"Justice or Annihilation" w/ Sharif Abdel Kouddous

Is this genocide and Gaza the beginning of the end of Zionism? Or is it the beginning of the annihilation of Palestine and the Palestinian people as a people? I don't know what the answer is to that. As Tata Bakolin said recently, we're at a point now where there's no kind of middle ground. There's no going back to October 6th. There is no kind of like two-state solution. There's no normalizing this. There is only justice and liberation or annihilation. Those are kind of like the two options at this point. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Maktasi Street podcast. Sadi Saman Karim, we're here with you and we're happy to welcome our friend and colleague, Sharif Abdul-Kudduz to the show. Sharif is a journalist in the Middle East, North Africa editor at Dropsite News. He's reported from across the Arab world, including Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain and Algeria, as well as from across the US and internationally. He received a Peabody Award for his Gaza documentary The Night Won't End, a George Polk Award for his investigation into the killing of Palestinian journalist Shari Nab-Aqli, an Emmy Award for his coverage of the Trump administration's Muslim travel ban, and an Izzy Award for his coverage of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Sharif is also a producer of the Palestine Festival of Literature, Palfest, and he's based in, and between New York and Cairo. So Sharif, welcome to the show. Ahlan, it's great to have you here. We thought we'd begin by asking, we thought we'd begin by asking what's been happening in Gaza since the ceasefire, so-called ceasefire took effect. And what is the status of the territory now? We know, although most consumers of mainstream news wouldn't know that the Israelis are bombing and killing in Gaza essentially every single day that killed hundreds of people since the so-called ceasefire went into effect or demolishing buildings and so on. But maybe you can give us a sort of fuller account of where are we in Gaza, what's been happening, and what does the kind of immediate short-term reality look like in Gaza? Well, thank you for having me on the fan of this podcast and of all your work. I think it's important to understand that since the so-called ceasefire on October 10th went into effect, the genocide has continued. This is not something that has ended. Even groups like Amnesty International have said the genocide has continued. Palestinians are being killed in direct attacks nearly every single day by the Israeli military, almost 500 have been killed. And so October 10th, just today, as we're speaking, a 12-year-old newborn froze to death, another one, from exposure to cold. That brings the number of children who have died of hypothermia, just this winter season, alone, to 11. Over 2,000 people have been killed in building collapses because no reconstruction materials are allowed in. And people are taking shelter in very heavily damaged buildings and walls and buildings collapse on tents or collapse on them inside these ground floors. And they're being killed. Tens of thousands of tents have been destroyed. And people are literally just being exposed to the elements. And so this genocidal assault has not stopped. What has changed since the ceasefire is a couple of things. First of all, the Israeli military withdrew to what we now understand is called the yellow line. This was negotiated as part of the talks. And it leaves the Israeli military officially in control of 53% of Gaza. That's kind of like the line on Israeli maps. And this has effectively cleaved Gaza in half. So you have one half where the Israeli military is in control. And another half where the majority of Palestinians are crammed into an even smaller space in a wasteland that's under constant assault, doesn't have enough food, not no shelter. And what the Israeli military has been doing in the half that it controls appears to be creating facts on the ground, as Israel always does, that will eventually become permanent. So if we want to just back up a little bit, essentially, we saw last week the official launch of the so-called Board of Peace by President Donald Trump. And we can talk about the structure of that Board of Peace a little later. But during that presentation, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner delivered a presentation of what he called the master plan for the redevelopment of Gaza. And also one of the slides had Arabic script that was written in reverse from left to right. And it wasn't connected. So this shows at the level of incompetence. But these are the people that are engineering the future of Gaza. And he said, we're not going to have a Hamaz zone and a free zone. And what he was referring to was those two sides of the yellow line, the side that Israel controls and the side that were most Palestinians live. He said, we're going for catastrophic success. That's the term he used. And he put up a rendering of a map of Gaza that shows these kind of like different residential communities. And that's the entire Gaza Strip. But that doesn't seem to be what the Israeli military is doing. What we know that they have done since October 10th is that they are consolidating and constructing military infrastructure in the half that it controls. So they have built at least 13 new military outposts in the half that it controls. There's something now like 50 military outposts in that area. They're expanding a road network and building new roads. And they're connecting these roads inside Gaza to a base, military bases and settlements outside of Gaza. So they're basically creating these facts on the ground, which look like it's going to be a permanent presence in this half of Gaza. And also what we've just-- we've been doing a lot of work with forensic architecture and publishing their findings. Previously, the yellow line, the so-called yellow line, was only drawn in Israeli maps or delineated by the military's placement of yellow blocks-- physical yellow blocks in Gaza, which there at least something like 38 of them. Israel has been moving these yellow blocks, sometimes hundreds of meters further into Gaza past the line that's drawn on its own maps, taking even more Palestinian land. Gaza is very narrow. And what we understand now is that since December, they've actually been building earth berms, so large mounds of earth along the yellow line, that is turning it into a physical barrier. So they're really cutting Gaza in half. And this physical border, basically, in