It has been nearly two months since Israel’s latest bombing campaign against Gaza began. With more than 20,000 Palestinians killed, including at least 10,000 women and children, Israel has given little indication that it will stay its hand. Dr. Zainab Chaudry and Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi join The Marc Steiner Show for a panel discussion on the meaning of activism in these dark times.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry is Director of the Maryland Council of Islamic Relations. She was recently removed from the Maryland Human Rights Commission for denouncing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi is a long-time public school educator, founder and director of the Altair Education Consulting Program.
Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: David Hebden
Transcript
Marc Steiner: Welcome to The Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner and it’s good to have you all with us. What’s happening in the Middle East in Gaza, and Israel now is deeply personal to me, to the guests I’m about to introduce you to, to many people. It’s heart-rendering and difficult politically to put our heads around. In this conversation, we’re going to talk with two Muslim American women, activists, and educators as we continue our coverage of the Gaza war.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry is the director of the Maryland Council of Islamic Relations, an activist, and a community servant who was removed from the Human Rights Commission here in the state of Maryland because of her posts and talking about her beliefs. We’ll talk about that when we get into our conversation. Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi is a long-time public school educator, founder, and director of the Altair Education Consulting Program. She’s an educator and student activist.
We will explore together not only what’s happening with the war in Gaza, but how it’s affecting their lives, for the future not only of the Holy Land but the US and the entire world, and what the future could hold. So, welcome. Good to have you both with us. Good to see you both.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Thank you for having us.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Thank you for having us.
Marc Steiner: It’s almost hard to figure out where to start given everything’s swirling around us. Let me remind folks listening to us that we are taping this on November 30, and as of this day, at least 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, and several thousand Israelis have been killed, including soldiers in the battle. and it’s far from over. Even though there’s a ceasefire as we speak, we don’t even know what that means. Before we jump into, Zainab, what happened to you which I want to lay out here, I want to get from both of you analytically and emotionally, where you both are at the moment.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: For me, when people ask me that question, I tell them it’s been a roller coaster. I hate roller coasters in general.
Marc Steiner: You don’t like roller coasters?
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Oh no. I have a fear of heights but that’s another show. Roller coaster in a sense, it’s not highs and lows, it’s more of when is this ride going to end and what’s coming next. It’s been the consistent feeling across the board, for a lot of people that I know and myself, of righteous anger, righteous rage at what we see on a daily and we can’t turn it off, therefore you don’t have time to process your emotions.
At the same token, for myself and my community and people that I know who are invested in what’s going on, we have jobs and we have lives, and we have to do business as usual. So when do we have that space to mourn or when do we have that space to be angry or when do we have that space to sit in the corner and cry and let our emotions out? It’s been a rollercoaster because one minute when we think it’s okay, we’ve settled, and we’re at a good place, something else happens and it starts all over again. So that’s how I’ve been describing it lately.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: For me, this has been a watershed moment in my career as an activist. What we’ve seen unfold over the last six weeks especially, or seven weeks since October 7, has truly challenged me personally and professionally to examine what my principles and values are and what I stand for. And what that means in my advocacy and my fight for justice for all communities.
My faith as a Muslim commands me to speak up for justice and it cannot be only for my community; It has to be for all people. And witnessing the devastating cyclical violence which is at historic proportions in our lifetime at least, has truly forced me to examine what my priorities are. I also, in addition to the devastating, horrific loss of life – Palestinian, Israeli – I’m also determined to continue to speak truth to power and to continue to use every platform that I have to expose a lot of the bigotry and the hypocrisy and the double standards that we see, especially when it comes to basic Palestinian human rights. And I know that there is a price to pay for that because that’s something that we’ve seen historically within our country and it’s increasingly becoming something that I feel like as people of conscience, we simply cannot afford to compromise.
Marc Steiner: Take a step back for a minute because I want to explore a bit with you, Zainab, what happened to you and the position you had. But first, before we do that, for people who are listening to us, talk a bit about where your families are from and what’s happening with your families now. Abeer?
