and military projects so the advancement of military projects the advancement of economic underpinnings that's why much of the coastal areas were made into trading posts for the british and the french and the portuguese la so the spanish were kicked out of the indian ocean areas now a note in here many of the political structures that we see in the global south are post-colonial global structures these are elites that were trained educated and came back to run the colonies once the colonial forces left because we often say why these countries continue to be in the way that they are again these were how many of you visit 7-11 right 7-eleven is a franchise the global south these post-colonial states are political franchises their economy is still controlled dominated right their military is trained by global north so it is an economic technological military structure third it's a racial structure so when the zionists came to palestine they saw themselves as being european bringing civilization right to civilize the east and not only that they also were engaging in racism toward also the religious jews so zionism itself was both racial in relation to the arab palestinians but also was racist the word religious jews because they were blamed for not being in essence strong not being embracing modernity not being in essence a fully functioning community that would take its place in society so if you read uh the early zionists you will see their complete racial discourse so when the zionists look at a palestinian he is looking at a sub-human person you understand this to explain to you when a police officer shoots a black person he or she are thinking that they're shooting someone that is less than human that has been the norm in relation to the colonial period right again you know you often think about uh how we could rationalize racism it's again it's one of the longest calamity that we have with us but the past 500 years have made racism as part of public policy part of entertainment and yesterday i said that one of the most widely used creams in the world is fair and lovely which burn your skin so modernity's contribution made humans hate themselves which in essence hating god's creation and if you want to think of it theologically adam every human being is a noble you don't need fair and lovely to be dignified you're dignified because your mother gave you birth gave birth to you in a state of dignity that is constitutive of who you are as a human being so again we need to understand this racial aspect to it fourth settler colonialism is situated on genocide of the indigenous population you don't need to go to palestine to understand it look in relations to here in the americans all right we're all in here in again in texas we're standing on indigenous people's land so part of thinking of palestine is also you need to think about where we are today you have to be consistent in speaking about subtler colonialism in the america as you speak about subtler colonialism in palestine which is very difficult because we have absorbed what i consider to be that we accepted to be in the framework of america and the white picket fence we're coming here to live the american dream you need to ask whether that american dream resonate with the indigenous population because the rest of them who were not committed to genocide were transferred into reservation in the same way that palestinians were sent to refugee camps that is normative in relation to settler colonialism if you study south africa you will see the same thing if you study even parts of india during the british colonization the shifting of the population australia new zealand canada and palestine is facing the same settler colonial genocide and transfer one part of genocide that has to be understood as well is what we call epistemic genocide i know this is a very academic term epistemic epistemic means the way of knowing right the way of knowing all of us today without exception maybe of some few people here and there are looking at the world through european lens we experience and look at the world and analyze the world through eurocentric lens history we understand history through european history for example the notion well we need to separate church and state right that's a european framing europe had an experience with the church the catholic church and the catholic church was corrupt in europe divine rights of king and therefore they needed to break away from the church that's not the experience of the muslim because we don't have divine rights of king we did not have the mosque running we have a completely different discourse it's not the experience of the chinese so when you say that statement you need to understand that you have internalized the ways of knowing of eurocentricity another thing we say oh in the middle ages or during the dark ages excuse me that it was dark in one neighborhood they didn't have electricity in europe the rest of the world did not have the dark ages actually was very very much lit people were using were traveling and visiting muslim muslim lands and saying how beautiful it is and how light filled these areas were chinese actually had the height of their civilization during that period so when you say middle ages dark ages you need to understand that you are looking and experiencing the world through a eurocentric eyes that is part of the impact of colonization enslavement controlled labor enslavement of the indigenous indigenous population first the first group of slaves to be taken were taken from the united from the new from the new territory into europe columbus second journey he took a thousand native population only one third arrived then after that followed by the enslavement of close to between 15 to 30 million 15 percent of those some say 20 were muslims that were brought to this new world in the colonial period which include palestine is that colonized people are used as commodified labor meaning that their labor is used in order to advance and build the colony especially after you commit a group to genocide those remaining you use them to for as a labor force south africa was the same palestine and this is actually what people need to understand the settlements in palestine are built by palestinian labor let me repeat this the settlements are built by palestinian labor now it do is it the palestinians don't understand that they're building the structure that is suppressing they do understand but in here it's either hunger and death or actually working under these conditions that is normative in the same way that black slaves built the white house and we had to wait until 2008 for a black person to sit on the chair in the white house that was built by slaves right so that has to be understood as part of settler colonialism religious and biblical justification this is an a very important piece the first to push for creating a jewish state in palestine was not the jewish community if you go back first it was actually napoleon when he came into his campaign on egypt in 1797 he wrote asking the jews of the atman empire to join him the jews of the atman empire said no sir we're not interested so they didn't accept his offer and re to remind you that napoleon took a campaign in palestine and the palestinian defeated napoleon in the shores of akka i know when you have what you call the history channel they don't mention that because they want to make napoleon as what you call the fountainhead this great person tell anyone that ashley says the palestinians defeated napoleon and he had to trace himself back into egypt and then the british confronted him at the shores of alexandria right but that begins a different history in relations to british influence control of egypt so religious justification also the british began to create a fund for archaeological discoveries in palestine in order to trace the biblical history and the biblical narrative a fact that you need to know the british archaeologists from the 1800s up to the around 1970 they were going to palestine to jordan to lebanon to syria to egypt not to look at the evidence and make conclusion on the evidence they went there the conclusion was already made and wanted to fit the evidence onto the conclusion if you have ever done a research as a student you begin first with a hypothesis you go out to do your research one two three four points you go and look at the evidence you write whatever you come and then you come up with your conclusion you don't give a conclusion and then you go and find pieces to fit the evidence so archaeological field was set up by the british you could also bring the germans and later on the americans doing archaeological diggings in order to authenticate and re present the biblical narrative interestingly enough wherever they found anything they actually put the name biblical name on it even though it did not correspond to it right so again it was colonial archaeology this colonial archaeology results in transformation of the names names of areas names of regions and as early as 1865 the british had a whole project for documenting and mapping palestine archaeologically as it relates to the biblical text now anyone that again looks at the field of archaeology every time you duck something in palestine a canaanite came out jumping right because the oldest population in palestine are the canaanites right even in the bible using just as a historical text it said that the prophet abraham migrated from mesopotamia to the land of the canaanites it says that abraham spoke the language of the canaanites more importantly it says that he lived as an alien among the canaanites i mean i say that palestinians gave him an early green card right to live among them this is important because you have what you call the zionists using the religious text even though if if you listen to ilan papi he said that most zionists don't believe in god but they believe that god gave them the land that's what ilan i think it was a beautiful summation that zionism is a secular project secular nationalist project utilize religious discourse to justify their project they don't believe in god but they do believe that god gave them the land so every once in a while you get a zionist that opens and say well this is what god says but god says something else you know two three pages down the line often the argument which is also for individuals who are arguing and talking about palestine history of palestine does not begin with the bible okay let me repeat this history of palestine does not begin with the bible even if you take the bible to look at it as both as a spiritual historical text it dates back