addition to all of this construction of military infrastructure, they're also engaged in destruction of Palestinian property and Palestinian buildings and hospitals and demolition across this area. And so-- and they are now-- and we can get into this-- they're now constructing what's called a first planned community. And so this is the housing zones that really paint a very frightening and horrifying picture of what the future-- they envision for a new generation of dispossessed Palestinians in Gaza and how they will live, how they will be controlled, and a sort of privatized colonial space where they hope to corral, I think, most Palestinians in Gaza. I mean, Shereefei, you just described and laid out and it's truly a dystopian sort of a nightmare scenario. That, of course, is unfolding. And so I guess the question is, what is the connection between this so-called Kushner plan, this master plan of Gaza that you alluded to earlier, and the Israeli reality on the ground? And then where is Hamas in all this, I guess? It's hard to know how seriously to take the Kushner plan that we saw last week. I think it's a combination of these things that-- this first planned community that's being planned does have US buy-in and we can explain why. So basically, last week, or earlier this month, in January 14th, the Civil Military Coordination Center or the CMCC held the presentation for the so-called first planned community. Now, the CMCC is established-- by US Central Command, which is SENTCOM. It was established one week after the ceasefire. And it's headquartered in this large warehouse style building in southern Israel and it involves dozens of countries, dozens of NGOs and different organizations. It's led by a US Lieutenant Army general. And it's mandate as it's supposed to monitor the implementation of the ceasefire and monitor the entry of AIDS supposedly. So this presentation that they held last week was for this so-called what they called a Gaza's first plans community. So this is a US presentation. So this is what the envision for a site that is going to, according to the presentation, house up to 25,000 Palestinians. And we can-- and this is within the Israeli controlled zone. And actually through forensic architecture, they also did another analysis of satellite imagery. They've been engaged in the systematic destruction on the 50% of Gaza that they control. But there's one site, one square kilometer between two military corridors in Morofa, where they're engaged in a pattern that we don't see anywhere else in Gaza. And that pattern is raising the land, compacting the ground, and removing the rubble. And this suggests that this is the site. They're beginning to build this planned community. And what this presentation by the CMCC, which analysts say had to also have Israeli buy-in. They wouldn't have had this huge presentation without Israeli buy-in for it, lays out a set of criteria about how this community will be run. And it goes through everything. It goes through policies regarding municipality, the economy, health, education, law and order. And we can talk about what this vision is. So it provides a set of criteria for which Palestinians will be, quote, "invited to live there." And that will involve undergoing security checks to prevent the entry of what they called Hamas elements. So it doesn't say who's doing the security vetting, but historically any security vetting of Palestinians in Gaza to leave or enter the territory has been done by Kogat, which is the branch of the Israeli military that oversees the occupation of the West Bank in Gaza. Another, for example, criteria of which Palestinians should live there, they say, intact extended families are preferred to enable mutual aid and prevent friction. Now, is there a single intact extended family in Gaza after over two years of genocide? They have wiped out over 2,700 families in Gaza. There are over 6,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are the sole survivors of their entire bloodlines. This kind of language is used throughout. I'll give you a couple more examples where there's an element of a ratio of what's happened over the last two years with this genocidal violence that has just kind of ignored and stepped over. They want to intact extended families. Really, I don't think there is one intact extended family in Gaza. But then to go to the bricks and mortar of it to enter these zones, residential zones, or planned communities that have to pass through a security checkpoint, everyone entering will have to be registered with biometric documentation. And that biometric documentation will enable people to not only move around, but to access services. So to access-- and when I say services, these are life essentials, food, and shelter, and things like this. And this registry of biometric data will be based on your Palestinian ID number, which is issued by authorities in coordination with Kogat. So the Israeli military, which already has an incredible amount of monitoring and surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, this gives them another layer of documentation through biometrics. On the economy, it increases surveillance of all economic activity by basing it on what they called electronic shuckle wallets. So this replaces Gaza's largely cash-based economy with a purely electronic transaction economy, which they can again control and monitor. And then there's more kind of insidious things that are outlined. So for example, first of all, this first planned community is referred to in the presentation as the Emirati compound. It's unclear why they named it that. There is the Emirati Field Hospital nearby. There's reporting by the Guardian showing that the UAE is going to be funding the construction of this first zone. But under the education portion of the presentation, it says that they should create a curriculum that is not Hamas-based, but that will follow quote, "culture of peace principles modeled after the UAE." Now, that phrase, a culture of peace, is mentioned in the normalization agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel that was signed in 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords. And as we know, since then, the UAE has normalized relations with Israel more than any other Arab country. They have incredible levels of trade, of tourism, defense deals, security deals, tech deals, with surveillance, defense cooperation. So this idea seems to aim to promoting an Emirati-inspired re-education program, basically, to promote the idea of normalization with Israel. And