“Our lives start to finish the day we turn into silent about issues that matter.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Right this moment is December 22, 2024—simply three days earlier than Christmas. Yesterday morning, I used to be full of happiness after wrapping presents for 2 of my granddaughters, ages 9 and 12, who shall be spending Christmas Day with me. I couldn’t assist however think about their excited faces as they tore open their items, and that imaginative and prescient left me grinning from ear to ear. Little did I understand how rapidly my joyful temper would evaporate—and the way quickly I’d discover myself in tears over the plight of the Palestinians. On the similar time, I used to be in awe of Susan Abulhawa for delivering essentially the most impactful speech I’ve ever heard.
Whereas I scrolled via YouTube movies throughout lunch, I got here throughout a video that deeply touched me. That video—Susan Abulhawa’s November 28, 2024, Presentation on the Oxford Union Debate—is embedded under (close to the tip). It’s a deeply shifting and essential speech—one I imagine each grownup ought to watch and share. Though I used to be already conscious about the genocide happening in Gaza, Susan’s good and heartfelt phrases stirred an emotional depth in me that I’d by no means felt earlier than.
Should you’re quick on time, be at liberty to scroll all the way down to the underside of this text (or click on HERE) and watch Susan’s speech proper now—you should definitely keep till the tip for a strong conclusion you possible haven’t heard earlier than. In any other case, maintain studying to discover essential supporting info. The next subjects are coated:
- Antisemitism
- The comedy video that motivated me to put in writing this text
- What Was Debated on the Oxford Union?
- Susan Abulhawa’s speech was partially censored by the Oxford Union
- A Hero’s 5-Minute Abstract of Israel’s Brutality and Immunity
- Israel’s Proper to Defend Itself
- The October 7 assault was ALLOWED by Israel so they may retaliate
- Israel Has Dedicated A number of Acts Prohibited by the Genocide Conference of 1948 | Amnesty Worldwide
- Proof that Israel INTENTIONALLY targets youngsters
- Many extra Palestinians have died than we’ve got been advised
- The ICC Issued Arrest Warrants for Struggle Crimes
- U.S. assist for Israel will possible improve below Trump
- The Palestinian man the media does not need you to know exists
- Empathy is the glue that makes us stand united as humanity
- Does silence make us complicit?
- Breaking my silence
- Susan Abulhawa’s speech on the Oxford Union debate
- Transcript of Susan Abulhawa’s speech
Antisemitism
To be clear, I’m NOT antisemitic. I genuinely hope Jewish folks in all places can have blissful lives and dwell peacefully alongside all communities. WATCH THIS INTERVIEW from 2002 on Democracy Now with former Israeli authorities minister, Shulamit Aloni, wherein she explains that antisemitism allegations are used as a trick to silence critics of Israel.
The Comedy Video that Motivated Me to Write This Article
After viewing Susan Abulhawa’s epic speech and her interview with Katie Halper (extra about that under), I binge-watched a ton of movies on Gaza throughout which I got here throughout this video: “Israel Has The Proper To Defend Itself | Stand-up Comedy by Daniel Fernandes.” Within the video, Daniel Fernandes highlights that at the moment’s youngsters will develop up, see the proof and photographs of the genocide—absolutely backed and supported by the U.S.—and marvel how we might have stayed silent whereas watching the genocide live-streamed on social media. They’ll need to know why we didn’t care sufficient to talk out and take a stand for Palestine.
What Was Debated on the Oxford Union?
On November 28, 2024, the Oxford Union held a debate on the decision, “This home believes that Israel is an apartheid state chargeable for genocide.” Susan Abulhawa was considered one of eight audio system—4 on either side. You’ll be able to watch the opposite seven audio system HERE (together with the edited model of Susan’s speech). Ultimately, the movement handed by a large margin: 278 to 59.