to a thousand bc even some say it was written in about the old testament around 570 during the exile period the history of palestine can be traced from archaeological discovery to about 35 000 years the oldest olive tree in the world is in palestine is 6 500 years old right the archaeological discoveries point to palestine being the earliest place of civilization agriculture domestication of animal uh irrigation system the oldest city in jericho or some say jericho or damascus so again when you begin by saying 1000 bc you're accepting biblical zionist narrative that begins to say that palestine belonged to us because we were there 1000 bc now there is no dispute that the early jewish community post moses period came to palestine that's not a dispute but if we look at historical progression the longest control over palestine is actually the egyptian the longest rule of palestine is actually the egyptian rule during various periods so the fact that the jews came to palestine from outside does not negate the history before during and after i think sometimes muslims who begin to engage in this discussion they begin to enter into a debate about the bible the history and so on and in doing so you erase the history of the canonize the history of palestine in general sometimes of good intention but good intention by themselves are not sufficient so we need to understand when we say centering palestinian history is centering history as history which is different than religious history and again to those who understand religious history is not akin to history right there is a distinction in you doesn't mean that you don't learn lessons but in doing so you often erase palestinian history even if you think about the digging around jerusalem right the oldest wall in relations to jerusalem it dates back to the canaanites we know again from the religious narrative that when when abraham migrated to palestine it was already a vibrant society right so again very important in understanding in this western christianity has to be held responsible as much as zionism for adopting and wanting to push for the zionist colonial project for its own interest because again in here you're in the south with the evangelical right you're the hagee and the friends of israel they're supporting israel not because all of a sudden they loved the jewish community or all of a sudden they discovered that they hate muslims their equal opportunity they hate both but they believe this is again their own theology speculative theology that the return of jesus is situated on the support for the state of israel the reconstituting of the children of israel in palestine and when jesus come you ask the question philip hagie what happens well two-thirds of the jews will be killed and one-third will convert to christianity while the muslims are seen to be from the realm of satan we don't even qualify to an affirmative action inclusion we don't even have the possibility of conversion that's their own theology you don't take my word for it go and look at you know christian zionism and what their belief system in this in this sense so they are using speculative theology evangelical speculative theology to push for support for israel for their own purposes and if the muslims and jews kill each other might as well they're supporting actors in a theater peace that they are actually not actors in it the role of muslims and jews or southern hemisphere is for us to bring the t on the stage give it to the western evangelical western civilization and exit stage left because there is only one true history from their perspective is this history that is contained in the biblical narrative that has been interpreted understood with their speculative theology okay that is an important piece to understand because you ask why is there why the evangelicals are so much supportive of israel or also some other mainstream christian groups that sometimes they still would support it because theologically they find argumentation to it and increasingly you find some of the black churches using that same logic as well so it's very important to understand that this is part of the discourse that we're dealing with and it was present in colonial discourse as well many of you possibly understood manifest destiny right the white man burden that we want to civilize the world and christianize the world and there was a debate you know throughout on on this notion that debate still have an effect in relation to palestine so that's very very important in in this sense so these are the six features that we need to understand when we are discussing palestine right otherwise you really are entering into conversation and you're getting lost in the minutia or the details on that is there now let me shift a little bit to speak about the most recent development so this should be the framework behind uh in in the back of your mind palestinians today in the west bank and the gaza strip as well as 48 are feeling the impact of the oslo agreement if you don't know the oslo agreement it's an agreement that was signed in september 13 1993 by which the plo the palestine liberation organization recognized israel while israel recognized the plo as the agency or as the group to negotiate with israel for final solution not or the final status for the palestinian areas through that agreement it actually led to the de-centering of the plo which is actually is very uh the plo was not as i would say as not as smart as they thought they are because they thought that israel recognizing the plo as the agency to negotiate with israel will bring pialo into center stage it actually decentered the plo and in its place created the palestinian authority and it became the focus of negotiations now i have a written around what happened in for oslo immediately thereafter i said at the time that israel as a result of the first uprising was accustomed to having its own style of colonization it wanted its own form it wanted to control every neighborhood it wanted to know how much beans there is in each falafel it wanted to monitor the amount of sugar in each of the canafes all over the west bank literally they wanted four reports from each corner in every part of the west bank that security structure collapsed as a result of the uprising so israel was actually searching for a new model or a way to replace its security structure so the oslo agreement brought the palestinian authority as a security structure to secure israel settlements and settlers from the palestinians all right so again it began to be that israel brought the palestinian authority to be its security infrastructure to secure its own population settler populations in the west bank i compared it to south africa during the apartheid period the anc was leading the anti-apartheid movement the south africa apartheid structure engaged chief puto lazy and projected that chief botolaisi is the leader of the black south africans opposite nelson mandela who was in jail and for a period of time the south african white apartheid regime succeeded in projecting that image but as the intensity of opposition to the south africa apartheid structure became more pronounced chief botilesi was ineffective in maintaining hold of the black population and the anc was successful in opposing and ending apartheid south africa's regime with the support of the international community i argued then and i can't maintain that the palestinian authority was brought to reconstitute a classical form of colonization where you recruit a small group of the indigenous colonized people and you empower them to rule over the colonial subject while protecting the colonial population and you protect the infrastructure of the colonial enterprise we saw it in india again for those who are aware you know british created native courts they uh engaged with relations with the raj that gave them power over the population and most of the indians often were oppressed by other indians who were in relationship to the british that's what the israelis and zionists moved with the oslo agreement and the palestinian authority accepted this the other also severed relations with the young population so you actually find a demarcation especially post 2000 the young palestinian population were completely disconnected from the broader discourse that was taking place post the signing of oslo that is also was positive because they did not have the same fears or the same impediments that were present in the older generation without problematizing those who are old because some are old but still young and resisting while there are some young that are old in relation to giving up so again this is not the framing but it severed structurally that relationship it removed palestine from communal organizing space for those who know the palestinians in the united states during the 80s the 90s palestinians were connected to the palestinian structure you actually used to relate to plo work flyers material fact sheets information post oslo and i would point from 1993 till today i would challenge anyone within the palestinian community nationally to have received a fact sheet a study or analysis that is coming from the plo more importantly part of oslo required that the plo should withdraw its international aspect of its work which means it actually disempowered the plo which at a time was far more recognized internationally than israel but oslo has also weakened the palestinians in a transnational way there was an emergence of islamic organizations which again amp can be one of that but with it also this is something that we need to critique the normalization camp what do i mean by normalization most likely you heard recently about the critique of isna and its relationship with ajc the american jewish committee also most likely you heard of what's called the mli muslim leadership initiative that was taking young muslims from america to take them on a fully paid trip by the zionists to palestine so they would understand how palestine is important to the american jewish community which is a normalization and when they come back they speak zionist language right they blame the palestinians they would say that they were inspired by what they saw on a fully paid trip and this whole interfaith washing that has developed more importantly also the normalization in the muslim world the countries that have recognized israel whether it's united arab emirates bahrain morocco mauritania egypt jordan there is a press on sudan bangladesh has a a commercial interest office for israel qatar likewise have engaged in normalizations in one way or the other and also turkey has a long-standing