there's other criteria, but this is kind of the vision that's laid out. And that's essentially what's to come. You'll have these-- at least in the immediate future-- these housing zones that are being built where Israel and other foreign bodies, like the board of peace-- and we can get into that-- have complete economic, social, and security control over this new generation of disvisors, Palestinians, and they're corralled into these spaces where they have to comply in order to survive. In the other half of Gaza, those who aren't invited on the other side of the so-called yellow line, they'll be left in a wasteland, where they're under constant assault by Israeli bombs, as we see every day now, with restricted food, restricted aid, restricted life essentials, no shelter, and kind of try to e-cout survival and conditions of genocide. And that's kind of the future that they're trying to build at the moment, this green zone and red zone, under this kind of colonial mandate structure that we've seen called the board of peace. Sure, if this is-- I mean, again, as Osama said, what you're describing is it's like a sci-fi dystopian nightmare, basically. But there are a few questions to be asked about it. For one thing, the ultimate Zionist sort of fantasy is that their Palestinians just disappear somehow. So clearly, this is not that. In other words, there's still going to be Palestinians there. So then the fallback Zionist fantasy-- and these people have a very active fantasy life. But the fallback fantasy is that Palestinians can be controlled down to the last hair. So they know everything about you. They know every time you breathe, they know where you are. This is-- of course, it's a fantasy. It doesn't mean it's going to be realized. But this is how they fantasize about controlling people down to the last molecule almost literally. So one question is-- and I'm going to ask you a series of questions here, if you don't mind, because they're all tied to each other. So one question is, to what extent is this fantasy? And to what extent do you think it's realizable? But then the two immediate questions that follow are-- we're going to put up for people who are watching online. Obviously, they'll be able to see maps. We're going to add maps for those of you who are listening on the audio version of the podcast. We can append maps, I guess, in the notes so you could see what this map looks like. But the yellow line that Sharif has been describing runs-- if you think of Gaza as a coastal strip, the yellow line sort of bisects the strip roughly bisects it, but parallel to the sea, essentially. And so the place where the Palestinians are now crammed is on the sea side of the yellow line. Whereas this-- at least this first planetary by all accounts seems to be a nearer. So it's on the Israeli side, so to speak, of the land side of the yellow line. So it seems like if the plan is for them to expel everybody to this sort of madmax wilderness of the coastal strip and bomb them and kill them, keep their lives as miserable as possible. And then to admit them almost like one by one into the land side of the thing, it seems that in a way, according to the Kushner plan, they're doing it-- it's flipped around. Because Kushner, always, for years have been talking about the coastal property as this is the prime real estate. But they're kind of inverting it. So in other words, these Israelis, in this case, if they were to follow this through, they'd be bringing more and more Palestinians closer to them, so to speak, then further away. from them, which seems like in a way opposite from what these railies want to do. So, to what extent do you think this is fantasy? And to what extent do you think what I just described, maybe contradicts, you know, has one Israeli fantasy, contradicts another Israeli fantasy? And then like, you know, how real do you think this actually is? Because it sounds terrifyingly real, but you know, you're maybe in a better position to assess that than I am. Look, you know, with anything, it's always hard to predict. A few days after October 7th, or maybe it was the evening of October 7th, you know, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the airwaves announcing the war on Gaza. And he's told all Palestinians in Gaza leave now. You know, that was the, that's how the war started. This genocide started. He said leave now. And then we saw a week later, you know, this decree ordering half of the Palestinians in Gaza, over a million people to evacuate to the south. And they, they published, you know, a map showing these two arrows pointing south towards, basically Egypt. And that looked like a manifestation of colonial fantasy. And there has been, I think when we talk about Gaza, you know, as the three of you know, the Gaza strip is a colonial construct, right? Gaza was a city like any other Palestinian city. It was a very important historical trading route. It was a prosperous part of Southern Palestine up until 1948. But you know, in 1948 to 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. Many of those in Southern Palestine took refuge. You know, some of them behind the retreating Egyptian army and and which ended up controlling. This area we now call the Gaza strip, right? Which was obviously invaded and occupied by Israel in 1967. But you have this massive concentration of Palestinian refugees in Gaza that becomes a site of particular intense colonial violence. Not just since the, you know, Hamas was ruling the territory in 2007 or 2006. But because there's this largest concentration of Palestinian refugees in historic Palestine. So it's both the site of historically colonial violence, kind of the most intense. And the focal site of fierce Palestinian resistance. You know, the first, the first, the father started there. It's where yes, a lot of other thoughts returned to in 1994. It's where Hamad, Hamas and Jehed were founded. So I think we're at this falcon point, we're at a pivotal point now where you've had these different stages. And you know, I'm just focusing on Gaza. Obviously there's there's the rest of Palestine, but we're out of pivotal point yet again, you know. And Palestine and Gaza in particular is this laboratory for what is possible for this colonial expansion. And yeah, whether, you know, so they have control of this side of the eastern side. These really forces have this control. I'm sure their fantasy is to take over the entire strip to force all Palestinians out. It's hard. And you know, there's a lot of despair over what's happening. But also, I think we have to