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Zainab and I were having that conversation, so I’ll try to condense it. I tell people I am a child of the Nakba and a child of Palestinian immigrants, a very typical Palestinian immigrant story. My parents came in the late ’60s, grew up on the South Side of Chicago, which has the largest Palestinian population in the country called Little Palestine, a typical one of six kids, and grew up with a large family in a very tight-knit community. So, that’s where I’m from. I married a Palestinian man. It was very important that our parents instilled that in us too, when you have to leave your country, whether it was for work or because you are part of the Nakba or not, for Palestinians it was very important to keep that legacy going. So as a child of immigrants, a lot of my friends ended up marrying within the culture and the community.
Growing up in Chicago was interesting. I loved it and I hated it. I’m proud to say that I have very tight ties to my culture and who I am and speak Arabic fluently and know the Falahi Arabic as we call it, as opposed to Madani, the cha-cha-cha, part which adds a little bit more nuance to it. But also growing up in a city that was very racist, and did not like Arabs. Chicago is known to be a very segregated city. But also exposed me to a lot of the history in Chicago and the fact that growing up as a child of immigrants in Chicago opened my eyes also to the Civil Rights Movement and Black Americans and Black Muslims who were very strong and steadfast in how they wanted to fight for justice. And that is a route that I took. And being in such a large city with such a large community gave me that opportunity.
But I also went to an all-girls Muslim school at the time. It was one of the only ones. It’s similar to a Catholic school, but it’s all girls. And everybody in the school was first generation but all of our teachers were, with the exception of a few, women who were white but did an amazing job. We never felt like we were other, we got a sense of who we are and they let us explore. Our principal at one point was an ex-nun.
Marc Steiner: You went to a school, the school was for Muslim girls run by a former Catholic nun?
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Yeah, she was the principal, exactly right. And all of our teachers were these women who decided to teach at the school, a bunch of Brown girls. And all of these things I say because they were pivotal experiences for me as to what makes my upbringing unique and who I am today. So that’s a little bit about myself.
Marc Steiner: Zainab?
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: I am the proud daughter of Pakistani immigrants. I was born and raised in West Baltimore. I grew up in Baltimore, I went through the Baltimore City public school system, and growing up in Baltimore City, I saw firsthand the effects of structural racism and the inequities within our society and how they disproportionately impacted communities of color. I always had a very strong sense of justice and fairness.
I’m the only daughter, I have three brothers. My parents were the typical immigrant family. They were very focused on education. My father was a schoolteacher in Pakistan and for him, it was very important to have better educational opportunities for his children. So, he was very low profile, he did not want us to do anything that would draw attention to ourselves because there was an anti-immigrant sense within our society, and he wanted us to be able to be safe. I started wearing the headscarf when I was 19 and my father was terrified for my safety. He wasn’t the type of person who drew attention to himself and he was worried for my safety. When I became an activist about 10 years ago, he was also very concerned for my safety, but he also supported my decision to want to fight for justice and he respected that.
Marc Steiner: So, Zainab, one of the reasons this conversation started in the first place was that I wanted to have you come on and join me because you were suspended from the Hate Crimes Commission here in the state of Maryland by Anthony Brown, who’s the Attorney General. So let me read this one piece that came out and talk about why this happened. Apparently what you’ve been posting on Facebook against what’s happening in Gaza, against what’s happening with the Israelis is what got their attention and said, this is unacceptable and you can’t be on this commission anymore.