diplomatic relation so i'm an equal opportunity in my critique in this sense but normalization that israel becomes a partner in the region rather than being seen as a colonial enterprise and increasingly people say well you know we just live and let live well let's okay live and not live well they're not letting us live to begin with right they're demolishing palestinian homes daily they're still we're in the 21st century right we're on june right fifth 2021 and we have on the newspapers settlers taking over palestinian homes in sheikh jarrah you know if we read this in the 1500 like when columbus got lost on his way to india and the native discovered that he was lost and there was settlements we would understand this but we're in the 21st century right and the new york times the washington post and uncle biden saying that israel has the right to defend itself in stealing palestinian homes in and building settlements and more importantly your state department saying that settlements are only an impediment to peace settlements are illegal and an international law that you develop not us i did not ride the fort geneva convention right i read it but it's not me right when europe [Music] maybe i'll get a little bit in here when europe massacred the world in world war 1 and world war ii they got together and wrote the the for geneva convention it's your convention that says we have a set of rules by which we're going to adhere because we're not going to allow what we did not me but europe what europe did causing the death of 50 to 70 million people are not going to allow it to happen and that's the four geneva convention passed in 1949 after the second world war so for geneva convention your audit state department you have a specialist we have a professor at uc berkeley john you who said that the four geneva convention is a passe it's no longer applicable because he wrote the memos for torture in iraq which got the united states in trouble we found that the fort geneva convention is still one of the documents that governs how we relate in times of war so mr biden bilkin in the state department for the settlements are not impediment to peace they are war crimes and illegal under your document not ours so we're in the 21st century and we're still talking about settlements settlers [Music] so it's not live and not live they're not letting us live and we're not living and i'm not touching the gaza strip 65 percent of it is refugees from 1948 ethnically cleansed [Applause] the largest open air prison that still day in and day out being bombed water that is no longer the unsaid by 2020 that's last year before even covet that the water is no longer usable for human consumption that's 20 20. after 2021 now what is it used for the calorie intake of gaza is the only place on earth only place on earth where the height of people are diminishing because your calorie intake are causing stunted growth among the gazan population what is the world response our politicians here hamas hamas hamas hamas is like hamas they're confusing it right they don't understand the difference you speak to them about the human rights hamas again this is what you call a problem is this funny character is using that to have an f-16 bombing right all these residential towers and the israeli pilot said is actually just to vent out it's a war crime our politicians say israel has the right to defend itself venting out that's why these apartment buildings were hit not because there is hamas not because it is venting that's on a pilot saying what the reason for bombing these residential spaces and when the media building gets bombed the media apologizes right the ap building was was completely bombed to smithereens in any other context i bet again i said in the washington dc march i come from berkeley if a cat gets stuck on the tree will get a petition to try to create the environment so the cat would not get stuck on the tree if a dog get to be what you call injured we'll have a march down in order to get the city council to make changes to make the streets safe for the dog rightly so my students are the ones that hug the tree and went and climbed the tree in order to prevent the cutting of the trees rightly so again the prophet i said hugged the tree when when he was given the khutbah and they built a member for him he got on the member and he heard the tree feeling the pain he hugged the tree to calm it down so i have no problem with people hanging a tree i'd rather for you hug a tree then go and actually drink what you call these big gulps and hug it like 54 ounces of complete garbage that people consume but when it comes to palestine all of your liberals all of your people that have caught on every cause they're out to mars with elon musk you don't find them they're trying to see if they find a palestinian in mars to free them but palestinians that are there in palestine are completely forgotten and they give you the lamest excuses well there's two sides to every hey there is two sides to every issue there is a rape and rapist there is two sides but there's two sides is one of the easiest escapeable discourses that you could get because it equalized between the oppressed and oppressor the colonize and the colonizer the victim and the victimizer so this nonsense of the two sides in a colonial structure had it been in the united states you would actually have to go and interview the slave owners how do you feel or slave owner that your slaves rebelled against you it must be traumatizing for you so we need a therapist for you at one of our universities because it's really very difficult that all of a sudden a hundred slaves is scared from your control and rebelled against you i know i know we need an action in congress to prohibit slaves from rebelling which happened so this discourse of the two-sidedness is often used as a way to rationalize the continued oppression of the palestinians how how's my time two hours oh that's it see i i began to speak a little bit about critical issues and i'm just kidding so let me try to conclude with the following palestine needs people that understand how to advocate and speak on palestine and i want you also and i think mikko is going to come and speak after me i don't want any of the nonsense that people get into that begin to correlate and mix between criticizing israel and criticizing jewish and judaism that has to be completely completely exit out of any of our discourse yes we have theological differences with judaism again that is nothing new there are political large work on that like we have differences with christianity on theological issues as muslims have differences theologically again can you have you have you ever discussed had shia sunni having a discussion in terms of the differences sometimes people enter into the conversation mixing their brains between theological debates that are the realm of religious discourse and debates versus dealing with settler colonialism of zionism so that has to be completely jettisoned and nothing to do second you are not helping palestine or the palestinians by standing in there and beginning to argue anything relative to the holocaust there are people which i consider to be completely oblivious stand up and begin to speak about the holocaust in ways that both is insulting to palestine but also insulting to the jewish community engaging in this conversation does not help palestine or the palestinians one is you have nothing you have no history you have not studied that history yourself and the second if there is anything you actually tell europe that the holocaust belong to your history and you need to answer for it so it is none of your business to begin the whole conversation of denial and beginning to diminish the holocaust and i understand people think that the palestinians are suffering pointing to the people that are causing you suffering by denying their suffering does not do anything to your suffering that is taking place so it's not an olympics of suffering that you negating the suffering of the jews in europe is not a way for you to assert what is taking place in palestine and some begin to argue the numbers no it's not five million it's six million it's four and a half million that's for me is like compounded insanity right so affirm and begin to understand that history belongs to european history and understand it and completely delink it even when zionists begin to argue and use anti-semitism as a weapon against us that should not give us the reason or the excuse to enter into that conversation of negation sometimes out of what you call out of our way to try to center the pain of the palestinians we begin to engage in that conversation so it's very important because again often we get into these uh conversations that are just completely erroneous you are not helping you're adding to the pain and suffering there's so much in palestinian issues to cover you leave that and you just go and jump to germany right hitler belongs to europe mussolini belongs to europe european have normatively engaged in genocide that's not our point they expelled muslims from 1492 the expulsion and the inquisition so it's nothing new you are not arguing the holocaust did not happen are you trying to defend hitler to say well no hitler was a nice guy hitler was an equal opportunity he hated everyone other than the superior whiteness which was the ultimate racial discourse that you have i'm saying this because it's very very important and critical because people get into social media enter into this conversation and they think right that they're helping the palestinians ask what was the palestinian position on hitler and germany the papers in the 1930s palestinians were writing against hitler and the nazi project they rejected even at the time which would have been rational they rejected actually being sucked into that type of discourse these are the newspapers from the 1930s in palestine so that's very very critical for us to understand in order for us to engage in this conversation the last and this is my last statement is that i do believe that change is coming and transformation is underway but silence by itself is not going to change anything and i know that people say when we're waiting for salahuddin to come i say if salaheddine comes you will be in starbucks drinking latte and possibly say he doesn't have the right wudu what i want if salahuddin comes is to say that the salahaddin you are waiting for is here is you get up and get to work that's all what i say so don't what you call almost like get in a state of drunkenness imagining history these are people that are nostalgic they never change