The Center for Constitutional Rights has
filed a lawsuit on behalf of the human rights organization, Defense for Children, Palestine,
Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group based in the occupied West Bank, and eight Palestinians and
US citizens with relatives in Gaza. The lawsuit accuses President Joe Biden and other senior
officials of being complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza. The case is being heard in a federal
court in California. Lawyers representing Biden, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and Secretary
of Defense, Lloyd Austin, have attended the proceedings, along with the plaintiffs, who accuse
them of "failure to prevent and complicity in the Israeli government's unfolding genocide."
Since the October 7th incursion by Hamas and other resistance groups, which left some
1,200 people dead in Israel, more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed. Thousands
are missing, over 60,000 have been injured, and nearly all of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million
people have been displaced, many sleeping out in the open, near the border town of Rafah.
Israel's blockage of humanitarian supplies and food have caused a widespread famine. Many
are dying of starvation and infectious diseases. The CCR complaint was filed in November of
last year. It charges that Biden, Blinken, and Austin "have not only been failing to uphold
the country's obligation to prevent a genocide, but have enabled the conditions for its
development by providing unconditional military and diplomatic support to Israel." The CCR is
asking the court to "declare that defendants have violated their duty, under customary international
law, as part of the federal common law to take all measures within their power to prevent Israel
from committing genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza. The CCR is also calling for the
US to use its influence over Israel to end the hostilities against Palestinians in Gaza."
Joining me to discuss the case is Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the
Center for Constitutional Rights, and one of the plaintiffs, Ayman Nijim, who's from the
Gaza Strip, and is currently a doctoral student of transformative social change at Saybrook
University in Pasadena, California. Before we go into the law itself, let's just begin, maybe
I'll start with you, Katherine, just the facts on the ground, what we are seeing in Gaza, and then
we can go into how the law addresses those facts. Well, thank you for having both of us
today to talk about the case and the very, very dire and urgent situation in Gaza. What
we've seen since October 7th is a complete and total assault on the entire Palestinian population
in Gaza. And what we are seeing at this moment is the risk of mass death, not simply from the bombs
falling but through starvation. And this moment now at the start of Ramadan, of mass starvation,
of children dying, small children and babies dying from hunger, is in fact the culmination of what
was set out as policy and, frankly, a genocidal intention expressed clearly by senior Israeli
officials as early as October 9th when the Israeli Minister of Defense promised that the entire
Gaza Strip would be subjected to a total siege, with no food, no fuel, no electricity, no water.
And what we've seen over the course of many months of bombing now is a decimation of the entire
healthcare infrastructure and mass displacement. So this death that really everyone is at risk of,
again, not from only the bombs, the vast majority of which are coming from the United States, but
also from hunger. And that is not manmade or human made, that is not a humanitarian disaster.
It is a human made policy by Israeli officials that is bringing us to this moment of mass
starvation and impending death for so, so many. So Ayman, you have, obviously, friends and family
in Gaza. One of the things that struck me is the way the Israelis have targeted all of the
cultural institutions, the intellectual class, all the universities obliterated, been
dynamited and destroyed or bombed, the targeting of the press. But talk a little bit
about what you're hearing on a day-to-day basis in terms of what Palestinians are undergoing.
Yeah, thank you, Chris, thank you for having both of us. It is an honor to be here and to be
interviewed by you personally. Let's just start. I think what's going on in Gaza, specifically,
is a slow motion genocide since 17 years ago, it wasn't like yesterday or since October 7th.
I have lived all of my life in Gaza. I remember actually in 2014 I had to actually roam all over
Gaza to find diapers for my daughter for hours, lack of electricity, lack of drinking water.
We had been struggling for that for 17 years. That's why as someone who's studied psychology
I like to go to the slow motion genocide and the history of settler colonialism and 75 years of
ethnic cleansing, displacement, and apartheid. What's going on right now is accelerated
genocide, is a fast motion genocide, that is the most livestream, the most well corroborated,
the most worse substantiated genocide in human history. Give you some examples. For the last
100 days, I couldn't hear my mother's voice, even her prayer during Ramadan, which is very
important to me. For someone who lives overseas, to hear my mother's prayer is extremely important.
She lacks medication for days. I actually don't know if she is alive or not. Imagine for
a hundred days that I had no clue what's going on in my refugee camp. But, recently, I
got in touch with my sister-in-Law at Rafah, and she has a sim card or something like that.