Susan Abulhawa’s Speech Was Partially Censored
It seems that the Oxford Union initially posted Susan’s full speech on their YouTube channel, the place it had over one million views, however then eliminated it and uploaded an edited model with components of Susan’s speech eliminated – the components the Zionists did NOT need you to listen to. You’ll be able to watch Susan talk about the components of her speech that had been eliminated and why it issues in THIS good interview with Katie Halper (who occurs to be Jewish).
A Hero’s 5-Minute Abstract of Israel’s Brutality and Immunity
Watch UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese deal with Israel’s actions in Palestine, specializing in its impunity and the worldwide group’s inaction. Talking on the UN headquarters in Geneva, she calls out the dearth of sanctions on Israel regardless of its brutality and barbarism towards Palestinians. Albanese’s highly effective remarks spotlight the rising international frustration. This girl is a hero in my ebook and must be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. You should definitely watch this:
Israel’s Proper to Defend Itself
The title of Daniel Fernandes’ comedy video caught my consideration as a result of on the very starting of a brand new documentary titled “Occupied”, there’s a clip of Benjamin Netanyahu in 2001 saying that Israel wanted to “strike them, not as soon as, however a number of occasions, so painfully that the value they pay shall be insufferable. Up to now, the value tag isn’t insufferable. A big scale assault on the Palestinian authority, inflicting them to worry that the whole lot is about to break down – that is what we’ll carry them to.”
To which a girl replies: “Maintain on, then the world will once more say that we’re occupiers.”
Netanyahu then stated: “No. The world will say nothing. The world will say that we’re defending oursleves… America is one thing you’ll be able to simply maneuver.”
The phrase, “Israel has the best to defend themselves,” is the precise phrase now parroted by lots of our authorities officers – together with a number of that I beforehand held in excessive regard. How might Netanyahu be so positive that the world (and particularly American politicians) would say this? The unhappy reality is {that a} group that David Icke calls a Sabbatean Cult (aka Deep State) has managed the U.S. authorities for practically 200 years (see proof HERE). That is WHY there are NEVER any sanctions on Israel.
As well as, watch this totally should see video concerning the essential position the U.S. has performed within the genocide of Palestinians and the weird “unbreakable bond” between the U.S. and Israel:
The October 7 Assault Was Allowed by Israel
I’ve been very conscious of Israel’s mission to take away the Palestinians from their land ever since posting THIS VIDEO by David Icke on the day after October 7, 2023 assault. Within the video, Icke offered compelling proof that the assault was NOT a shock. Quite the opposite, it was ALLOWED by Israel in order that they may then retaliate a thousand fold. Icke predicted just about the whole lot that has occurred because the assault.
Beneath is a quote from Icke’s video concerning the Sabbatean cult that was talked about above:
“They do not care about you, Jewish folks of Israel and the broader world. The Sabbatean cult has infiltrated you. It doesn’t care about you, and that is why it is allowed this to occur for ulterior motives we are going to get into. And on the similar time, this international cult, as I name it, is behind Hamas. If you wish to carry two teams of individuals into battle with one another, they management each side… So Hamas is hanging the Palestinian civilians out to dry, and the identical is occurring with the federal government of Israel and Israeli civilians.”
Israel Has Dedicated A number of Acts Prohibited by the Genocide Conference of 1948 | Amnesty Worldwide
Along with the overwhelming settlement concerning genocide within the vote taken after the Oxford Union debate, WATCH how Amnesty Worldwide arrived on the similar conclusion via proof and analyis. The primary treaty to explicitly outline and criminalize genocide in worldwide legislation was adopted by the United Nations in 1948 in response to the atrocities of World Struggle II. To show genocide has taken place you must present that ONE or extra of the 5 acts prohibited by the genocide conference was carried out. On this video, Amnesty Worldwide supplies proof that 3 of the 5 prohibited acts have been dedicated by Israel:
Amnesty Worldwide: For the genocide to finish—governments should come collectively and take resolute motion. They need to use each authorized avenue to carry perpetrators to justice, cease arms transfers and urgently work to dismantle Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid regime.