remember that Palestinian resistance and and steadfastness and just the existence of Palestinians in historic Palestine has caused. We can we can argue the Zionist project or as it was initially envisioned to fail to become some normalized state that you know, kind of ruled over a subjugated population, but it's accepted. It got pushed into maybe there was always going into the direction of genocidal violence and a racial, complete erasure. But it's in this state now where it's in a state of constant war, genocidal violence and it'll never be accepted as kind of like a normal, quote unquote, normal state. The whole world is changing and we can say whatever normal means. But sorry, I'm going a bit off track here, but you know, Palestine in many ways is kind of a full-crowned for the world. And this is actually manifesting in how we look at how Gaza is now being controlled. There is a new colonial mandate to control Gaza, called the Board of Peace, right? It was launched by President Trump. The charter of the Board of Peace makes no mention of Palestine or Gaza or Palestinian people or right of return or self-determination. It does make Trump chairman for life ostensibly. He can only be replaced if he resigns or if every other member of the Board of Peace in a unanimous decision, you know, votes him out, which is kind of unattainable. And he has exclusive authority to veto any decisions, to appoint member states and so forth. So you have this Board of Peace and we just published at Dropsite the first resolution, we got a copy of the draft resolution of the Board of Peace, where it formalizes the hierarchical structure of this bureaucracy essentially. So you have the Board of Peace which has ministers and heads of state joining and Trump is the chairman. There are no Palestinians in the Board of Peace. Trump did invite a spot for Netanyahu, who remains under war crimes indictment for war crimes committed in the genocide in Gaza. Beneath the Board of Peace you have what's called the executive board. The executive board is supposed to have full powers and implement an oversee and direct policy. On this executive board are people like, I mean, outright Zionists, you know, people like Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Mark Rubio, Tony Blair, this guy on Marty Adelman, it's also got businessmen on it and there's a privatization aspect of this new colonial kind of structure. Under that there's something called the Gaza Executive Board and this includes a lot of the same members as the executive board, but it also includes more businessmen and they're supposed to serve in an advisory capacity. You'll have something called the high representative. You have what's called the international stabilization force, which is, you know, not made yet. So you have all of these things and then at the very bottom of the Totem Pole, you have what's called a national committee for the administration of Gaza. And this is made up of Palestinian technocrats that are supposed to implement some of these policies. So you have this incredibly bureaucratic structure that is completely controlled by it's a foreign body that is controlling has complete control over over Gaza. And what this resolution said was basically that this governing authority would assume full legislative executive and judicial control over Gaza including emergency powers. Okay. The mandate is to transform Gaza into quote a de-radicalized and demilitarized terror free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors. And what's perhaps most frightening in the in the text of this resolution is this idea of eligibility. The eligibility to participate by Palestinians to participate in economic humanitarian political life in Gaza. It conditions the ability to survive with compliance to this so-called new Gaza plan, this comprehensive plan that's what it's termed. It says, you know, people can't have support, can't have demonstrated a history of collaboration with groups like Hamas or, you know, what they call terror groups. And so it's conditioning basically yes survival on compliance. And then, you know, there's other things in this resolution but that's kind of like the structure that's being built. And as we're speaking, you know, the crossing, the Rafaq border crossing is supposed to open for what they said was a partial reopening for pedestrian traffic only. This is after the remains of the last Israeli captive or recovered in Gaza. And I tell you this remains of the last Israeli captive. I am working with journalists in Gaza as part of my job as an editor. You know, the story that I've been working on a couple of days is a man named Ebo Smail who is in the subra neighborhood of Gaza City whose family is entire family, his wife's, his children, his brother and all his children were all killed in December of 2023. He has since late 2024 when he could return to his neighborhood been digging for their remains. He uses a flower sifter, picks up sand, puts it in and sifts and picks out bone fragments and is painstakingly collecting the fragments of his family. And the world is covering the remains of the last Israeli captive where I just saw reporting that they destroyed a cemetery as they were looking and digging up and exhuming grays as they're looking for this. And this is also, they can move on to so-called stage two, which they never have, and they should have to open up the crossings and allow in more aid. So it's really this this topic you know, a future that's coming together. And it's also, and the last thing I'll say is, you know, the board of peace, it's charter. And there's been reporting and writing about this, is not limited to Palestine, right? It's, you know, some say it's gonna replace the UN as ineffective as the UN has been, but that this is kind of the new way that the new global order basically. And it also points to the way that Palestine is this like fulcrum for the world. - Yeah, Shadi, thanks again, very dystopian and very, frankly, very, very depressing to hear of this. And just to your last point, it's true that, at least as far as I can tell, the UN Security Council hasn't said anything. Why, have they commented anything on this latest plan? I don't think they, anything, I don't know if there were any-- - On this plan, no but the Security Council in a shocking vote, is the one that authorizes this board of peace. I can't think of another example in UN history where they authorize the foreign force, not a UN peacekeeping force, a foreign force to occupy a country. It's shocking. So no, I don't think they're from, I