history get up make history and let people be nostalgic about what you do that's my advice for you in relation to palestine [Applause] for the thorough historic explanation and the very passionate speech um inshallah now without further ado because we're already running uh short on time inshallah our third guest for today is an author a writer a speaker a human rights activist who has been advocating for palestinian rights for years now although coming from a family that served the idf his own father was a general in the idf in the infamous 1967 war that occupied the west bank and razza including al masjid al-aqsa which coincidentally happens to be 54 years back from today it began on june 5th of 1967. so he saw the truth in the palestinian cause and the falsehood in the unjust and cruel occupation and of the apartheid regime so he decided to break his silence and speak up about the injustice that he sees he will also be selling and signing the books in the back for those who didn't already check it out during the lunch break those who just came in so he's an author and he will be selling his books in the back and he'll be more than delighted to explain his books and to talk to you and to sign them as well without further ado mr pico pillen it's an honor to be here i want to thank for inviting me it's great to see dr bazian hear his wonderful lectures i've had opportunities to speak after him in other events and it's always a great education to listen to his lectures and thank you all for being here today this is uh unique to have an event in person you know the last year and a half it's all been zoom sitting with pajama pants and a coat and a jacket and a shirt and doing a lecture so this is very nice to see people again can you hear me okay all right i know there's a little bit of echo so like you heard today exactly 54 years ago today the israeli army received a green light from the government to go ahead and begin an assault against egypt first this green light from the israeli government came [Music] after many weeks when the israeli high command the israeli military high command was pushing and demanding to start a war my father was a general he was a member of the israeli high command at that time in my book in this book in the general sun i actually have the actual minutes from the meetings of these generals explaining why they wanted the war it wasn't because there was a threat it wasn't because israel was being threatened or jewish people were being threatened they wanted the war because they saw an opportunity and they began a massive assault against egypt and when that went very well they decided they would take the west bank and the gaza strip and the golan heights which were areas they wanted to take anyway they were planning to do anyway this was a massive assault by israel against its arab neighbors because they wanted to destroy their military and because they wanted the land and within six days it was over and then what they did was they perpetuated this myth which we even hear today people talk about that even today as though it's true that israel was under an existential threat that the arab armies were ready to come and kill and destroy and on and on and none of that was true in their meetings in the very meetings of the generals of the israeli high command which like i said included my father they were talking about an opportunity to attack because the arab armies were not prepared for war they say this the arab armies were not prepared for war that's why we need to attack right now fact my father himself says in one point the egyptian army which was the biggest would need at least a year and a half or two years before it would be ready for war so this is an opportunity and the word opportunity comes up many times in their discussions the word threat never comes up except that they said we need to perpetuate the story that there's a threat as a means to pressure public opinion and pressure the government to give the green light and that's what happened people were scared the government was pressured and they got the green light and in five days it was over they call it the six day war because there's a biblical connection that the world was created in six days so in jewish prayer the six days comes up a lot the six days of creation and so they pick the six day war but it's incredible that the lies that they perpetuated 54 years ago about an existential threat even though those lies have been shown to be lies not just by me people before me and people after me and people you know other israeli generals stood up and said later on it was a lie but it sticks and this image of these poor israelis being threatened is something that is continuing to this day and it was a lie then and it's a lie today and you know what's interesting we saw images over the last few weeks and by the way i just landed i was in palestine i just landed two days ago i was there for about three weeks two and a half weeks and we saw images and i'm sure you saw the images in al-aqsa doing ramadan you heard about the expulsions or the attempted expulsions of palestinians from neighborhoods around in jerusalem inside the old city the muslim quarter this is an ongoing process from time to time something reaches the headlines something reaches the news and so we talk about it but this has been going on for a long time and it's an ongoing process expulsion of palestinians from their home an expulsion of palestinians from their land and israeli settlers taking over that's not news it's been going on for 75 years but from time to time there's a little eruption so we hear about it so this was shift and then it went through the old city and siluan and then of course the laksa compound and the mosque and this is during ramadan as i'm sure you know and you may have seen the images of young israelis running through the streets calling death to arabs and then these big festive group you know uh occasions in the plaza just below al-aqsa where the wall is where albrock is and they're dancing with the israeli flag and on top you can see the flames because as a result of the shooting by the israeli forces there was a fire not in the mosque but next to the mosque and as i was watching this too i remembered after the 1967 war and all the way till today the most iconic sentence that everybody remembers and you to ask any i don't know if american jews but certainly israelis the most iconic sentence that people remember is when the commander of the forces that took the old city and occupied al-aqsa he said in the in his speaker the temple mount is in our hands the temple mount is is the name for the al-aqsa compound the haram now there were these images of the soldiers reaching and crying and getting all excited about this now these were not religious people you know these were secular israelis most israelis are secular this idea of al-aqsa actually being the temple mount actually belonging to the jews it's not a religious idea it's a nationalistic idea it became kind of a nationalistic zionist symbol and immediately after the war also the national poet of israel wrote a song called jerusalem of gold maybe some of you heard of it it became also iconic jerusalem of gold became iconic and in this song in hebrew of course there are several lines which represent the narrative and these lines talk about how the water wells dried up the marketplace is empty no one goes up to the temple mount to the haram sharif nobody goes it's empty nobody goes there to pray the old city is like a ghost town it's empty the old city of jerusalem and nobody travels the road there's a famous road that goes from jerusalem down towards the dead sea and nobody go takes that road anymore in other words there's nobody there there's nobody there a land without a people a city without a people that we redeemed that we reclaimed and is now ours now she was as secular as you could possibly imagine because israeli culture is secular they use judaism they used your symbolism to kind of push forward this secular ideologies this secular nationalist almost neo-fascist ideology but this song became iconic the marketplace was empty jerusalem was empty nobody went to pray on the temple mount there's a huge mosque there the most iconic symbol of jerusalem is what the most iconic symbol when we imagine jerusalem is the golden dome these incredible structures that have been there for some fifteen hundred years longer than anything else that's ever been there with enormous significance religious significance historic significance cultural significance this city that was a muslim and arab city for 1500 years and they talk about it like there was nothing there the temple mount is in our hands again the city was empty nobody was in the marketplace this perpetuates the zionist ideology the zionist narrative that palestine was empty and that for two thousand years nothing happened in palestine the jews were there two thousand years ago maybe three they were expelled now we're back and that's it we pick up for where we left off nothing happened this narrative that completely ignores a 1500 year history the people that existed there that continue to exist there the palestinian people this is the heart and soul of the zionist narrative so it's not that destroying al-aqsa and building some kind of a structure which they call a temple it's not just a religious idea it's in fact it's not a religious idea at all orthodox jews oppose this completely it's a zionist ideal and what we saw these images that we saw over the last few weeks are very troubling because secular zionists want that want to see this happen i mean i can i can't imagine you know the horror i had palestinian friends who were in the mosque in alexa while the israeli forces were attacking the shooting the tear gas the bullets flying how easy is it for a fire to start and then suddenly they say well sorry it was a fire it was an accident i mean this is real and the reason i'm saying this you know like dr bazian said there's a there's a sense that there's something that there's change but it's very very slow we need to stop being patient about palestine we need to stop being patient and waiting for somebody to do something each and every one of us has to be salah deen like you said and to act each one of us has to talk to somebody each one of us has to send a letter each one of us has to make a phone call each one of us has to write up you know give out flyers each one of us has to do this because after it's destroyed it'll be too late and the process of destroying palestine is moving forward full force the israelis don't rest the zionists don't rest