Proof that Israel INTENTIONALLY Targets Kids
Within the documentary “Occupied”, Israeli troopers unequivocally state that they homicide Palestinian youngsters to forestall them from rising as much as turn into their enemies sooner or later. Within the following two movies, docs who volunteered in Palestine share harrowing first-hand accounts that reveal youngsters had been intentionally focused:
In these two movies, a number of different docs additionally describe the horrific conditions they witnessed firsthand:
Many Extra Palestinians Have Died Than We Have Been Informed
Throughout Susan Abulhawa’s interview with Katie Halper, she offered a few of the explanation why the Palestinian dying toll is way increased than we’ve been advised – prone to be at the very least 300,000. Earlier this yr, she revealed an article in regards to the dying toll in Gaza that goes into a lot better element. Learn Susan’s good math-based evaluation HERE.
Be aware that “The Lancet” revealed an article a couple of weeks after Susan wherein they got here to an analogous conclusion. The Lancet article consists of the next textual content:
“The entire dying toll is anticipated to be giant given the depth of this battle; destroyed health-care infrastructure; extreme shortages of meals, water, and shelter; the inhabitants’s incapacity to flee to protected locations; and the lack of funding to UNRWA, one of many only a few humanitarian organisations nonetheless lively within the Gaza Strip.
“In latest conflicts, such oblique deaths vary from three to fifteen occasions the variety of direct deaths. Making use of a conservative estimate of 4 oblique deaths per one direct dying to the deaths reported, it isn’t implausible to estimate that as much as 186 000 or much more deaths might be attributable to the present battle in Gaza.”
ICC Issued Arrest Warrants for Struggle Crimes
The Worldwide Felony Court docket (ICC) issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged battle crimes in Gaza. It is also issued warrants for Hamas chief Mohammed Deif. Nonetheless, politicians in Israel and the U.S. have tried to intimidate the ICC to withdraw the warrants:
U.S. Assist for Israel Will Probably Improve Below Trump
“Neglect Russia, the true menace to America comes from Israel and the Israel Foyer.” ~Julian Assange
Beneath are a couple of key examples exhibiting Donald Trump’s steadfast assist for Israel and his hostility towards Palestine—together with his push to penalize those that criticize Israel:
The Palestinian Man The Media Does not Need You To Know Exists
Our media and most of our authorities officers, together with Trump, need us to imagine that each one Palestinian males are terrorists who should be eradicated. That is just like Trump’s assertion that each one unlawful immigrants are criminals, rapists, or murderers. After all, each of these assertions are ridiculous. WATCH THIS highly effective message about Palestinian males.
Empathy Is the Glue that Makes Us Stand United As Humanity
UN Particular Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, requested members of the United Nations: “Is it attainable that after 42,000 folks killed, you can not empathize with the Palestinians?” In that very same video, Francesca went on to say that “empathy is the glue that makes us stand united as humanity.” Will our kids in the future ask us: the place was your empathy, your humanity?
Does Silence Make Us Complicit?
Philosophers and human rights advocates argue that when folks stay silent within the face of genocide, they successfully allow or approve of the perpetrators’ actions. Refusing to talk out, regardless of being conscious of what’s occurring, is taken into account a type of ethical complicity, even when the silent get together isn’t personally finishing up the violence.
Breaking My Silence
By publishing this text, I’m formally breaking my silence. I want I’d executed it sooner. I beforehand had many discussions on this matter with family and friends, and I’ve shared many hyperlinks. Nonetheless, only a few of them grasp the gravity and scope of the atrocities happening in Palestine.
My sons are very a lot pro-Israel. They deny {that a} genocide is happening and parrot Netanyahu, saying “Israel has a proper to defend themselves towards the animals whose solely mission in life is to kill all Jews.” In different phrases, they’ve swallowed the lies – hook, line, and sinker. And I am positive that many thousands and thousands of Individuals additionally imagine the lie that Israel’s actions are justified. I hope that amongst these thousands and thousands, many select to look at Susan Abulhawa’s speech—it’d simply open their minds to a brand new perspective.