And actually, she was looking for a tent. A tent right now costs 225,000 shekels, which
I think $500. Imagine a tent that costs, like, I think $25 or $30 here in the US. It costs,
in Gaza, $500 for one of the most impoverished people on earth, one of the most besieged
and also caged enclave on human history. So what's going on right now, it is very genocidal,
that we are not dealing with ongoing trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder, we are dealing
with genocidal trauma that it will take us at least 20 years to find ways, creative practice
or creative ways to hear the trauma that have been inflicted in us, actually there in Gaza and
here because this is live streamed everywhere. I want to share also that what we are requesting
or what we are asking is to end that genocide on Gaza. It has been for so long, it disrupted
everything, cultural, heritage, social dynamics inside of Gaza, and also cultural. For instance,
we have cultural genocide actually, when you are talking about the tree, all those churches
in human history have been obligated in Gaza. When you are talking about Omari Mosque, that is
actually the heritage. I think it is the second after Al-Aqsa mosque, at least in our perception.
I'd been in Gaza eight months ago to visit my family after 12 years of being in the United
States, and I can tell you, I can attest, what's going on is just slow, to medium, to fast motion
genocide that we are experiencing and we have been yelling and screaming actually for a while.
It is not like since five months ago, we have been yelling and screaming that we are caged, our
people are caged, and they went to just Egypt, Egypt, the border. Everything is very strict
and staggering siege on 2.3 million people. I'm going to stop here. I think we can dive deeper
into cultural, medical, social, political, everything about genocide. So it is much more than
the legality of it is just, there are so many, it's multilayered way of that genocide.
Right? You're referring, Ayman, to the siege that was set up after the elections in 2006
when Hamas took control of Gaza, turning Gaza into an open air prison. We're watching the Egyptian
government, it looks like build an alternative open air prison across the border in the Sinai.
I want Katherine to talk about the law. And it's my understanding as Ayman raised this point
that the obliteration of historical monuments, cultural centers, the essential erasure of
an attempt at the erasure of the identity of a people is very much part of genocide.
Yes, yes. And I'll talk about the law going through a couple of different crimes that are
playing out right now. And as Ayman has said, have been playing out for a number of years in Gaza,
but to see what is happening since October 7th, genocide is the correct legal characterization.
The crime of genocide, which was codified in the genocide convention of 1948 following the horrors
of the Holocaust with the United States playing a key role in drafting and establishing that
convention and the prohibition against genocide. Genocide is the destruction in whole or in
part of a group that is targeted because of their nationality, their ethnicity, their race
or their religion. And that intent to destroy, we'll come back to that. Genocide is carried out
by a number of underlying acts, three of which are definitely present here. The first is killing,
so killing members of that targeted group. The second is causing serious mental or physical harm.
And the third is creating deliberately inflicting, creating the conditions of life to destroy
the physical group again in whole or in part. And so it's the infliction of these conditions.
It's not even the results, but the very infliction of conditions to destroy the group. So going
back to that statement that I referenced earlier of Israeli defense minister Gallant on
October 9th when he, and then the Minister of electricity followed up the next day, promised
no food, no fuel, no electricity and no water, creating that total siege, which is an upgrade
from the already years long blockade in Gaza. That was in fact a expression of an underlying act
of genocide. The creating the conditions of life, taking away the basic necessities of food,
of water, of electricity for human survival. And it was done not against Hamas, but it was
done targeting the entire population of Gaza, the entire Palestinian population of Gaza.
So that gives you the intent to destroy one of the protected groups, whether it's based on
nationality or ethnicity, however you're looking at the Palestinian people as a people. It is
not cultural genocide is not recognized as a crime. It's not a separate category to destroy
the culture. But one of the things that the jurisprudence on genocide has showed that when
you target pieces of a cultural identity like cultural centers or religious institutions or
libraries, this is a way to erase and destroy that group as well. So it's not that cultural
genocide per se, it's a part of genocide, but it is an indicia of targeting people. And in here
it's the Palestinian people of Gaza. So already by October 18th, CCR put out a briefing paper,
a legal and factual analysis of the statements made by Israeli officials and the actions that
they took in furtherance of those statements. So these are statements including that in
position of the total siege, the calling of the entire Palestinian population in Gaza, human
animals, that dehumanizing language and statements by the president and the prime minister of Israel
promising again to wipe out or to have Gaza look nothing like it was before, for everyone to have
to leave. These statements were all said. And so our briefing paper at that point was a warning
because the Genocide Convention, in addition to prohibiting the commission of genocide or a
complicity, meaning aiding and abetting genocide, it also imposes a duty on all states who are
members of the Genocide Convention to prevent, to take active measures to prevent genocide from the
moment that there is a serious risk of genocide. So again, those statements were indicators of a
risk of genocide and we had warnings coming out from the United Nations already back in October.
