SUSAN ABULHAWA on GAZA : We should all be OUTRAGED.

hi Susan hi Frank it's good to be yeah amazing to to see you again we haven't spoken for a few I think it's about two months last time I maybe interviewed you and and Franchesca you it's great to be able to talk to you because you've just spent um two and a half weeks in Gaza you've been out of Gaza for about 3 weeks um we know um not a lot of uh Internationals let's call them that um actually get into Gaza so um we know no journalist gets into Gaza uh you you've spoken about it in length uh on

Democracy Now and and other programs but I I if it's okay I still wanted to ask you um I know how how much you've been following the massacre the genocide in Gaza since October 7th but being on the ground um where you still shocked by what you saw what you saw oh absolutely yeah and and that was sort of the Crux of what I've been saying and writing about is how uh how shocking it is even for those of us who have been following every every detail every news item every video um it it's just the to

tality of this and I think we just need to call it a holocaust it really is it's it's massive it nobody is spared there's no there's no bubble no no bubble for the rich as there often are in in times like this there's just it's massive Agony um it you know people everybody is forced into these just degrading ways of living um and you know what like for example people people can't bathe and you know the way not being able to bathe breaks you down is pretty profound you know um these aren't people

who are accustomed to living out doors these are you know often most of them are uh are you know are are professionals people who lived in homes multigenerational homes who had histories all of that is is erased the trauma is is extraordinary it is just uh you can't wrap your brain around it really um there's toilets are shared by hundreds of people people people you know structure their days around uh planning to how to get to a toilet you know it's just there's something so simple um you know

the ability to brush your teeth I mean it's just to have a cup of coffee um to feel human you know to have a a you know one of my one of the women at the hospital um her husband had to work for weeks to to save up $3 to get you know to have to pay for the transportation to get to her but he also had the problem of you know coming with clean clothes when he only had one pair of clothes one set of clothes and so he would and there's you know he he found this little sort of corner where he could w

ash his clothes and wait naked in that corner until they dried like these are the things that people are doing just to have some semblance of dignity and this isn't the dramatic footage that that you get you know in these videos this is the daily dismantling of people of their psyches of their Dignity of their personhood of their um just every every little bit is is is just being dismantled and people are tired they are exhausted um children have seen what no child should ever seen and they see

it repeatedly it isn't just one shock of a dead person in the road or seeing their friends dismembered it isn't just that one thing it is a repetition of of Terror you know Israel's constantly flying these drones all over everybody's heads all the time and now they're you know they take to Flying their work planes low to that just you know create this horrific terrifying sound for kids so you've had people with elevated cortisol levels for for you know nearly six months uh people are operating u

nder this high level of Terror and so you can imagine what that just does to people I mean actually it's hard to imagine like it it's just their brains are getting rewired they are um they're not okay nobody's okay and people are hungry um they're thirsty they're disoriented they're in pain they're mourning they're fighting dis rampant diseases hepatitis is spreading like wildfire there are a lot of cases of menitis um just people aren't able to get enough antibiotics and so uh you know the folk

s who are injured who go into the hospital and they have successful surgeries the posttop care is stretched to the to the limits and so people are getting infections and then getting sepsis I mean I could go on and on and on it just yeah you get the picture and what you're saying is is so shocking you know and um I I spoke to Iman marifi she's a French nurse who spent um 10 days or two weeks in Gaza uh just before you kind of you know and um and when she came back she had the we spoke and she ha

d the you know the same sort of feeling of um you know human made and this is what we have to re remember you know all the time human-made genocide it's not a catastrophe it's not a tsunami it's not um you know an earthquake um but what im man was talking about as well was the fact that a lot of people in Gaza felt ashamed that a visitor was seeing them and their houses and their city and the towns in the in this state and they kept telling man like I we so sorry you know you seeing this you kno