Please be at liberty to share this text broadly, and add your individual insights when you’d like—there are numerous different articles and movies that shed much more mild on this pressing difficulty.
Susan Abulhawa’s Speech on the Oxford Union Debate
Transcript of Susan Abulhawa’s Speech
I cannot take questions till I’m completed talking; so please chorus from interrupting me.
Addressing the problem of what to do in regards to the indigenous inhabitants of the land Chaim Weizman, a Russian Jew, stated to the World Zionist Congress in 1921 that Palestinians had been akin to “the rocks of Judea, obstacles that needed to be cleared on a tough path.”
David Gruen, a Polish Jew, who modified his title to David Ben Gurion (1886-1973) to sound related to the area, stated. “We should expel Arabs and take their locations.”
There are literally thousands of such conversations among the many early zionists who plotted and carried out the violent colonization of Palestine and the annihilation of her native folks.
However they had been solely partially profitable, murdering or ethnically cleaning 80% of Palestinians. This meant that 20% of us remained, an everlasting impediment to their colonial fantasies, which turned the topic of their obsessions within the many years that adopted, particularly after conquering what remained of Palestine in 1967.
Zionists lamented our presence they usually debated publicly in all circles—political, tutorial, social, and cultural — what to do with us; what to do in regards to the Palestinian beginning fee, about our infants, which they dub a “demographic menace.”
Benny Morris, who was initially meant to be right here, as soon as expressed remorse that Ben Gurion “didn’t end the job” of eliminating us all, which might have obviated what they confer with because the “Arab downside.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, a Polish Jew whose actual title is Benjamin Mileikowsky, as soon as bemoaned a missed alternative through the 1989 Tiananmen Sq. rebellion to expel giant swaths of the Palestinian inhabitants “whereas world consideration was centered on China.”
A few of their articulated options to the nuisance of our existence embrace a “break their bones” coverage within the ’80s and ’90s, ordered by Yitzhak Rubitzov, a Ukrainian Jew who modified his title to Yitzhak Rabin (for a similar causes).
That horrific coverage crippling generations of Palestinians didn’t achieve making us depart. And, annoyed by Palestinian resilience, a brand new discourse arose, particularly after a large pure fuel discipline was found off the coast of Northern Gaza, price trillions of {dollars}.
This new discourse is echoed within the phrases of Colonel Efraim Eitan, who stated in 2004, “we’ve got to kill all of them.”
Aaron Sofer, an Israeli so-called mental and political advisor, insisted in 2018 that “we’ve got to kill and kill and kill. All day, day by day.”
After I was in Gaza, I noticed a bit boy not more than 9 years previous whose arms and a part of his face had been blown off from a booby-trapped can of meals that troopers had left behind for Gaza’s ravenous youngsters. I later discovered that that they had additionally left poisoned meals for folks in Shujaiyya, and within the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s, Israeli troopers had left booby-trapped toys in southern Lebanon that exploded when excited youngsters picked them up.
The hurt they do is diabolical, and but they count on you to imagine they’re the victims. Invoking Europe’s Holocaust and screaming antisemitism, they count on you to droop basic human motive to imagine that the every day sniping of youngsters with so-called “kill photographs” and the bombing of total neighborhoods that bury households alive and wipe out entire bloodlines is self-defense.
They need you to imagine {that a} man who had not eaten a factor in over 72 hours, who stored preventing even when all he had was one functioning arm, that this man was motivated by some innate savagery and irrational hatred or jealousy of Jews, relatively than the indomitable craving to see his folks free in their very own homeland.
It’s clear to me that we’re not right here to debate whether or not Israel is an apartheid or genocidal state. This debate is in the end in regards to the price of Palestinian lives; in regards to the price of our faculties, analysis facilities, books, artwork, and goals; in regards to the price of the houses we labored all our lives to construct and which comprise the recollections of generations; in regards to the price of our humanity and our company; the price of our our bodies and ambitions.