As CAIR wrote, as Zainab has said, “There is no conflict between condemning the Israeli government’s war crimes overseas and standing up against all forms of hate here at home, including Islamophobia, antisemitism, and anti-Palestinian racism. False smears from anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim extremists will not stop me from standing up for justice here and abroad.” We completely agree.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Yeah, this was a witch hunt by those individuals and organizations who want to silence critics of the Israeli government. And the fact that the Attorney General has taken this position to temporarily suspend my appointment to the commission – A commission that was established to push back against hate crimes within our state – Unfortunately, it feeds into this narrative that is being pushed by a very pro-Israel movement that seeks to silence, erase, and minimize voices that are drawing attention to the injustices that are occurring in Palestine funded by billions of our tax dollars. Unfortunately, this is the only position on this commission that represents the interests of hundreds of thousands of Marylanders who identify as Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian.
And right now, during this temporary suspension, no voice on this commission is representing these communities at a time when we’re seeing an unprecedented surge and hate bias targeting our communities. So it’s deeply troubling to see that the Attorney General feels pressured to cave into these tactics, to silence, intimidate, and invisibilize those who are speaking up for justice in Palestine.
Marc Steiner: I hope justice is done in this, that your fight around this is only beginning, and as Progressives, we’ll stay in touch on this.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Thousands of Marylanders have made themselves heard. They’ve been contacting the Attorney General and his office demanding my reinstatement and truly, they are the ones who deserve the seat at the table. This is not about myself, this is not even about my organization; This is about the service that we provide on behalf of thousands of Marylanders who unfortunately, have not been acknowledged adequately by our state lawmakers, by our government, whose voices and experiences are not being centered and not being heard.
We are receiving an unprecedented number of reports of censorship, retaliation, bullying, verbal and physical assault, and hate violence that are affecting Muslims and Palestinians. It’s so important that Attorney General Brown and all of our elected officials acknowledge that regardless of people who try to silence and invisibilize these communities, these communities have a right to the same dignity, the same safety, the same humanity as all other communities. And it’s really important that we do not cave into these tactics and this pressure to silence anyone who’s trying to stop advocating for Palestine.
Marc Steiner: And at the end of our broadcast, we will tell you how to connect to that as well.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Thank you.
Marc Steiner: I’d like to get both of your perspectives on where you think this takes us. It is such a complex moment. And for some people it’s not as complex; It’s simple in the occupation and the oppression of Palestinians or it’s simply saying, we have our state and we are always under attack and we have to defend ourselves. And those two positions can get very stiff and there’s very little wiggle room here for people.
So, given what happened to you and given the world that you grew up in here, where do you think this takes us? Because in some ways this particular war that’s taking place right now in Gaza has potential danger, not only for Palestinians in Gaza and Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel, but for the entire planet. You’ve seen this growth in attacks against Jews and Palestinians in this country, Arab Americans in this country, the tensions have grown across the globe. This is not over. There’s a ceasefire at the moment, some of the hostages coming home, some of the massive killing that’s taken place, about 15,000 Palestinians, 70% of whom are women and children who’ve been killed. Nothing at all to do with Hamas or anybody else.
So, I’m curious where both of you think this takes us and where it takes you, in what we face, Abeer?
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: I’m an educator so I’m at the heart of a lot of what’s being taught and what’s not being taught. The debate about teaching Palestine has been something that’s been going on for decades. It’s not new, but this is more of a, like Zainab said, a watershed moment. I can speak on my personal experience as an educator and being in the field of education where what needs to happen is there has to be a realization of what are we going to call it and how are we going to call it. And the pushback is coming from communities where they don’t want to be called occupiers. They don’t want it to be called an apartheid. They don’t want to be considered among the “villains” of history from the past. That’s a really hard pill to swallow for people to sit there and say, I come from a community or an identity of people who are oppressing other people.
Gabor Mate’ said it very well when he, growing up as a Zionist as well as a Holocaust survivor in Hungary, said, sure, Israel has a right to defend itself, but it doesn’t have a right to an occupation, which is a very good point. But at the same token, what needs to happen is, why are we silencing the lived experience and the history of Palestinians? If we’re talking about the Nakba, which usually is not taught in social studies, we talk about the Holocaust, I always like to say the Holocaust was a horrific experience that took place in Europe, Western Europe, but that is not my people’s history. Just as we say, enslavement should not be focused just on Black history. We need to talk about that. What needs to happen now is there has to be a bigger push for the education of what’s going on and how are we going to address these issues. Because it’s not only teaching history, it’s a social justice movement.