And rather than uphold its duty to do everything it could to stop a genocide against
the Palestinian population in Gaza, the United States affirmatively expressed support
for Israel's operation. It sent weapons and has continued as we've learned, to send over a hundred
different weapons deliveries while opening the gates to the $4.4 billion of stockpiled weapons
in Israel for Israel's use in Gaza. And it has blocked measures at the United Nations Security
Council for a ceasefire. So the United States has failed in its duty to prevent and it has
actively been complicit in genocide. Now genocide is one crime and we have had the International
Court of Justice, of course, rule six weeks ago that there was a plausible genocide in Gaza,
but there were also crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity are the widespread or
systematic attack against a civilian population. So here again when you have measures like the
total siege imposed in targeting all of the Palestinians in Gaza, at least half of whom are
children, and the vast majority of the victims are women and children in this far that we've all
been bearing witness to for the last 160 plus days now. This is the civilian population that is being
targeted. So it is a crime against humanity. And then you look at the specific crimes that could
include murder, that could include extermination, which is on the spectrum with genocide, and
it could include things that we're seeing, deportation, enforceable transfer. In
those first days of the assault on Gaza, there was the "evacuation order" where over
a million people were ordered to move from the north to the south supposedly for safety.
I mean, not only were some of them bombed on the way, but we've seen what's happened over
the last months as that space has continually shrunk and the Palestinian population who was
supposedly were displaced and transferred for safety have been bombed and attacked everywhere
that they've gone rendered homeless without food, as Ayman described, seeking any kind of
shelter that they can. So we have crimes against humanity and of course we have war crimes.
The reason why I end with war crimes rather than start is because we've had war crimes and we've
certainly also had crimes against humanity going on for a number of years. Gaza is part of the
occupied Palestinian territory and that status as occupied territory brings in international
humanitarian law. So IHL, as it's known, has applied across the occupied Palestinian territory
since 1967 and continues to apply at this very day. So that means the Geneva conventions
apply and should be protecting the Palestinian population in Gaza. But what we've seen over the
last years and especially since September 11th, taking a page from the United States playbook is
we've seen that international humanitarian law has been converted into a sword rather than a shield
for the protection of civilians. And it's often been used to justify attacks. So these debates
around human shields and military necessity, these political arguments around war
crimes and international humanitarian law have really unfortunately had the
effect of not having the core purpose, again, protection of civilians be realized,
but rather it's been an excuse or a use for more force against the occupied territory.
So a very long answer to your question, but there is at bottom line, there is
applicable international law. The vast majority of this law has been implemented
international systems around the world. We have a war crime statute in the United States.
We have a genocide statute in the United States, and of course there's an international criminal
court in the Hague that has active jurisdiction over all of these crimes at this very moment.