they never rest they've got huge organizations in america they've got huge very effective organizations in europe they've got organizations working in latin america and india everywhere they are pushing forward with their agenda and it's crucially important that we all understand how important it is that each and every one of us and i like this idea of each person seeing themselves as salah deen each and not waiting for somebody to come and save it we have to do it people always ask will there be peace will palestine be free it depends on us it's not going to come from somewhere else it's going to come from us palestinians are doing everything they can in palestine and if you were paying attention one i think of the remarkable things that we saw in this last uprising is palestinians all over palestine were responding there's no more west bank in gaza west bank and gaza are two zionist concepts who created the west bank before 1948 there was no such thing what's the gaza strip where did that come from were constructed by the zionists because those are particular areas that they wanted to create these boundaries disappeared in terms of the protests people are saying well hamas were shooting rockets into jerusalem why as though hamas is some entity jerusalem is another entity palestinians in other parts of the country are other entities and they're not connected it's like saying why is somebody from dallas joining the american uh the us army they should be joining the dallas army or something you know they tried to create this impression that there are no palestinians there's no palestinian unity there's no palestinian entity it's all palestine from the river jordan to the to the mediterranean sea from the northern border with lebanon to the gulf of aqaba it's all palestine the majority of the people who live there are palestinian arabs they're all controlled by what we know today officially is an apartheid regime called israel but it's palestine and the majority of the population are palestinians who of course have been designated different status i won't get into that but what we saw over the last few weeks is this unity palestinian flags were everywhere everywhere in every city in every town west bank not west bank gaza no gaza nakaba all of parts of palestine jerusalem of course and that's precisely what we need to encourage that's precisely what we need to make sure we support now you probably heard israel had elections again and after a fourth time in a couple of years and the news and the commentary who won who lost is netanyahu this is netanyahu that who cares who cares there's a train that's about to hit the wall it doesn't matter who's uh who who's driving the train they're all lunatics they're all violent racist lunatics we should be worried about the people in the train we should be worried about palestine about the palestinian people who are suffering the consequences we should be talking about how we free palestine we should be talking about how we get thousands of palestinians out of israeli jails the main jail being the gaza strip with over 2 million people i was in jerusalem while gaza was being bombed to drive from jerusalem to gaza is maybe an hour takes maybe an hour it's less than 100 miles i could have been there in 45 50 minutes by car it's that close gaza was being bombed i was getting messages from friends who live in gaza people with children who saw their friends being bombed their neighbors being killed and i'm less than an hour away and everything's fine people are going to work people are sitting in coffee shops there's electricity everything is fine the segregation that israel established in palestine is so so effective that you could be less than 100 miles from this hell that was going on in gaza and feel nothing you could be less than that you could be 10 miles away as long as you're in an israeli city in israeli settlement and everything's fine you can see the smoke and some people do and they look at the smoke and they see the planes dropping the bombs but they go on sipping their coffee kids go to school everything is normal they create this impression as though israelis are under attack israelis are defending themselves defending themselves against what two million people more than half of them are refugees homeless bombed with no access to water no access to medical care defend themselves against what exactly what is this nonsense but they found out this formula that works because for example the gaza strip is a humanitarian catastrophe two million people living in a concentration camp you got to do something now the obvious solution would be to open the gates allow people to return to their homes these people's homes are not in the gaza strip their homes their land their water their rights or in other places other parts of palestine they all came from somewhere and by the way if you ask the youngest kids in gaza they'll tell you exactly which village they came from so that would be the obvious thing let them go home pay them reparations compensate them rebuild gaza rebuild these these communities these are people who are highly educated who want to go to work and want to be productive we're not talking about millions of uneducated people we're talking about a highly educated community who can contribute who wants to contribute who want to build but israel doesn't want that god forbid they don't want the palestinians back now you can't just sit there and do nothing so they've came out with this demonic satanic formula kill them and blame them for it kill them and say it's their fault because they're terrorists and as absurd as this sounds as crazy as this sounds the rest of the world just nods their head and says yes yes that makes sense they're terrorists so israel has a right to kill them there's never been a tank in gaza there's never been a military force there's never been an army palestinian has never had an army palestinian has never had a tank let alone an f-16 but israel learned that she could this formula works they slaughter innocent civilians and blame them for being terrorists and then when they shoot rockets they say aha see they're terrorists who is so israel has a right to defend itself but palestinians don't israel has a right to bomb and slaughter innocent civilians but palestinians have no right to fight back because when they fight back that's terrorism this is an incredibly insane formula and those of us that know that this is insane need to speak up we really need to speak up we need to tell people this is insane are you listening to this and this brings us to another issue again which dr bazian brought up this issue of well if you criticize israel then you're anti-semitic nobody wants to be anti-semitic nobody wants to be a racist zionism is a racist ideology the state of israel is founded on a racist ideology [Applause] israel is an apartheid racist violent regime that has taken over palestine that is how we need to talk about it anti-semitism islam islamophobia zionism white supremacy these are all forms of racism opposing them is the right thing to do all of them most orthodox jewish people oppose zionism they always have zionism has got nothing to do with judaism they stole this identity and they use it like we heard just now from dr bazian they used it it has nothing to do with being jewish it has nothing to do with liking or disliking jews yes israel is a jewish this is a state where jewish people live but the regime is a racist apartheid regime it is violent it is oppressive it's engaged in the by the way apartheid is a well-defined crime as is genocide as is ethnic cleansing and the state of israel is engaged in all three crimes and people say well don't say genocide because the crime of genocide has a clause that says you have to show intent in order for it to be genocide so you have to find some place where the zionists actually wrote down that they intend to destroy the the palestinian people well they didn't write it down but you know what we have a 75-year history you know you drop a bomb you kill innocent civilians once okay that's an accident you do it twice maybe it's an accident you do it for 75 years on a systemic regular basis it's genocide and that's what we see there that's why i think it's important to use these terms because they are well-defined crimes so opposing zionism is the right thing to do just like opposing any other form of racism opposing zionism and opposing anti-semitism and opposing islamophobia is all the right thing to do because these are all racist ideas and racism of course should have we should have no tolerance for racism i think it's crucial so where do we go from here what do we do i mean that's always the question and it's hard to speak up there's no question that it's hard because the media and public opinion are all going in the other direction but that's okay that's okay palestinians have a right to live palestine has a right to be free as a country as a culture as a people and it's not going to happen unless we act people of conscience people understand need to act that's how things change that's how we do things and i think it's incumbent upon all of us to get up in the morning and act and do the thing that we do best whether it's on social media whether it's with our friends whether it's a book club whether it's writing to your congressman you know it's absurd american politicians think that they can say that they're zionists and it's okay there's a president president biden said he was a zionist and he's proud of it is he out of his mind i didn't learn about zionism in a college course i didn't learn about zionism from a book my grandfather signed the israeli declaration of independence i grew up in zionism i know what zionism is and i reject it completely you have to reject zionism if you have a conscience to be proud of being a zionist what else is he proud of being a pedophile i mean what is next it's that severe we need to make sure that our elected officials know that there should be no tolerance for zionism just like there should be no tolerance for other forms of racism but we need to make it clear to them that being zionist is a crime is supporting racism and violence we need to make it clear them unless they support the call to boycott a call to impose sanctions the call to isolate israel then they're not going to be elected not only to support it they need to push for it they need to demand sanctions against israel there needs to be a no-fly zone over gaza the sixth fleet in the mediterranean should be there supporting the palestinians giving them relief making sure that israel can't bomb anymore there should