And if we’re talking about equality and equal rights for all, you can’t talk about that for one group of people and othering and demonizing another group of people. And let’s be real, the reason why that’s happening, if we look at historical concepts, the othering of Black and Brown communities is a historical fact. And looking at Palestinians especially – Where we’ve heard about them calling human animals, the children of light versus the children of dark, the beheading of babies which was retracted but continued – And you don’t hold these people accountable, all of these tropes feed to this hysteria of why we should be teaching it as opposed to getting down to the real reason as to why are we censoring those voices? Why are we policing people’s social media?
A really good example would be ethnic studies in California where there’s a huge push to not even discuss and teach Palestine in the curriculum. So the question has to become why? And also the question has to become, if we tell ourselves as a democratic country and society where free speech is one of the biggest ideas that is a foundation of this country and I can stand in the middle of the street and say whatever I like, say about President Biden, but you can’t criticize another government, these are questions that we need to ask and why that’s a dangerous precedent moving forward.
Marc Steiner: All of us sitting in this room right now are Americans. And this particular war at the moment is affecting this country deeply. We have a Democratic Party in the US and a Republican Party, and the Democratic Party is where most people who are liberal progressives, who are in the establishment politics reside.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Or used to reside now.
Marc Steiner: Well, I would argue that. They’re still there –
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Sure.
Marc Steiner: – Except for some of them already one-off outside, but it still represents that world of the Black community, the Jewish community, the American community. The Mexican-American community and the Puerto Rican community are more in the Democratic Party than they are outside of it at the moment, wherever that takes us. This particular conflagration, this war, what’s happening taking place right now, has the ability, has the possibility of splitting that asunder. And we’re seeing it take place.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: It already has.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Right.
Marc Steiner: You think it’s already split it asunder or you think you see the rumblings splitting it asunder?
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: According to polls, five of the six battleground states currently, would not be voting blue or would not be supporting President Biden if there was a runoff between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Which is also very scary to think about, right?
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Which is also very scary to think about. And it speaks to the fact that within the Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian communities in our country – Which include Christians by the way –
Marc Steiner: Oh, absolutely. Yes. Right.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: People are becoming increasingly disenfranchised by establishment politics. They no longer feel that establishment politics represent their views, their needs, and their interests. And we’re seeing that translate into how people are no longer willing to vote and support candidates who won’t take a stand for themselves and their communities. We have seen this translated through biased single-sided statements that have been delivered by politicians at every level of the government who have supported one narrative, one experience.
When we talk about October 7, and the horrific attack, hopefully, everybody can acknowledge that the loss of innocent life deserves to be condemned and innocent lives deserve to be protected regardless of whether they’re Israeli or Palestinian. But what we’re hearing from our elected leaders is that Palestinian lives don’t matter as much. And Muslim and Arab lives don’t matter as much.
And if we want to get to a place where we can achieve peace, we have to be able to talk about justice and what justice looks like, and who’s at the table when we’re framing the conversation about what justice looks like? And this is a conversation that cannot be driven by fear; It has to be driven by courage, and it has to be driven by principle. And unfortunately in a lot of spaces, there is a reluctance to acknowledge the deep-rooted injustices that have been committed against the Palestinian people.
And there are organizations, there are entities, there are forces that want to continue to paddle a very one-sided narrative of this story. Abeer, when she talks about education, hits the nail on the head because when we talk about education, we don’t learn about the Palestinian experience in our world history classrooms. Forget talking about the Palestinian experience in classrooms; We have Palestinian children who are terrified to even tell their friends that they’re Palestinian because their identity has become so politicized and weaponized against them.