Well, one of the caveats that Israel is well aware of is that if for instance a hospital or a
medical facility, you can correct me if I'm wrong, Katherine, is being used by armed opponents, then
that protection that it has under international law is wiped out, which is why Israel
claims that every hospital is a Hamas command center. Of course they've never managed
to produce any evidence that that is the case, but linguistically they found ways to essentially
cancel out the rules of war. Is that correct? Well, they have tried to, and I think that
doesn't mean it's correct. You have protections for civilian objects and civilians and that is a
cardinal principle in international humanitarian law that you have to distinguish between civilians
and civilian objects on the one side and military targets on the other. So the first step is to
determine whether there are civilians present or whether this is in fact a military object and
that is something that requires scrutiny and I'm not sure we're seeing that scrutiny. And then
you have to do an assessment as to whether or not there is such a military necessity that
you can actually do a strike knowing that there are protected civilians or that this is
a protected civilian object. It's not that that civilian object loses its protection,
it should still have that protection. We are not seeing that kind of proportionality
analysis being done on a target by target basis certainly, or else we would not have had two
ton bombs being dropped on densely populated refugee camps resulting in the deaths of scores
and scores of people, the vast majority of whom are children and babies because their bodies
absorb the shock from these huge massive bombs. So we are not seeing even under the most generous
for the military's purposes reading of IHL. We are not seeing that kind of analysis. And again, I
would suggest that the way this entire operation is being carried out, it is being carried out
with the target of operation being civilians. When you're dropping a two ton bomb, a 2000
pound bomb on a densely populated area, you are going to kill civilians. So it is hard to
argue that they are not the object of that bomb. I had worked at the Yugoslav War Crimes
Tribunal for a number of years and when we look at the shelling of Sarajevo, we don't
hear people talking all the time about, oh, human shields. There were civilians present
while those pesky Bosnian Muslims for having civilians in the area. Now we look at the way the
Republic of Srpska military targeted an area that was densely populated with civilians. The rules of
armed conflict, the laws of war have been really turned on their head, especially again since the
9/11 years by the United States, working very closely frankly with Israel and putting forward a
counter narrative that has really weaponized the Geneva conventions in a way to justify military
assaults that have often really as their target, which we can only infer civilians.
I want to talk about law. There are two sets of laws, one for Palestinians in
the apartheid state of Israel and one for Israeli Jews, maybe three sets and another for
Palestinian Arabs who are citizens of Israel, which is about 20% of Israel. So first talk about
the law in the occupied territories and Palestine as an instrument of oppression. And then we have
seen from the inception of the state of Israel, how Israel has in a very cavalier fashion,
ignored international law repeatedly. That has been a constant in this settler colonial project.
Thank you. I just want to start by the ID law. If you are from Gaza, you cannot go to the West Bank
and vice versa. I believe that was in 1951, 1953. So I am 40 years old. I have never been in the
West Bank, I have never been in Ramallah. I have never been in Ashdod, where my grandfather lived
for generation. I couldn't even travel there. And I am 40 years old and I am US citizen too. So this
can give you the laws. Just an example, an example when I was a child, I want to go to Jerusalem with
my mother. I was denied to go to Jerusalem. I was 10 years old. I mean that was during the presence
or the physical presence of the incubation. Right now the incubation is from the air and land and
see after 2005 later disengagement. So I mean the laws I personally call it, it is a caste system.
It's much more when you look at the second class citizenship inside '48 Palestine or when you look
at the ethnic cleansing and right now the first displacement in Masafer Yatta, south Hebron.
And when you look into the daily incursion, the daily night incursion in the West Bank.
So I think these are laws, I mean we have the 2008 Jewish basic law, which actually gives
self determination for the Jewish people, people who are really under languishing, under
apartheid and settler colonialism. For actually 100 years, since 1917 with Balfour Declaration,
they were seeking for self determination that we are actually, we are the ones who are,
we are abiding by the international law and seeking for our self determination for years,
I don't think that person has been free from Ottoman Empire to British man then to 1948.
So these are laws, and I think laws are made actually to subjugate and to keep the occupation.
I think in Adalah organization in '48, they have documented actually on their website the number
of racist laws, the number of racist laws. I mean honestly, we cannot even count the racist laws.
I mean for us in Gaza, we felt for years actually someone who grew and raised in Gaza for 22 years
in Gaza. I remember someone from Brooklyn can come and swim in our Mediterranean Sea and I cannot
swim... I'm not sure because of how I look like or I don't know. [inaudible 00:29:20] their own
settlement. Actually was literally five minutes from my family house and we couldn't, all of our
childhood, we couldn't go to the Khan Yunis, I live in Deir Al Balah which is adjacent to
Khan Yunis. Khan Yunis is to the south. All of my entire childhood stuck in a very tiny
refugee camp called Deir Al Balah, which stands for Deir Al Balah, for Chapel
of Palm monastery. And very important, Chris, because some people think that Palestine is
just, Palestine is a mosaic of cultural, religion, religious and like social beliefs.