be no more weapons sent to israel what is this why are we supplying israel with money and weapons can anybody explain that other than to help the weapons manufacturers so we need to make sure our politicians know what we think about these things and that we demand of them to take a strong stance to take a clear stance so that there is a change and i am optimistic i do believe that a free palestine that israelis and palestinians can live in peace but not in a racist not under a racist regime not in an apartheid regime where i have all the privileges and dr bazian can't even visit palestine let alone go to nablus and live there if he chooses to i can go back tomorrow and live there if i choose to that is unacceptable the apartheid is unacceptable the privilege is an excel the privilege has to be given to everyone there's plenty to go around so that needs to be the that needs to be the goal a free democratic one-person one vote liberated palestine decolonized with the right of the refugees to return actually materializing all palestinian refugees allowed to return prisoners released none of that's going to happen unless the zionist regime falls israel will never allow any of that to happen there's no one part of palestine that can be fixed it has to be a whole thing or nothing at all now i'd be remiss if i was here in dallas and didn't mention our friends from the holy land foundation five five palestinian muslim americans five heroes five incredible human beings four of which are still in jail so i wrote this book a couple of years ago about the holy land foundation five um if you don't know the story the story is in here if anybody has any doubt whatsoever that these men are innocent they're not only innocent they're saints they're heroes and as you may know two of them were in for 15 years which are just over and uh and abdul rahman and god is released mufida belkader has five more years and chukri abu bakr and rasa nelashi got 65 years for what for being muslims for being palestinians for being good people that's it if there were anything else they would be free men so we need to remember them and i believe we should be doing everything we can to release them and they are political prisoners by the way just like the political prisoners in palestine there's no difference they will be released when they will be released it's a political issue they're political prisoners and this is the reach of the zionist organizations that they can they can impact a trial here in the united states here in dallas and put five good men in jail on terrorism charges men that wouldn't hurt a fly the finest kindest men you'll ever meet so it's impacting everyday life everyday people here in america too so again being here in dallas i thought it'd be important to remind us ourselves and to take a moment to think about these five great men and how we help them and how we get their release and you know oops a word of optimism i'm sure you've heard of south africa and that of south africa used to be an apartheid regime and in 1994 nelson mandela became the president of south africa he was released from prison after 28 years and he became the president of south africa in 1994 if we sat here today and it was 1988 or 1989 and somebody stood up and said in 1994 nelson mandela will be president of a free south africa everybody else would laugh everybody would laugh in 1989 nobody would have believed that within five years south africa will be free of from apartheid and nelson mandela would not just be free but president of south africa nobody would have believed it and i always remind myself of that story when i'm depressed when things look terrible when things look hopeless i always remind myself of that things can move very quickly they can move very quickly in a free democratic palestine can will and must be a reality i believe it depends on us so please remember palestine do everything you can for palestine think of al-aqsa and remember how valuable and how important it is to protect palestine to protect al-aqsa and to protect the people of palestine thank you all very much [Applause] tear a round of applause for all of our speakers today uh first of all thanks uh thank you to everyone for attending and for all our speakers to come out here travel this long distances to to share their knowledge with us obviously we had a wide spectrum of of of opinions and ways all in support of palestine and the cause there's a wide spectrum obviously each one represents the own individual that came but uh now i want everyone inshallah to just give us a few minutes until we set up for the q a uh for those of you who like to spice things up a bit this is going to be the spiciest part of today's conference in charlotte isla um so i want all of you if you didn't already ask a question you can go to slido.com slido slido.com and just put epic palestine that's the username and then drop a question i'm going to read the question inshallah and if there's time then i would ask it so we'll be starting that in literally like a minute yeah just two minutes and so by the way is in 20 minutes inshallah assad is in 20 minutes [Music] okay that's good it's going to be short and it's going to be like a rapid fire session right um so inshallah i'd like to ask the speakers to come have a seat and i will be asking and directing the questions to individual speakers like i said before slydoe.com if you want to ask a question so um so now obviously since we only have about 15 to 20 minutes uh i want to ask a question make sure the mics are on too and i want an answer like if you can give an answer in like one or two minutes so we could get through as many questions as we can because we have so many questions swarming in so the first question is what i asked dr mostafa before because we're getting this question a lot what is your solution according to your research your knowledge your experience uh about this about the struggle in palestine what is your solution to this problem um we'll start with dr hayton yeah let me i think the question of what the solution is problematic in the following is that every time we are have a mobilization for a solidarity with a colonized people we leave the determination of what is the outcome to the colonized people directly in here with often is the question that is actually precludes the discussion of what are the circumstances in there and therefore in my book i actually articulated the six different ways that people think about what are the solutions for the conflict right so there is actually six distinctive solution right each one of that has a supporters advocates and distractors but i think the more important question is that why that becomes the framing of your engagement and solidarity and advocacy for the palestinians and i think there's a whole long history of it which often is introduced by our opposition the zionist is that you have to articulate what's your solution before you enter into the conversation so this is not to say i don't want to answer but i would again go to my book palestine something colonial i have the last chapter about the six ways that people think about what are the solutions to the current crisis and for me is what are you doing in order to bring about the change on the circumstance and you did a great job mashallah in your talk shifting the paradigm regarding that mashallah uh mr miko what do you think well i think the solution is quite simple actually um like i said i just came back and i talked to palestinians everywhere throughout palestine palestinians on the outside and the reality is that palestine is all occupied there's an apartheid regime that has taken over palestine for the last 73 74 years what needs to happen in my view is we need to bring down that apartheid regime just like the apartheid regime fell in south africa just like oppressive regimes fell in other countries over his throughout history and a free democratic state is put in place with equal rights uh for for everyone i think that is the that is the way we move forward and that is what opens up all the possibilities to solving all the problems all the challenges is allowing everybody to have a voice thank you very much riko uh now dr yasser but can you turn off the mics the other mics so we reduced echo obviously i'm not a political analyst i cannot propose a methodology for a solution that's not my forte but we can't say that there's a definitely a political goal and then as religious folks we do have a theological uh undertone the political goal i think is self-evident and that is that we want everybody the palestinians to enjoy the same dignity and the same freedoms as every single other free population on earth it's as simple as that we cannot have them living like sub human beings occupied by people who despise them who want to antagonize them who deprive them from their most basic rights so there's an immediate political goal and that is the freedom of the palestinian peoples from the yoke of oppression that they're currently under of course as muslims and of course i'm bringing the the the islamic theology because that is my area and whatnot we have to understand at some level that this land is a blessed and holy land it is and in reality we believe this land doesn't even belong technically just to the palestinian people it is the arab that he blessed and we will not be satisfied theologically until the land returns to the way that it was which is free for all people to worship allah that is the ultimate goal we want it to be the way that it was we wanted to be free we wanted to be people come of all faiths and traditions we are not discriminating against anybody who wants to come worship there but no one has the right to dictate upon others when they can and cannot enter and exit and that is the way it was for over a thousand five hundred years salah yubi when he reconquered uh jerusalem if anybody had the right to deprive people from entering it again it was told the christians get out of here but you know what he said he said if you want to live here like free and fellow citizens of this land you want to live here like you used to live before he even allowed those people who had come if they agreed to live the way that they're supposed to live without tyranny without oppression without injustice he allowed them to live there so in reality from a religious perspective we really want philistine to be the wak that is that is allah azzawajal and we're not going to be religiously satisfied until that goal is met with what you just said just reminded me of something a couple of years ago i was i can you hear me okay is it okay the echo a couple of