Marc Steiner: I want to take this conversation a little bit here to where we are at the moment in this country, what we started doing. We talked before we went on the air, one friend who was going to come in here, Aliza Yavu who couldn’t be here today, is coming in next week. His nephew was shot by settlers in Ramallah, the kibbutzim that were attacked is where my family lived, part of my family lives, and they’re also kibbutzim full of Israeli Jews who wanted two-state solution or a dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis to find a solution. Those are the ones who were both kidnapped and killed on those kibbutzims. So the complexity of all that, I’ve been wrestling with as well. But when you bring it here to this country, we are facing in the US right now, a right-wing push to take over this country and it’s a very frightening one and it’s on the precipice of actually winning.
And you have this war that took place, in many ways, people don’t talk about how it is affecting that coalition, that group of people in this country who would oppose the right but could be shattered by this particular conflict at the moment. Whether it is people who are yelling, saying that we have to support what’s happening to the Palestinians, we have to open our eyes to 15,000 people, this ethnic cleansing can’t be allowed to happen. The Jews say we are the bulwark of the Democratic Party and we’ve been here forever and we want to support Israel. This could be very explosive internally for our own country.
So I’m wondering what you both think, where we go with that? What happens in this country? I’m not saying this is somebody who thinks the Democrats are wonderful. I’m saying something, in terms of where our country is and how deeply it is affecting who we are. Where do you think it takes us? How do you think we get through this?
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Well, first of all, what needs to be addressed is October 7 wasn’t the beginning of everything that happened.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Yeah.
Marc Steiner: Was not, you said?
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: It’s not the beginning of everything that we’ve been talking about. The influence, the legislation, the support, October 7, for me as a Palestinian American, that’s not the only time that I want to talk about Palestinian history. We’re also negating the fact that as we’re talking about [foreign language] which is Palestinian and Palestine, words matter, 200 people have been killed in the West Bank. And you brought up settlers, who have been given the green light to do what they went at free will. And they’re called settlers for a reason; because they are settlers, it’s denounced by every international law in the world.
To answer your question, as a country, we have to make a decision on how we’re going to move forward and how we deal with the country of what is Israel-Palestine. And we have to make a decision also if we want to tear apart our country based on what I would call favoritism for one over the other. Now you talk about the right wing and the precipice. What people don’t want to talk about is a lot of it is steeped in white supremacy. A lot of the mentality that’s coming, it’s not just anti-Palestinian, a lot of it historically, anti-Black, anti-Brown, anti all of that, right?
Marc Steiner: Right.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: So we need to talk about our democratic values as a country and what would make our country as a whole best for all of us and not only one particular group of people and why the emphasis on that particular country. Now when they sit there and they say Israel is the biggest ally in the region, no, it’s not. People don’t realize how much aid Egypt gets, to be who they are, Jordan, the entire Gulf area, that entire region. So a lot of that information needs to be something that we need to educate the American people on.
Why is there, again, such a huge push to make sure that this establishment is something that we want to continue at the behest of a large number of people? As an American myself, born and raised here, I want what’s best for my country as an American. I want money for schools, I want money for the homeless, I want money for healthcare. So if we want to talk about what’s best, why don’t we start here and then talk about what goes out? Again, people are like, well, we shouldn’t do the BDS movement and we shouldn’t… Well, what makes any country different if they are violating human rights? Whether it’s Russia, whether it’s Saudi Arabia, whether it’s whatever country. So that’s something that we need to talk about is, why is it as a country we are playing favorites but also blindly without giving any justification for what’s happening, with what’s going with the Palestinians.
Marc Steiner: I can see you getting ready to jump in and say something. Go ahead.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: I was going to add the root cause of the violence on October 7 is something that’s not discussed often enough. And the issue spans far, far back, further back than October 7. And in our country, our government green-lights billions of our tax dollars to fund an apartheid government that is engaging in gross human rights violations, that is responsible for settler-colonial violence, that is responsible for an illegal occupation of Palestine that defies international human rights. And people no longer look to cable news networks for their news sources. What’s different at this moment is that more and more people are looking to social media platforms and they’re diversifying their news sources. And the perspectives that we’ve been fed for many, many decades no longer jive with the American public. Over 66% of Americans now support calls for an immediate ceasefire, yet only about 42 members of Congress, which is like a fraction of Congress, support calls for a ceasefire.