We are Christian, we are Muslims, we are just... Even the name of my camp is Deir Al
Balah, the chapel or monastery. So we have long, long, long history that Israel is trying to
obligate our culture identity and our ourself, our identity, and also our reclamation to our
indigenous land. Very important. I'm not sure when you bombard or when you annihilate, I like
to use annihilate churches or mosque and hospital and cultural center and [inaudible 00:30:34]
center and also Palestinian legislative council, which we actually felt in 1993 that we will
have a country of our own, we will have a peace, we will have, et cetera. And that was obliterated
like if you look at the carpet bombing, saturated, saturation bombing actually in all of Gaza strip
like every area. I was speaking with my sister, a hundred days ago and that we are
talking about a hundred days ago. And she was telling me literally carpet bombing
everywhere, even the symmetry, the clothes nearby her house in the first days of the war of the
genocide, it has been very smelly because people have no places to put their loved ones in burial
sites. And that was going for a long time. I mean everyone have seen in the media and live stream,
they have seen what the indigenous people in Gaza are languishing with. So that's why I think we as
a plaintiff were honored to be reached by Center for Constitutional rights. And I believe Chris, I
believe, if you ask right now how many people can be a plaintiff in this case you'll find at least
a thousand people in the United States, you will find 2.3 million, they will be a plaintiff for
this case because this is not... And American, they will be in this case because this
is not a crime, this is a crime of the crimes and it is a moral imperative for every
freedom loving people to support Palestine. Because Palestine is not just also a
global south issue. Palestine is the humanitarian humanist issue that everyone
should fight for. You should not be Jewish, Christian or Muslim to fight for Palestine.
You should be human to support the indigenous people right to live especially this time.
Katherine, were you surprised some of us were that they accepted the case and then I want
you to talk about the response of the defense. Sure. So we filed our case on November 13th in
California in a federal court and the United States has fought this case quite strongly.
So yes, they accepted the filing of the case, but the Department of Justice has come in
and responded quite quickly saying that the federal courts in the United States can't touch,
can't reach the President of the United States, Secretary of State, Lincoln or Secretary of
State, Austin. And even if there is a binding legal obligation to take all measures within
the United States, considerable power vis-a-vis Israel or it's obligations not to be complicit in
genocide, it's not for a US court to do anything. Now as the United States says to a US court, you
can't adjudicate this case, you can't hear this case. It's also of course pushing back on South
Africa's effort at the International Court of Justice. And as we've seen the United States has
pushed back aggressively, particularly during the Trump administration, but it really hasn't led
up much against the international criminal court. We still have Secretary of State Lincoln
speaking out against the ICC investigating Israeli officials for crimes committed on the
occupied Palestinian territory. So in our case, the US is not here and really it has said
not anywhere. So we had a briefing first in over the course of December. We have
sought not only a declaratory judgment, but we had also sought an injunction. We had asked
the court to put in place a preliminary injunction while the case proceeded to stop further support
by the United States for the ongoing genocide. So this is not a challenge across the board
to all military aid or political support, but rather that military assistance that is
going to be used to further the genocide in Gaza, the attack against the Palestinian population in
Gaza. And as public reporting has made clear the vast majority of weapons being used against the
Palestinian population in Gaza are coming from the United States and have continued to come from the
United States after October 7th through at least December, if not continuing now as recent
reporting from the Washington Post showed. So we were asking the court to say no in order to
comply with your legal obligations, not to further a genocide, you can't send the means by which a
genocide is effectuated, meaning that the military hardware that's being used to kill at this point
now over 31,000 Palestinians, as you mentioned in the introduction, injure tens of thousands more
and has brought the entire population to the brink of death, especially children through the
campaign of the total siege to deny food. So we had a hearing on the preliminary injunction and
the government's request to dismiss the case in Oakland on January 26th. And it was a hearing
unlike anything that I've been a part of at my 17 years at CCR, we had first legal argument
trying to explain to the court why it is that this case was not one that fell within the political
question doctrine, which is the legal argument that the Department of Justice put forward
essentially arguing that this case is a challenge to US government policy and it's inappropriate
for courts to dictate what US policies. Our response was, no, this is not a challenge to
policy. This is a request for the court to do what it does every day, identify the law and order
defendants to comply with the law. Here the law happens to be genocide and the prohibition against
furthering a genocide. It is a identifiable crime with elements just like every other crime. And