As a result of if the roles had been reversed — if Palestinians had spent the final eight many years stealing Jewish houses, expelling, oppressing, imprisoning, poisoning, torturing, raping and killing Jews; if Palestinians had killed an estimated 300,000 Jews in a single yr, focused their journalists, their thinkers, their healthcare staff, their athletes, their artists, bombed each Israeli hospital, college, library, museum, cultural heart, synagogue, and concurrently arrange an commentary platform the place folks got here to look at their slaughter as if a vacationer attraction;
if Palestinians had corralled Jews by the lots of of hundreds into flimsy tents, bombed them in so-called protected zones, burned them alive, minimize off their meals, water, and drugs;
if Palestinians made Jewish youngsters wander barefoot with empty pots; made them collect the flesh of their mother and father into plastic baggage; made them bury their siblings, cousins, and associates; made them sneak out from their tents in the course of the night time to sleep on their mother and father’ graves; made them pray for dying simply to affix their households and never be alone on this horrible world anymore, and terrorized them so totally that their youngsters lose their hair, lose their reminiscence, lose their minds, and made these as younger as 4 and 5 years previous die of coronary heart assaults;
if we mercilessly pressured their NICU infants to die, alone in hospital beds, crying till they may cry no extra, lifeless and decomposed in the identical spot;
if Palestinians used wheat-flour help vehicles to lure ravenous Jews, then opened hearth on them once they gathered to gather a day’s bread; if Palestinians lastly allowed a meals supply right into a shelter with hungry Jews, then set hearth to the complete shelter and the help truck earlier than anybody might style the meals;
if a Palestinian sniper bragged about blowing out 42 Jewish kneecaps in in the future as one Israeli soldier did in 2019; if a Palestinian admitted to CNN that he ran over lots of of Jews together with his tank, their squished flesh lingering within the tank treads;
if Palestinians had been systematically raping Jewish docs, sufferers, and different captives with sizzling metallic rods, jagged and electrified sticks, and hearth extinguishers, generally raping to dying, as occurred with Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh and others;
if Jewish girls had been pressured to provide beginning in filth, get C-sections or leg amputations with out anesthesia; if we destroyed their youngsters then embellished our tanks with their toys; if we killed or displaced their girls then posed of their lingerie…
if the world had been watching the livestreamed, systematic annihilation of Jews in actual time, there can be no debating whether or not that constituted terrorism or genocide.
And but two Palestinians — myself and Mohammad el-Kurd — confirmed up right here to do exactly that, enduring the indignity of debating those that suppose our solely life decisions must be to go away our homeland, undergo their supremacy, or die politely and quietly.
However you’ll be fallacious to suppose that I got here to persuade you of something. The home decision, although well-meaning and appreciated, is of little consequence within the midst of this holocaust of our time.
I got here within the spirit of Malcolm X and Jimmy Baldwin, each of whom stood right here and in Cambridge earlier than I used to be born, dealing with finely dressed, well-spoken monsters who harbored the identical supremacist ideologies as Zionism — these notions of entitlement and privilege, of being divinely favored, blessed, or chosen.
I’m right here for the sake of historical past. To talk to generations not but born and for the chronicles of this extraordinary time the place the carpet bombing of defenseless indigenous societies is legitimized.
I’m right here for my grandmothers, each of whom died as penniless refugees whereas international Jews lived of their stolen houses.
And I additionally got here to talk on to zionists right here and in all places.
We allow you to into our houses when your individual international locations tried to homicide you and everybody else turned you away. We fed and clothed you, gave you shelter, and we shared the bounty of our land with you, and when the time was ripe, you kicked us out of our personal houses and homeland, then you definately killed and robbed and burned and looted our lives.
You carved out our hearts as a result of it’s clear you have no idea tips on how to dwell on the planet with out dominating others.