mean, they're from us now. - They had also authorized the international stabilization force. I think you mentioned, there's, I don't think there's been any update on that in terms of any countries accepting to be part of this, or is that just told at this point? And we assume? - There's been a lot of discussion back and forth of, who Israel will accept, will they allow Turkish troops, well, how will Egypt be involved? These supposedly also Palestinians being trained in Egypt to be part of a future police force. It's unclear how this will work. And also, at the end of the day, this really military is in control of that area. So no, I don't know. I don't know how it's gonna go forward. But what we do know is what's actually physically changing on the ground. And what's physically changing on the ground is that they are preparing the ground for this kind of plant community, at least in this part of Gaza that they do control. - Just also, just to remind everybody that, as far as I remember, Gaza is what, 400 square kilometers, less, 380 or so square kilometers, and that's before it gets split in two in the way that you've described it. And we're talking about a couple of million people. I mean, it was already one of the most densely populated areas on earth, again, before the genocide and before this business of being split into two and being increasingly pushed towards the sea. And this unbelievable way in front of the whole world as the world kind of looks on. I wanna ask Shadeev to get from this mega-lomaniac discussion of Kushner and Tony Blair and all this kind of thing, two people on the ground in terms of, first of all, Hamas. So where is Hamas in all of this? What is their relationship with this new technocratic kind of committee that's being deployed there? Is there a relationship? Or is one supposed to be eventually operating on areas where Hamas is not allowed to be operating? And so therefore, since the whole point as you read out was to de-radicalize and demilitarize and do and put biometric people so that everybody that they don't like is, I don't know, shunted out. What if you don't pass the biometric test? What happens to you? You get taken to some jail somewhere, you get evicted, it's not quite clear. But what is this relationship? And is that real? I mean, how our Palestinians reacting to this technocratic committee that's supposed to come in and manage kind of day-to-day operations? - I mean, I think we saw a very interesting response in statements by Hamas, I believe she had also put out a statement that was not that critical, wasn't actually critical at all of not the body of the board of peace, but of the Palestinians who are part of what's called the National Committee for, what is this committee of Palestinian technocrats that are kind of like at the bottom of this bureaucratic structure. - National Committee for the Administration of Gaza? - Yeah, that's it. Yes, I mean, it's, you know, for free market people as opposed to the bureaucracy, they built a massive bureaucratic structure. But yes, so the statements by Palestinian resistance factions has not been to cause internal rifts. And I think, you know, are these the people that Hamas and Jihad would have chosen? No, but there was a very long actual months-long process that was supposed to be a democratic process of who would take over kind of like the administrative control of Gaza and help govern it and run it? And Hamas and Jihad and other Palestinian factions that took part in these discussions said, you know, we want Palestinians preferably from Gaza, technocrats, experts in their field. That was their position. They even said they would accept Palestinian authority, you know, who have, and Muhammad Abbas has, you know, consistently, you know, he called Hamas dogs and other things, but they said basically, we will accept kind of any Palestinian input that can have some say in engineering the future of Gaza and that they don't want to be fighting with each other. That's been the general discourse from Hamas and Jihad that Palestinians need unity. They completely understand that this body has no real power. I mean, in the text of the resolution, it says that this committee is operating under the authorization direction and supervision of the high representative of the board of peace. So it's completely kind of like dominated and has no sovereignty or control. But I think there's also a sense within Palestinian factions, Palestinian resistance that now is not the time to have an internal turf battle and that they want some kind of outpost to operate from, to even to begin to try and counter this. So yeah, there hasn't been, you would think that there would have been criticism as they're kind of like collaborating with this new colonial mandate, but actually it's been a very nuanced response. Ali Shaf is the one who is the head of this committee, he's a former PA official and yeah, he's the one who announced by video link last week at Davos that Rafa was opening and they're giving him that kind of, I think, it was kind of like some sort of thing to give him, have him make this announcement to, to, you know, we're opening Rafa. So yeah, the response has been interesting. I think, you know, Hamas is not being consulted or talked to at all at this point. You know, there's been up until the ceasefire, yes, they're involved in negotiations and so forth, they are just ignored. What does this mean for future Palestinian resistance in these different spaces and how Gaza's being carved up? One can only wait and see, but what we do know is that Palestinian resistance has always, always existed and it's not just going to go away. So how that manifests in this new kind of like privatized colonial space that they're building will have to, we'll have to see, but I mean, it is dystopic dystopian. - It's just worth, just to mention that the high representative that Sharif was talking about is this guy, what's his name, Vlad enough, right? Nikolai and Vlad enough. - Yeah, is Bulgarian. - Yeah. - Bulgarian who was for quite a while, if I remember, the head of UNESCO, the UN Special Representative for Middle East peace or whatever it's called. So he's there, so he was always, to my knowledge, considered quite pro-Israeli, but he was on the ground and dealt with situation for many years there, but he's also, I think having retired from the UN, I think he had spent his time at UAE. So again, you have this kind of pro-Israeli UAE-oriented guy who's there supposed to be the special rep, or the, what do you call him, the higher representative