years ago i was in iran and i gave a talk in front of high school students it was a big mosque a big area with hundreds of high school students and i didn't know what they know about palestine so what do i say so i asked them i said what is palestine what do you know about palestine so of course these are kids it took a while and eventually one brave boy raised his hand and he said well palestine and he said exactly what you said he said palestine was a place where all the religions lived in peace and everybody worshipped in peace and then these people came and started the war he didn't know exactly who these people were that came that started the war but he knew that there was this really beautiful reality that was disturbed and um i thought that was fantastic you know that was great but that's exactly what we're talking about so obviously i talk about it in more political terms and i'll just say one last sentence in 2005 palestinians came together palestinian civil society came together with a call for boycott divestment and sanctions and they came up with three very clear demands ending the military occupation where it exists allowing the refugees to return and equal rights you know these are very very simple very very reasonable demands and i think that's politically that's what we're looking for thank you miko so now um you know when you were talking you reminded me of when my grandfather and grandmother because i lived in palestine as well and i grew up part of my life there they used to tell me how nice they treated the the jewish settlers when they first came they said we didn't know it was an occupation in the beginning you know we used to see them poor we would give them food give them shelter we think you know because that's what we were used to historically you know palestinians never had a problem with a person of any faith you know until like everyone mentioned tonight what our problem is and where it stems from and that leads us to my next question now in many books and even school curriculums now right all over uh the west uh we find the equating of anti-zionism to anti-semitism right they equate it they make it like this equals that just like a formula in math right how does a student in college and university or someone in the board of ed or someone you know how do we um discuss that you know how do we deal with that as muslims that understand the facts that you presented with uh you presented us with today um we can start with uh sorry doctor we'll start the same well the weaponization of anti-semitism has been a deliberate approach by advocates of israel in particular the adl the ajc the jcrc the zionist organization of america aipac and this is not new it's actually the beginning of this framing you could trace it back to the early 1970s where a book that said the new anti-semitism which at the time shifted and began to target the left as well as the muslim slash arabs that these are the new anti-semitic or the sources of anti-semitism that's interesting because at the time where the political left the anti-war movement the black power movement began to express solidarity with the palestinians so it was a matter of a target of convenience for the adl and its and the pro-israel to use anti-semitism as a silencing of the critique of israel and the critique of zionism so that has accelerated especially with the adoption of the new definition of anti-semitism that is being brought into legislation both in here in europe in the uk in france in canada and this is in essence to use uh stealth power to silence the debate now i have a different reading of what's taken place it is a sign that zionism and its advocates have lost the debates because the only time that you use legislation is at the time where you lose the public debate and the discourse and therefore you use to power you use or appeal to power legislation in order to legislate your point of view and limit the discourse and i think what we need is to look at it from that perspective more importantly you also saw the legislation on the on the pds uh you had it in here in texas which you which we won the case with care we had it in arizona and we won the case we had it in kansas and we won the case and when the zionists began to take on the pds and legislation i welcome them i said great because you actually are appealing to one of the critical pieces on american culture which is the first amendment and i said at the time i welcome you i advise you not to do it but alhamdulillah you did you didn't take the advice it's a free advice and sure enough now they're losing on the point of trying to legislate against pds does it hurt us yes is there some what you call difficulty is yes but what you need is to understand systematically how political mobilization and effective organizing is taking place i would say that it's a winning campaign if a president of the university says that you don't have the right to bds i say thank you you gave me a you gave me a cause to organize a petition to organize a way to have a teaching rather than to worry i think they're just giving us what you call enough tools of organizing uh and then you bring in the national lawyers you bring care you're playing palestine legal and let's have at it it's actually it's a winning case for me thank you dr i think we took the time for that question right can we go to the next question uh i'll go to mr pellet um so this is something i was curious about right because you mentioned that you just came back from palestine uh recently and i we know that you are grounded in a family right you're from a family of of zionists you know that that are leaders in in israel right and they're in these governments so obviously how does that affect your you know commute to and from and ultimately like is does israel guarantee freedom of speech the way they claim it to be and is it democracy the way they say it is [Music] well my um anybody in my family that had position of influence was in the past but um regardless of that israel the the the apartheid regime that has been put in place in palestine which is the state of israel they learned a lot from all the other oppressive regimes around the world and so there is definitely a democracy and freedom of speech as long as you're on the privileged side of the apartheid wall which i am on i have no problem going in and out no problem whatsoever i have no problem saying whatever i want to say of course nobody listens but i have no problem saying what i what what i have to say the it's a very effective very very effective segregation and separation and apartheid where on the side of the privilege on the side of the privilege there is no there there's there's a democracy it's a liberal democracy and the thing is they believe that that's all there is they completely ignore the fact that more than half the population are not part of this democracy wow so it is a jewish democracy and that's all they care about but the thing about racist regime the thing about racist in general is that they're also blind and stupid so they don't see they don't see the reality and they don't realize exactly what dr hatham was now describing just how stupid they are so you're saying the democracy applies to jews as well not to anyone else okay um so now with the next uh next question this is an important question obviously uh and you touched a little bit on it but i'll ask dr so how do we address because every time something happens right in the conflict like we saw in ramadan and like we see every single time the only focus of the media is on hamas and the rockets and this is that and it kind of distracts everyone you know from what what's really going on the actual occupation the actual apartheid the actual you know struggles that palestinians go through and have been going through you know for for years and decades right and like how do we deal with that how do we shift that narrative and actually you know tell no guys it's not about this uh any advice on that dr hatta well i'm gonna answer the question but i'm gonna give a an analogy and comparative if you notice how when a police officer kills a black person what does the media focus is on they begin to look at whether the black person had a criminal record they begin to actually problematize the black person in order to absolve the police officer from actually shooting an unarmed black person right we also saw it in george floyd there's still people i don't know what they smoke or what they drink they're still arguing that george floyd constituted a threat on the police officer so the media in general represents the dominant narrative and opinion that is present in the society and therefore and i think uh mikko will agree as soon as something happened the israeli ministry of foreign affairs with the israeli military they actually put out a press release the press release is picked up by all of the media that is actually sitting right there across the ministry and are brought in and the ap has a set of standards by which so you cannot report on gaza saying palestinians are being bombed you have to report a hamas controlled department of public health was attacked when you do so you already erased who is being bombed and you rationalize that the target is legitimate so we have a big struggle to work which is how to transform our media and at a time where also 92 percent of the media that we consume is corporate i don't need to remind you that the same corporations that produce the bombs are the same media are the same companies that own the media so there is also vested interest that we need to understand only eight percent of the media is private or what you call independent 92 percent of it reflects the dominant corporate media and corporate narrative so there's a big uphill that we need to do so it's our work is a little bit more difficult in terms of not only dealing with palestine but you are actually dealing with liberating society in general both in here in the in the west as well as we speak about palestine so that's the difficulty that you are dealing with and i can also go and speak about what happens within your classrooms at the universities that we are all reading eurocentric material that elevates history as a eurocentric structure and narrative and problematize much of the history of the global south once you understand that university is in the business of reproducing the system we are graduating we no longer graduate educated people with reg we graduate replacement parts for the economy and there's a wide scope between education versus replacement parts so the university itself is part of the structure in terms of