So the American government is no longer reflecting the views and the will of the American people and until we have these honest conversations about our government’s double standards and their favoritism, we are going to continue to see more fracturing within our society because people are no longer willing to give up advocating for a cause. Just like we would not consider advocating or giving up advocating for any other cause of injustice within our society. And rightfully so.
We see there’s a generational divide as well. If you see the younger generation, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, they’re even less supportive of our government funding Israel indiscriminately with writing a blank check to continue funding the human rights abuses that they’re engaged in. So if we want to save our democracy, we have to have hard, honest, courageous conversations about what our priorities as a nation are and is it ever safe for us to prioritize a foreign government’s interests over the interests of the American people.
Marc Steiner: Abeer, were you going to say something?
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: I was going to say also the othering is very palatable in this country. Where we have Rashida Tlaib, people can think what they want of her, her constituents absolutely love her because she does what she does for –
Marc Steiner: Oh, Rashida Tlaib.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: – Rashida Tlaib, yes from Michigan. But then we have this entire insurrection on January 6, and nobody was necessarily censored or put on pause as much as Rashida Tlaib for saying things from her own lived experience. And this is also what’s causing people to make the shift, why is it so for one group and not so for another group? Again, if we’re talking about democratic values, where does it lay, where you have people who are with the same scale and with the same type of, whether it’s criticism or any other type of how they’re dealing with them as well?
Marc Steiner: I’ve been thinking writing about this a lot in the last couple of weeks. Since the attack on Gaza, as I was saying earlier, the effect it has on this country can be profound. We’re beginning to see what ripple effects this could have. And when you look at, let’s say in the Jewish community, the growth of younger Jews saying, no, not in our name, it’s huge. And demonstrations across the country numbering in hundreds of thousands of young Jews saying, no, that is hugely significant.
So the question is, I’m curious how both of you would view, how this can grow into something different and new. Can this grow into something that built a different movement, that built a different America, and a different way of looking at what’s happening inside Palestine and Israel at this very moment? And how do we address that and how do you think that begins to happen? Because it’s all intertwined, to me, into the growth of the right, here in this country and across the globe, and the complexity of all that and how that feeds into the growth of the right. So to me, what’s happening at this moment is not only tragic in my head and heart because it involves Palestinians and Israelis, part of a world I’ve been involved with since I was a baby and I’m still involved, but because it also has the power to tear this country asunder.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Ripple effects.
Marc Steiner: You know?
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: It’s more like an earthquake as opposed to ripple effects.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Yeah.
Marc Steiner: You said earthquake instead of ripple?
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Earthquake, it’s seismic. I don’t think it’s a ripple effect. What you’re talking about, Marc, is also tragic, but it’s also beautiful to see that you have this younger generation who wants to come and say, not in my name, but like any other major movement things cannot change without the majority of those who are in power and privilege are making that shift as well. So, I’ve been following recently, Miko Peled, who I adore, and who is amazing. He wrote The General’s Son. He comes from Zionism and something that I find very profound is people who, whether they were Zionists or Jewish or non-Jews or whatever, my mind changed when I spoke with a Palestinian. I hope I don’t start to cry, but it hurts my heart because it almost seems like we are these alien beings. It’s so difficult to speak to a Palestinian and get to know them and to even humanize them.
Then for somebody so profound to say, my mind changed automatically because I spoke with Palestinians, I’m thinking how deep was your emotional disconnect about a group of people that you woke up with because you spoke to a person of Palestinian? I taught students who are Israeli and who are Jewish, and I say this all the time – Not because I’m doing that, oh, I have a Black friend thing, no – It’s important as an educator, as Zainab talked about, doctors have a responsibility to their patients, teachers have responsibility to their students. You can ask all of my students, whoever they were, they would talk about going to Israel and they would talk about things and they would ask me because they knew I was Palestinian, and I would tell them flat out, that’s a beautiful story. I’m not afforded that. And we would have that conversation.