the court can in fact put forward an order to stop genocide. So we had the legal argument and then
we had about three and a half hours of testimony from a number of our plaintiffs, including one,
a young doctor calling in to the courthouse in California from the hospital in Rafah. And he
testified as to the reality on the ground there. We had Defense for children International
Palestine, which has been doing the very, very difficult work of documenting the injury
and death to Palestinian children in Gaza. They testified from Ramallah remotely and then a
number of our Palestinian American plaintiffs told in really heartbreaking detail what it's been
like to be far from their families as Ayman has spoken about already today, wondering each day
whether their family would be alive, the number of family members who have been killed exceeds
a hundred. One of our organizational plaintiffs staff member Ahmed Abu-Ful lost over 60 members of
his family. So the judge listened quite intently to the testimony of the plaintiffs as well as a
historian Holocaust and Jewish studies historian Barry Trachtenberg testified. And the judge at
the end of the hearing said that in his many, many years on the bench, he was a George W. Bush
appointee. So he's been on the bench a while, that this was the most difficult factual and
legal case that he's heard. Unfortunately, that didn't stop him from dismissing the
case on this political question grounds. And he did not engage sufficiently with our
arguments unfortunately, that this is a case about a legal duty and not about policy. But he
did hear our plaintiffs and he did understand the gravity of the crimes and he found that there is
a plausible genocide taking place at this moment in Gaza and he found that the United States, I'm
flagging support for this genocide is happening and he implored the executive defendants the
president, secretaries of state and defense to stop that support. We have not seen a stop
to that support and we have appealed the case. So our appeal brief went in on March 8th, last
week and we have had the first amicus brief come in support of us today by Jewish Voice for Peace,
and we anticipate a number of amicus briefs coming in on March 14th, also in support of the case.
So we have an expedited appeal schedule because we have people whose lives are at risk every day
in Gaza again, especially the next generation, the children and the babies who do not have access
to food and water and formula and milk because of the famine in place in Gaza. So we are pushing for
this case to be heard as quickly as possible and we hope that the court of appeals will recognize
that a federal court absolutely has the power and indeed has the responsibility to hear claims
of genocide when we're talking about senior US officials in breach of binding domestic
law that prohibits genocide and complicity in genocide and binding international law through
the Genocide Convention. So that's where the case stands at this moment. But we really hope
that even though the case is so important, we hope that the Biden administration doesn't wait
for a ruling from the Ninth Circuit and instead finally takes the action that the law requires
and frankly, that human decency and morality requires and stops its support for this genocide.
If you are found guilty of complicity in genocide, are you legally defined as a war criminal?
You could certainly use the word war criminal, but you could also use the word genocider, which is
the term that came out of the Rwandan genocide. So war crimes are really often subsumed in the crime
of genocide, but I think the label could be even stronger when you are furthering the destruction
of an entire people because of who they are in a crime that has been so condemned including, and
this is what's so frustrating, including by the Biden administration. When Joe Biden came in to
power, he promised to uphold human rights, he claimed that there would be a return to the rule
of law. The Biden administration has been happy to call out China for its support for genocide
against the Uyghurs. And now with the other hand, the United States is sending weapons even after
the International Court of Justice identified a plausible genocide even after a federal district
court judge who was appointed by George W. Bush for whatever that matters, it shouldn't, calls
out a plausible genocide. They continue to send weapons. So yes, the labels unfortunately now
are complicity in the most serious of crimes. And I would just also note that Joe Biden, when he
was a senator back in 1988, was on the judiciary committee and it was under his watch and under his
leadership that the United States finally ratified the Genocide Convention. So this is someone who
has a track record purportedly of standing up for international law and for human rights. And
what we're seeing now is the complete opposite. He also has a long track record of defending the
apartheid state of Israel. Ayman want to close with you and I want to talk about betrayal.
Betrayal by the international community to the Palestinians betrayal by the Arab world.
The Egyptian government is clearly complicit now in this blockage of humanitarian aid. As
I mentioned before, it is building what looks like an alternative open air prison, but this
is just dogged Palestinians, and you're right, it's a hundred years. And we should also note
that when the state of Israel was founded in 1948, it adopted the British settler colonial laws
against Palestinians incorporated that into their own legal system. But let's talk about
that sense of betrayal. And of course now we're watching the genocide in Gaza and rhetorically.