education so you graduate individuals that reaffirm the paradigm rather than to undo it so that's the challenge in terms of why the media runs to the races because they received the public relations press release and now that's the reporting and to undo the cnn the fox and all they all are studying or reporting from the ground from the same press release we no longer have investigative journalism we have talking heads right like cnn they'll have a 30-second report from the ground a b-roll and then for the next hour you have talking heads which are heads that have nothing in their mind other than what you call repeating what you think and what you think what you think that's cost in there is very minimal and on that cause they make 30 40 50 000 on a spot commercial so we also have transformed how media itself is packaged and reported so we have a lot of work to do in order to transform people's understanding on a multitude of issues uh investigative reporting is no longer taking place uh much of what we hear and repeat is talking heads coming from think tanks which are tanks that not much thinking taking place that's basically what you have unthinking tanks right dr uh yasser i have anything to say about that about you know that that narrative you know about them labeling the cause so again this is in a debate and again i'm not a political analyst but let me just talk about debate rhetoric one of the ways you overcome a very difficult question is to do something called pivoting you move away from the difficult topic onto a third topic right you can also call this a red herring throwing a red herring so the reality is that the mentioning of hamas and bringing hamas it is actually unrelated to the questions and the problems in the discourse for those of you that attended when i was speaking the five questions i have have nothing to do with hamas in fact all of them predate hamas right what is hamas got to do with the united nations declaration with the balfour declaration what does hamas got to do with the 1948 first nagpa what does hamas got to the 1967. what is hamas got to do with all of this you know dehumanization taking place hamas was born in 1984. i'm not going to be criticizing hamas but neither am i going out of my way to defend it it is an organization it has its agendas has its goal but the reality is that israel using hamas to justify the full-scale oppression of palestinians is the essence of pivoting they're bringing in an unrelated issue in order to justify their own inhumanity and we cannot fall prey to that my advice to you personally and again this is somebody who's not a political analyst is that we should not go down the route of trying to uh contextualize hamas which simply call the spade in spain and say look whatever your opinion is about hamas explain to me why 2 million people are under occupation that's what we need to get to the reality of what israel is doing and not the reality of what a small group of people or a small group is doing and this is not a criticism don't misunderstand me but it's also not a defense they have a tactic they have their own justification and i'm not saying anything about them but i am saying we should not fall prey to when an israeli news or a journalist or what a news media person asks us to defend something that has nothing to do with the questions we're talking about also that is also true about andy's the anti-semitism argument as well the anti-semitism conversation has nothing to do with this either it's a pivot to start talking about anti-semitism and all of that i'd say the i would i would say the exact same thing we're going to put anti-semitism on the side for a second you tell me now about two million people being locked up about the neck above 1948 about 5 million refugees who are languishing in camps bring the conversation back to the issues we see master pivoting going on right immediate all the time it's always being shifted but alhamdulillah with awareness we can always pivot back right and that's what we're trying to spread today inshallah and now with the last question because asar uh is in five minutes we're going to delay another five minutes only and i'm sure everyone that's taking notes today can benefit from this question because i received many questions along these lines what literature would you recommend to educate yourself about this cause so that you can know more about it and defend it uh with with true real facts you know just a couple of books or some literature some articles maybe a website or something that you would recommend from you and i'm sure everyone's gonna appreciate uh all your feedback we can start with we can start with uh mr pilip well i like i like literature and so i would strongly strongly recommend ibrahim nasrallah who's a great palestinian writer and his work has been translated what was his name ibrahim nasrallah ibrahim okay and here two particular books one is called the time of white horses and the other one is called the lanterns of the king of galilee and these are historical novels about the history of palestine um i would put those at the top at the top of the list those are great epic novels novel readers right novel readers would would enjoy them obviously yeah yeah anybody would enjoy them because these are historical novels yeah and he's a great writer and the translations are good so i would i would put those two books right at the top thank you very much so i'm going to recommend two levels firstly those that are not going to read thick books they just want a very basic introduction there's two really good uh movies or documentaries you can watch both of them i think are on youtube are available online first is occupation 101 this is really really just introductory it's something that an undergraduate with no background you know anybody can just look at and summarize the entire palestinian narrative occupation 101. another was a movie that almost won an oscar and that is five broken mirrors okay uh sorry fireworking cameras excuse me five broken cameras slip with the tongue there okay five working cameras it's a very nice movie uh which again shows you life in reality how it exists also a very basic website if americans knew.org this is a an american lady visited palestine i think last decade and it completely changed her mind about the reality she became a very passionate advocate for the palestinian cause so that's really basic you don't have to read any long book or whatever it's a website if americans knew dot org as for books uh the the two that come to my mind edward syed wrote a book towards the end of his life about palestine edward said of course is one of the intellectual geniuses of the palestinian diaspora even though he's from a christian background and yet his defense of the muslim writer palestine is amazing of course he's also known for his book orientalism which is a whole different topic altogether but he has a book about palestine of course the the academic book so that i recommended when i gave my speech ilan pape is the name here he is the israeli historian who has documented if you want to have a reference book if you want to have something that you can show your colleagues and friends ilan pape i-l-a-n-p-a-p-p-e he is the one who has written about and documented the massacres that have taken place in a a in israel or in palestine uh one after after palestine was formed so these are the two that i recommend thank you in addition to both if you go online there's palestine films it's a collection of films that runs the gamut both documentary material as well as feature films and this for the past few months they have actually released all of the material for free so you could actually access a lot of the documentaries including the documentaries that jerk assert have mentioned as well as others so palestine films that you'll access it online as far as again reading material i do recommend to access them the website am palestine and palestine.org also recommend jewish voice for peace they have a good materials also on palestine and we do have a list of 50 books again i'm going to quiz you in a week for reading all of those that covers the various uh materials so i recommend for you just to do a you know a systematic read of palestine it is an information heavy cause so you have to at least be systematic and deliberate in reading about it so any of those 50 books that we have them also as a list in am palestine dot org in order for you to begin the reading material definitely you know papi it was saeed noor masala from the uk he has really some great books that you could look at ibrahim abu lurod so this is a really considerable welidel khalidi rashidul khalidis these are the khalidis which is from khalid family in palestine they have a a library in jerusalem with almost five to six thousand manuscripts right so really some some solid solid material uh to look at in relation to palestine sure there's two things that i recently saw one is called palestinian women and these are narratives of palestinian women who survived the nakba in 1948. it's an excellent book by a palestinian professor who teaches in birth and the other one is the palestinians of the nakab their resistance of the palestinians of the naka by mansoor nasara and you know the majority of the refugees in the gaza strip are from the nakam and very rarely do as anybody talk about the nakup it's the entire southern half of palestine and it's an excellent these are two excellent books that came out recently okay uh for all the information everything you gave us today your time your effort special shout out to american muslims for palestine they came here to to attend this conference and as well uh muslim muslim uh muslim radio dallas some radio dallas came out here to conduct an interview you know uh different organizations everyone is coming to show their support for the cause and trying to get um trying to help with whatever they can we want to say thank you to everyone on behalf of epic masjid uh thank you jazakum allah for attending this conference and hopefully and inshallah we're hoping that this translates into real initiative into real help that our brothers and sisters in palestine can feel inshallah and can touch and we can impact with what we learned today uh generations ahead of us insha'allah and with that i'd like to end with a round of applause for all of our speakers once again thank you very much you did a great job and we're looking forward to having you in our community again inshaallah in the future you are great guests salaam alaika you

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Published: Sat Jun 05 2021