What I’m trying to say is, again, the powers that be in this country don’t allow it to happen. When you have students coming together, when you have people coming together to talk about something that impacts them so much, you have a commonality of the fact that I don’t want my family to be hurt any more than your family’s going to be hurt. And how are we going to be able to bring it together and heal it? The Civil Rights Movement couldn’t have been made without understanding that there was a privileged group that was like, we have enough as well. The Palestinian movement, Palestinians don’t want sympathy, we don’t want pity. We want people to sit there and say, their basic human needs are as important as anybody else. Period. And this fallacy of people saying, well, Palestinians don’t want to live with Jews or Israelis. You don’t know your history. We have a deep history with Jews living in Palestine. That’s such a fallacy. That’s such a white supremacist’s trope of othering.
And the fact that Jews have been living in that country for centuries and the fact that we don’t want people coming in, whether they’re Jews or whether they’re from another country, creating all of this dysfunction. And again, as a history person myself, it’s very bothersome because once you understand what’s going on and the culture of a people, you get a better appreciation.
Marc Steiner: So, here we are in this difficult moment, this country and Israel-Palestine, really difficult, difficult moment. And for me, having taken the position I took 50 years ago – I must be getting old – 50 years ago when I came out against the occupation, organizing against the occupation, it marginalized me and others like me who are Jews. And that’s changed over the last decades. And here the two of you are, both American, Muslim, women, Pakistani, and Palestinian, who are saying what needs to be said about the end of the occupation and the horrendous murders taking place right now in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing taking place. At least 15,000 people have been murdered and killed, mostly women and children.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: And in the West Bank.
Marc Steiner: And in the West Bank, which is now exploding, expanding more and more. It also is causing a huge schism in this country that could deeply affect the future of the US, which we don’t ever talk about. The divisions could allow the right wing to seize power in America. So I’m curious where you see the hope, where you see the organizing has to take place, where do you see this taking us? America has to address what is happening at this moment. It can’t allow our money to go into the death of 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza who have nothing to do with anything, people trying to live their lives and get through the day. How do we get to the place we have to get to and where do you see that so we can have a movement and a place that is building something new and fresh, that’s an alliance that builds a progressive world given what we’re facing. How we’re being torn asunder by all of this.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Marc, I want to say thank you for ending on this note because I do have hope. I do. I have hope for the liberation of Palestine. I have hope for the future of our country. I have hope for our democracy. My hope lies in the fact that – Not only because I’m a person of faith and I believe that God has a plan and everything that happens, happens in accordance with his plan – It’s also in the fact that the truth does not stay hidden forever and people are paying attention. They are doing their research. The thousands of Jews, young Jews, across the nation who are mobilizing and who are speaking truth to power and demanding accountability are a powerful testimony to the fact that courage is more powerful than fear.
The fact that there are more and more American Muslims who are determined to not compromise and sacrifice their identity and who are willing to speak up and understand that there will be personal sacrifices and they are willing to make these personal sacrifices in order for them to be able to stand up for a just and righteous cause, my hope is in them too. My hope is in the interfaith allies, the people of faith, and people who are not of faith, but people who understand and recognize that there are honest and hard conversations that we can have as long as we come together around a common value that centers the dignity, the humanity of all people, including Palestinians.
For a long time, we have seen within the Democratic Party, within our country, progressive except for Palestine. And what we’re seeing now is that there is a growing momentum that’s building where people are no longer willing to say, no, we’re not going to be progressive except for Palestine, we’re going to be progressive, including for Palestine. And that the people of Palestine deserve to have their voices be centered, they deserve to have their narratives be heard, and we can’t afford to continue to green-light the injustices and the violations that are happening against Palestinians like we should never do against any other people as well.