in Gaza, I think it's worth looking into this character as well, because I think he will be the main, the actual main player as opposed to this Gaza technical thing where they'll just be, God doing God knows what, but he will be more in the news and being more active as representing. This is what I understand anyway. - Following up on what Kedin was just saying in terms of the, and what you were describing in terms of this, this dystopian or wellian, I mean, it's beyond, it's almost a parody, it's just a parody of the mandate system of the League of Nations after the First World War. And it's just, it's obscene actually, what you've laid out for us and for our viewers. And my question is, to what extent, when you zoom out a little bit and you look and you say, okay, but over the last two years plus, since the genocide began, Israel has, and Israel has been isolated as never before in global opinion. And I'm wondering how you read that trend of ever more international isolation with this, what you're describing, which is just this kind of obscene, willful, vindictive, vicious sort of basically fuck you to the world, essentially. Saying to the world, you know, we will deal with this population as we see fit. Nobody can stop us. Everyone has to participate in this. And there's no such thing as rules or international law or justice or anything. So I'm wondering how you reconcile the global shift with where we are today? What's happened? Yeah, I mean, some are just sorry, Shadith, but as Shadith had mentioned, the security council did authorize this port of peace. Right. So there isn't. But the security council, as a way of saying, we give up where irrelevant, we pass this, we're all so. Yeah, they are. I mean, that's that's even worse. That's even worse. Yes, but there's also been, it got passed because for some reason, Russia and China have stayed, you know, that that's why I passed. But you know, I think when at least when I was covering Palestine, the second and the father over 20 years ago, in the United States, you couldn't say the word Palestine. If you said the word Palestine, but that's not a country, that's not a place, you would get attacked viciously. You know, there was even an acronym, PEP, Progressive Exha for Palestine. Now, you have a new generation, well, a large portion of US political life that is not just on the left, but also on the right, a new generation that is not just anti occupation, but is anti-Zionist, as a colonial ideology. We saw, you know, one of the most significant student uprisings in half a century in this country and around the world. There has been even, you know, by some countries condemnation of Israel, as a colonial project. So, yes, what is it? Are we beginning, is this genocide and Gaza, the beginning of the end of Zionism? I think, as Tata Bakone said recently, we're at a point now where there's no kind of middle ground. In a way, I mean, based on what we're talking about now, the way you've laid out the reality facing the people in Gaza, and obviously, Palestine generally, Gaza in particular, because there are different versions of more or less the same thing in the rest of Palestine, too, of course, for Palestinians. But it's just going to what you just said. It seems like we're in a moment now where this is either, as we said before, this is either a pipe dream of Zionist pipe dream of some kind. They're either fantasizing on steroids or they're going to win. And it's basically, I mean, this is the fight for the future of humanity in a way, because of course, we're seeing at most intensively in Palestine. But variations of the same struggle are taking place here in the US, as you know, from what's going on in Minneapolis and other places. There is a kind of global struggle between, it is almost mannequin between the forces of good and of evil. In almost literally, it seems almost sometimes when you look at it, it looks like that. Certainly, what's happening in Palestine? So if evil triumphs, then their Jared Kushner will make his whatever billions or whatever he's planning to make. The people of Gaza will be reduced to these wretches that are much closer in some sense to 12th century serfs. If even that, these serfs that writes, you know, to these automatos who come and go from and whose lives can be snuffed out at will by overlapping master race of Israelis. I mean, it really is. It is the worst form of dystopia that anybody in the history of the world has ever cooked up as far as I'm aware. And so either they triumph or I'm not saying they're going to win. I'm saying this is what this is their fantasy, right? So the question is, if their fantasy triumphs, then that's is what happens. Or will it be they're undoing? Basically, they've gone too far. This is insane what they're doing. It's delusional. It's hebristic. It's in lit, you know, medically insane in some way. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Hopefully, obviously, I think I think I hope that they're delusional and that the world's outrage will only continue to grow. Even though, as you've said before, they're trying to do everything possible to stop descent and criticism and everything else. But that's the same. That's like that's the moment we're in right now. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, look at the extent to which in this country, they've gone, they've trampled on free speech on academic freedom, all of these things, just to clamp down on the center for Palestine. Historians like Ilan Papay argued this is the beginning of the end of Zionism. It's just a very long and brutal end and violent end. It also could be, you know, another moment like 1967 where it is a massive reordering of the regional order. I mean, we're seeing that in Syria, Lebanon, and you know, around the region and different forms of control within Palestine by Israel that holds for decades. It's honestly hard to know. But what I think what's clear is that we have never seen I've never seen this amount of opposition to Israel, at least in the United States, in my lifetime. And I don't think it's ever going back to what it was. If you support Israel now, you have to explain yourself. And that is a sea change from where we were. And as the historian Rashid Khaleddi argued, he said, you know, every colonial project has a metropole. And the war to win part of the battle to win and to decolonize has to be waged in the metropole. And the metropole for Israel is not to laviVE its New York and Washington. And so that battle has to be, has to be fought here, said part of the battle to liberate