You might have crossed all traces and nurtured essentially the most vile of human impulses, however the world is lastly glimpsing the phobia we’ve got endured at your arms for therefore lengthy, and they’re seeing the truth of who you might be, who you’ve at all times been. They watch in utter astonishment the sadism, the glee, the enjoyment, and pleasure with which you conduct, watch, and cheer the every day particulars of breaking our our bodies, our minds, our future, our previous.
However it doesn’t matter what occurs from right here, it doesn’t matter what fairytales you inform your self and inform the world, you’ll by no means really belong to that land. You’ll by no means perceive the sacredness of the olive bushes, which you’ve been chopping down and burning for many years simply to spite us and to interrupt our hearts a bit extra. Nobody native to that land would dare do such a factor to the olives. Nobody who belongs to that area would ever bomb or destroy such historical heritage as Baalbak or Bittir, or destroy historical cemeteries as you destroy ours, just like the Anglican cemetery in Jerusalem or the resting place of historical Muslim students and warriors in Maamanillah. Those that come from that land don’t desecrate the lifeless; that’s why my household for hundreds of years had been the caretakers of the Jewish cemetery within the Mount of Olives, as labors of religion and care, for what we all know is a part of our ancestry and story.
Your ancestors will at all times be buried in your precise homelands of Poland, Ukraine, and elsewhere around the globe from whence you got here. The mythos and folklore of the land will at all times be alien to you.
You’ll by no means be literate within the sartorial language of the thobes we put on, that sprang from the land via our foremothers over centuries—each motif, design, and sample talking to the secrets and techniques of native lore, flora, birds, rivers, and wildlife.
What your actual property brokers name of their high-priced listings “previous Arab dwelling” will at all times maintain of their stones the tales and recollections of our ancestors who constructed them. The traditional images and work of the land won’t ever comprise you.
You’ll by no means know the way it feels to be beloved and supported by those that don’t have anything to achieve from you, and in reality, the whole lot to lose. You’ll by no means know the sensation of plenty everywhere in the world pouring into the streets and stadiums to chant and sing in your freedom; and it isn’t since you are Jewish, as you attempt to make the world imagine, however since you are wicked violent colonizers who suppose your Jewishness entitles you to the house my grandfather and his brothers constructed with their very own arms on lands that had been in our household for hundreds of years. It’s as a result of Zionism is a blight onto Judaism and certainly onto humanity.
You’ll be able to change your names to sound extra related to the area and you’ll fake falafel and hummus and zaatar are your historical cuisines, however within the recesses of your being, you’ll at all times really feel the sting of this epic forgery and theft. That’s why even the drawings of our kids, held on partitions on the UN or in a hospital ward, ship your leaders and legal professionals into hysteric meltdowns.
You’ll not erase us, regardless of how many people you kill and kill and kill, all day day by day. We aren’t the rocks Chaim Weizmann thought you would clear from the land. We’re its very soil. We’re her rivers and her bushes and her tales, as a result of all of that was nurtured by our our bodies and our lives over millennia of steady, uninterrupted habitation of that patch of earth between the Jordan and Mediterranean waters. From our Canaanite, our Hebrew, our Philistine, and our Phoenician ancestors, to each conqueror or pilgrim who got here and went, who married or raped, beloved, enslaved, transformed between religions, settled or prayed in our land, leaving items of themselves in our our bodies and our heritage, the fabled, tumultuous tales of that land are fairly actually in our DNA. You can’t kill or propagandize that away, it doesn’t matter what dying expertise you employ or what Hollywood and company media arsenals you deploy.
Sometime, your impunity and conceitedness will finish. Palestine shall be free; she shall be restored to her multi-religious, multi-ethnic pluralistic glory; we are going to restore and increase the trains that run from Cairo to Gaza to Jerusalem, Haifa, Tripoli, Beirut, Damascus, Amman, Kuwait, Sanaa, and so forth; we are going to put an finish to the zionist American battle machine of domination, enlargement, extraction, air pollution, and looting.
. . .And you’ll both depart, or you’ll lastly be taught to dwell with others as equals.