Marc Steiner: Abeer?
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: It’s already a movement. I don’t think we’re waiting for a movement. It’s already a movement that’s happening and that’s going to gain traction because everybody’s like, well, why Palestine? It’s the last settler-colonial imperialistic region right now and a place that people are talking about. But also it resonates with many other communities within our country. We’ve seen the Indigenous populations come out, we’ve seen people from the Black community, Latino community, all of them come out. What needs to happen the most is people need to reconcile with their past. People need to reconcile, well, what has happened? People need to reconcile with what is happening, how we got here, and how are we going to be able to change that because this movement’s not going to go away. You have this younger generation that is not only looking at Palestine as a freedom movement just for Palestinians, the younger generation is looking at freedom for themselves in a sense of better security, whether it’s economically, whether it’s healthcare, all of those things.
That’s why I call it a social justice movement because it’s not only about human rights for Palestinians, it’s about human rights for everybody. And it’s this seismic shift against capitalism, right? And when you have these movements, it’s also talking about big pharma. You’re talking about these big campaigns with monies and these machines that this younger generation is saying, where has it gotten to us? That’s the main point of these movements. Sure, Palestine is a focus, but the movement’s going to continue. If our leaders don’t listen, then we’re going to fail as a nation and we’re not going to be able to move forward but the movement is causing people to be at pause and say, okay, how did we get here? And what are we going to do in order to make sure that we can move forward?
Marc Steiner: I want to thank you both for taking the time and I look forward to more conversations that we can have together. This is, as I said earlier, a very critical moment that we are facing in this country and this world. And for Palestinians and Israelis, Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the Holy Land, this is a pivotal moment and where this goes will define a lot for the future. So, I appreciate it and I look forward to more conversations and staying in touch. Thank you both for being with us today.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Marc, thank you.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Thank you, Marc.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Can I read this last thing I wanted to or is it too late?
Marc Steiner: No. It is not too late. Why don’t you read that then I’ll say goodbye again.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: How wonderful. Thank you. So I’m reading the book called The Upcycled South by Tariq ‘Black Thought’ Trotter from The Roots and I came upon this, which was amazing, and it puts everything in perspective. I wanted to leave off by saying this, it’s about your past life and what you can do. And he says, “Here’s how you accept and integrate all of the broken pieces of you, jagged from change and consequence; Take them up and dust them off. Consider them one by one. Be brave enough to love and let go of what is no longer needed for this phase of your life, piece back together what is foundational, give it a home, reintegrate them, and put them to use. They belong to you. They are you. The upcycled self.” I thought that was very a pivotal moment when I read it, of everything that’s going on so I wanted to end with that and I highly recommend the book.
Marc Steiner: It’s a wonderful way to end this conversation.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Thank you.
Marc Steiner: Abeer Shinna, we thank you so much for being here.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Marc Steiner: And Zainab Chaudry, it’s good to have you as well, obviously.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Thank you.
Marc Steiner: Thank you for introducing us and getting your friend here with us as well today.
Dr. Zainab Chaudry: Of course. Thank you so much.
Marc Steiner: Thank you both.
Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi: You’re welcome. Thanks.
Marc Steiner: Thank you all for joining us today. I want to thank Dave Hebden and Cameron Grandino for running the show and editing this program and the tireless Kayla Rivara for making it all work behind the scenes. And everyone here at The Real News for making this show possible. We’ll link to the stories about Zainab Chaudry’s battle to remain on the Hate Crimes Commission and more here on the site at The Real News Network.
So please, let me know what you thought about what you heard today, and what you’d like us to cover. Write to me at MSS@therealnews.com and I will write right back to you. Stay tuned for more conversations and stories from Palestine and Israel. We’re here on The Real News and The Marc Steiner Show. More will be coming up in the coming weeks. So for the crew here at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved, keep listening, and take care.
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