Algeria was fought in Paris. And so there is something to that that it takes a very, it takes years for opposition within, because you know, this is hardly a democracy in many ways. But it takes a long time for a political opposition at the grassroots level to filter into the halls of Washington and then eventually get enacted into policy. But it is on that track. So, but at the same time, yeah, you have a really vicious colonial body now that's overseeing Gaza, you know, that is this other form of privatized extraction now that, you know, they want, they want to build. It's incredible that the names of the people on this official, on these official bodies in the board of peace are real estate people and tech people in addition to politicians. So, I don't know, I always grapple with this question all the time. Like, it's very hard to get a sense of what we're, what we're all witnessing. And I think we've all been changed by what we've seen. There's been genocides in the past, but never, you know, live streamed in this way. And so, yeah, I think it's it's affected everything actually. It's affected at global order. It's affecting, you know, people talk about Imperial boomerang with what's happening in Minnesota and so forth. I don't know that that's necessarily true in this case, but these things are undoubtedly connected. And that connection was made by a whole generation of Americans. I think especially after the Black Lives Matter protest movement in 2020, that then was followed by the uprising, the unity uprising in Palestine in 2021. And they made these connections of who is the oppressor and who's the oppress, who's the colonizer and who's the colonized. And yeah, that connection, I think, is not going to go away. Yeah, I mean, I think if there's hope and on this podcast, we've often talked about this conundrum again about Zionism and its status in the West in general, the US in particular. And, you know, we've we've often said, you know, it's it looks like a losing proposition in the US. I mean, it still seems strong because it can exert power over hapless congresspeople who do the bidding of the lobby, but that seems like as hopefully it seems like a dwindling number and that the popular outrageous is certainly seen in opinion polls of Americans, as you know, it seemed like a massive sea change is taken place in that image of the little plucky little Israel, you know, David and Goliath fighting for purity and like all this stuff like nobody believes that stuff or I mean a few people, but it's like a dwindling number of people from a certain generation believe that otherwise. So I think we're going to yeah, obviously we'll we'll keep tracking this as we go. But suddenly just just just just to note and it was based on what you're saying I think they moved on I think they've recognized and they've moved on from this idea that they can get the support of liberals in America and have that image They've moved on to the oligarchs and they're shutting down Media in the United States this tick-tock All the CBS news this Barry-wise the all these these kinds of just yeah, that's the extreme Well, it's extreme ideologues, and it is their bet. I don't know if that I have no idea if that kind of thing works or What the younger generation will be turning this is the yeah This is the thing the quit there their bet has been we've talked about this before their bet It you they used to be able to count on American and Western support through hegemony and through sort of people You know went along with the story as steady for saying progressive except Palestine etc Now their bet is they can continue to extract support from the US By coercion basically by shutting down free speech by destroying universities by censorship and and you know prohibition and so forth That's a that seems like a very hard thing to do but I just want to I just want to ask Shedif One I think we have to wrap up that just a question. I mean when you know, I'm looking at the map that The US master plan for Gaza and the map etc and the Kushner plan and Looking at the fact that you have all these security this security council resolution You have the international stabilization force that that at least was planned you have You know all these country have a whole board of peace and then they kind of expanded board of peace Which is using Gaza as its main thing and then we'll expand presumably to other other other matters and other items You you are literally watching this kind of global orders being refashioned from this 400 from the 350 kilometer square kilometer that area All of which kind of began Through and through this through you know And I'm not talking about Tabras 7 but sort of you know that there's this resistance and the Samud that's taking place in Gaza in particular And so this entire global order being reconstructed based on this is in the end I mean it is it is I think testimony to the Palestinians in general and the Palestinian resistance the fact that they refuse to go away I think if we need to look at something positive. It's not just what's going on in the US. It's the fact that It's it's simply incredible the way the way people simply persist I don't know is that is Am I is it my fantasy now am I being just sort of thinking of the elistic and trying to find something but Palestinian has long been and Israel has as long been kind of you know the most naked form of colonial Colonialism in the 21st century Also Yes, yes, and an iconistic But it also you know, I think It was Lenin who said you know in imperialism is the highest form of capitalism It also is kind of you know this future that awaits us all It is it is kind of the future point where everything is tested I know you've spoken about this on the podcast before but only weapons and and algorithms and walls and different forms of architecture and surveillance all of these things are tested and then exported abroad and new forms of you know as the world is reorganizing Almost in a way that's transnational that supersedes nation states where you have just kind of oligarchy and these these networks of You know incredibly wealthy people involved in different forms of extraction around the world Yes, Palestine is this kind of like laboratory for that But at the same time you know Yes, I think history kind of can't move forward Um until Palestine is free, right? Um and none of us can be liberated until Palestine is free because When the as this continues to exist It is kind of like this uh we call it an absurd Almost parody of a colonial Body now that's happening with