People are saying, even the White House will essentially say things that attempt or appear
to value Palestinian life while either at best doing nothing or in the case of the United
States aiding and abetting the genocide itself. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think there is a
sense of deep betrayal from Arab countries, especially Egypt and other countries, and there's
a sense also, but we need to differentiate between dictatorships, draconian governments like in Egypt
and other areas. And also the people I had been, when I was in Washington DC four days ago, I met
an Egyptian girl and she has a flyer and she told me I came here to Washington DC to demonstrate
and to have the sign, but I cannot do it in Egypt, which aches my heart because as you know, 2011, we
as Middle Eastern, we hope there will be a change to the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak to have a
new civil democracy and everything was counter revolution afterwards. So I think the people are
really right now in feeling hopeless and helpless, but also in deep anger inside the Middle East.
The people, you can see in the Tunisia, Algeria where the 1.1 and a half million
people died for their own self-determination, liberation from the French. All Tunisia, all of
these countries are really struggling to go to the streets. And also there is for us as from Gaza,
we feel like where are the airports? Where are the international community? Where is the United
States? Like the superpower? Where is Russia, where is China? People from the streets writing
on Facebook, where are they? They left us alone with Israel the most well sophisticated army. I
mean in terms of weapons and tanks as in Gaza, we literally, some people think like we have tanks,
we have jet fighters, we have gun boats, we have nothing. I mean, just for people to understand.
So I think this genocide has changed everything for Palestinians because we believed actually that
the freedom in Palestine will entail three parts, 40% from us as Palestinian, like from inside.
And 20 to 30% is the international pressure on Israel. And I believed in that time 10% will be
from the Israeli left, will come encouragement. And we have seen that with B'Tselem report
about apartheid and human rights organization three years ago, they start to say, oh,
there is apartheid since Israel inception, but we have been as indigenous people, we have
left it and we have told them it is a genocide, it is apartheid. We read also, we are
not lawyers, but we lived it. We feel it. There is a sense of betrayal, but right now
I think what we are focusing on is to end the genocide, end the genocide, end the genocide.
Because if we can save one life, and that's why we joined the lawsuit, if we can save my mother
life or my father's life or my cousins, my nieces, everyone is living in Gaza. I think right now
in the genocide, by whatever means possible, we go after President Biden of aiding and abetting
genocide and being complicit in genocide. Austin and Lincoln and even any officials who
put their hands actually to be killing and murdering without compunction or remorse
or contrite, like 12,000 children. I remember in Srebrenica or Sarajevo, it was 8,300 people
who were murdered in that genocide. In Rwanda, 1994, 800,000 in 100 days. But we are in five
months, we are talking about more than 30,000. And actually imagine the people who are under
the rubble, like how many people will come out of this. So yes, there's a sense of betrayal,
there's a sense of that we are left alone. There is nothing going on and it's very
precarious situation. At the same time, when you are in the north or in the south, you
have to option whether to live or whether to leave or to die. And that's what happens to us in 1948,
whether to leave or to die. And not only that, also as you know, Hend Rajab, she was in the car
when they attacked her, everything is documented. In Mamdani hospital in Gaza, 500. So everything
is documented for us. So right now we are asking to end the genocide so I can save my mother. My
wife's family in Rafah, everyone's to save them. Then we will find way to articulate our healing
practice because it's going to take us a while. I worked with kids for 15 years, in the trauma,
trauma healing and to fight against internalized oppression. As you know in war zones like
internalized oppression is, and this one will entail a collective internationalist healing
perspective or practice to help heal that kind of trauma. While there's a material
from everyone, while there's a sense of hopelessness and helplessness and guilt, I mean
honestly, Chris, I'm going to share with you, yesterday I broke my fast with my family and then
I have food guilt, I can eat and I can provide food for my kids and my wife and I am not sure if
my mother is eating or not or not even my mother like people in the north, air drops, for us, air
drops for people. United States sending billions of dollars to Israel, they cannot enforce food
through Rafah crossing at least, or Kerem Shalom crossing. You send billions of dollars.
It just mind boggling to me. I'm not a policy guy, but just for me it just mind boggling to see
the power dynamics and to see it in a broad daylight airdrops that goes for the people
in the north. And I really did not check what kind of food they are dropping a hamburger or
some kind of... I really did not know. I have to look to see what they are dropping.
Great, thank you. That was Ayman Nijim, who is from Gaza and Center for Constitutional
Rights, senior staff attorney Katherine Gallagher. I want to thank the Real News Network and
its production team, Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley, David Hebden, and Kayla Rivara.
You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.