the board of peace, but it is reality, but at the same time You know, I think across movements and different things that those can't be defeated also until Palestine is completely defeated And Palestine is not defeated Palestine exists it fights back Right and so there there is this incredible um Yeah, we talk about some mood and resistance And they can be words that that we kind of get become a norm too, but but they're very real And the fact that there is still Palestinian resistance there is still a Palestine I think speaks to some sense of hope if we're looking for some something to to hope for Um, you know, that's it at least at least for myself um I'm not depressing dystopian note That's thank you Sheree for coming on and hopefully we can have you again in the future and Uh follow up this conversation and see where where we go. Thank you very very much and thank you for all your work Sheree Thank you. Yeah, I think it off you Thank you Thank you for having me Okay, guys, what did you think of our conversation with Sheree? I thought it was both yeah, we ended on a hopeful note obviously, but there's a lot of dystopian nightmare in there too from from what he's obviously not from him But from what he's the coverage he's providing of the Situation in Gaza or Samo, what did you think? I thought it's it's surreal. It's obscene I mean the reality of what's going on now in Gaza and the discourse around it and this kind of Trump plan and the Kushner plan And that's cadene pointed out the UN sort of capitulation It's sort of it's all sort of like a repeat of of what happened to the League of Nations after you know in the 1930s And and that's I think where we are right now. It's just the complete crumbling of an order um in Gaza More more especially in Gaza anywhere else more obviously in Gaza and and then the question is okay So what's going to happen the will this work? I mean these are all big questions. We don't have the answers to But what we can say definitively it is it it's beyond obscene. That's all I can say Um in terms of hope. I'll leave it to cadene cadene. What do you think? Thank you. That's that's uh, I mean hope this is I mean, would you say it's dystopian. It's depressing beyond beyond beliefs If you look at this board if you look at that who who it comprises Uh It's it's it's even more depressing when you look at at these people or all basically real estate people all of them extreme Zionist all of them And so vulgar cadene right it's so vulgar in your face It's vulgar. It's vulgar and they're they're doing you know, they want to do a real estate deal The problem is that you have all these pesky people around and they're still going to try to find ways to to get rid of you can be sure that's not any else plan in this is to still try to at some point open up and and find Some place to push all these people. I hope and I don't think that's going to happen And and it's it just seems it just seems the height of fantasy You know that that that taking design the stuff come up with it and then take themselves seriously In terms of how they're how they're going about planning it I think a lot of people are just waiting and just waiting for this moment to pass and waiting for this kind of thing to crumble And then you know you're back at at regular misery as opposed to misery plus fantasy kind of thing on top of colonial fantasy On top of that. So I think that's a good I think that's a really good point caddie I think that's a really excellent point I think that's exactly true in the end there's something called history and there's something called reality Saidie what what did you make of it? I mean I wait but this is a you know It's it's very dark, but this is what we've been talking about for some time on this podcast too This is the test of our times this is no doubt the test of our times in other words If they succeed That's what the future look guys is what if everybody's future looks like If they fail Zionism is done so I mean that's that's this is this is like you know, this is where we are right now. I still think Insofar as their survival as as as a project in Palestine depends on the extraction of support because they could not do what they do without American support. It's not possible So the continued extraction of that support can no longer depend on what it depended on for 75 80 years The effect the prehistory of Zionism going back to the 19th century. Well they're already planning which is this The I know I know I realized that but my point is the you stick be able to count on cultural thegemony They've lost that agemony they've lost the narrative that part of it is over now. They think they can continue to extract support by sheer repression and coercion. I don't think it's like in principle it should not be possible for a distant basically insignificant country to coerce a gigantic superpower of 360 million people to bend a super power to its will They think that they can so far. Of course they are How long that can go on and to what extent it can go on and and what we've talked on this show about the forms of resistance They're in generating both on the left and on the right in the US I don't think they have a very easy path ahead for them and that's what they in order for this nightmare in Gaza and Palestine to To continue It depends on Zionism being able to continue to extract what it means needs some dues. I would like to think that that is a doom proposition on their part, but obviously we're going to find out. Just, I think before we close, I think we should acknowledge the kind of work that Shadeef and drop site and Jeremy Scalel and all these people kind of, the volume and the effort to just lay down things, put the facts, put the stories correct so that the rest of us can have something to hold on to as we kind of move forward. But, you know, so I just want well said, can you? Yeah, that's a very important point. And of course, we should have asked, we could have, I mean, we'll have them on again, ShadeAllah, but like the difference between what they're doing on drop site as opposed to all the other mainstream sources where Gaza has disappeared, even though this is a killing day in, day out, they have to be out. And they're still targeting killing Jorah. And journalists and people and babies and children and the tents being watched away, it's all disappeared from the news. And not just Barry Weiss' news, but like everybody else's news too. So, yeah, thank goodness for the website. Okay guys, all right. Thank you guys. Take care. Take care. Bye guys. Bye. [Music]