w you know come back you know you you see you know they were showing her pictures of their house before and stuff so there's this and I know about that cuz been to Palestine this dignity you know and and what you've been telling me it's also you know this sort of social side right I don't even know how to call it where they they're actually trying to really distract a society you know and and um but I'll go to my next question um what imman was saying is that when she came back from Gaza she sta

rted like being invited on TV shows and in the French B the French Senate and and she told them you know she's a nurse I've I've I've um I've seen babies with no legs no arms I've seen kids with no remaining families I've but what she told me is that you know I she felt like you know when I'm going to come back and tell this to the our you know leaders they're going to go oh wow we didn't know let's stop this right now but she was like you know I've been back in France for two weeks now and they

still knows he's fine so what do you feel about that this sense of like they know you know the the whatever politician they know what's happening they've had enough Witnesses they had enough reports they' had enough Media stuff they know what's happening and they still know ceas fire what does he say about I don't know them us Humanity I mean are you are you really shocked by that do you actually think they give a about about the things they pretend to care about do you do you honestly think th

ey care whether we live or die they they don't I have always known that most of us have always known that the only way they seem to be changing their Tunes at this hour is because they are worried about their own careers their own political uh trajectories because they haven't been successful in gatekeeping all of the information as you said Israel is not allowing any journalist to enter and they have been actively killing or or chasing out the journalists that are there there's only a few left

now and so you know the the the picture that you're getting is just a tiny tiny tiny fraction of the reality and the magnitude of what's happening and um so so they they not only know what's going on but they know that Israel is hiding most of it they're not stupid I mean this is this is and it's not you know they this is they do this all over the world with black and brown people it's about their their interests this is the this is the the the ruling Elite does what they want with us and I thin

k um and I hope that this that Gaza will Mark a change in human Destiny when it comes to that I do think that you know we will look back from history and look at this moment as the moment the pivotal time when things made a u-turn or turned to whatever you turn or left turn or right turn whatever it is but a turn you know that's that's the only thing thing that keeps me going that no that's not the only thing that keeps me going but that's the only Vision that this is you know we spoke about thi

s before you know how do we make sure this moment changes everything because we know that the enemy and the opposite forces are going to make sure this moment doesn't change anything are going to make sure that oh it's Nan's fault we told you you know you know and and they're gonna have like yeah laed in power and they're gonna say that's it you know you know and but we need to make sure it doesn't go this way and um how do we do it I mean we've seen it in the streets we we've seen it you know t

his made so much going on in in terms of solidarity also in the global South actually primarily in the global South not primarily but you know a lot has been happening in the global South you've been writing about this talking about this for years the fact that you know the West lobbying Biden and whatever David Cameron and sunak they are part of the problem they are the elites that don't give a about us dying so let's let's find a common struggle with the people brown black people of the South

that care about yeah us you know and and which is the majority world as well um yeah do you think it is the global yeah it is primarily the global South but it's also the um the working class in the west the poor and and the the uh black and brown people in the west as well and um and the working class and the disenfranchised it's everywhere I mean there are plenty of people in the global South who are the who represent the ruling Elite I mean you look at the um the ruling Elite in the Arab worl

d I mean they're part of the global technically part of the global South but they're part of the problem they're a big part of the problem so I think um uh yeah I mean this is one of the reasons I never really had much faith in electoral politics even though I did write an article recently to ditch Biden um but I I have never really believed in in lobby efforts except where at least Lobby efforts that aim to sort of bring awareness because you know there's always this assumption that these peopl

e have a conscience that these people care about you know that they have a moral compass and they don't they really and that's the truth they don't have a moral compass the only thing that they respond to is money and and uh and power uh and unless you can demonstrate that you can affect their careers in some way and you can affect their lives in some way nothing will change and so I think you know to answer your question on what do we do well we do what we have been doing we do more of it we we

we stay in the streets we disrupt their everyday lives we do not allow them to have a moments of rest everything they do should be inconvenience their little meetings their little conferences their parliaments their resolutions their you know uh uh their traffic I mean I think you know going about their days as usual I think we need to disrupt every every aspect of society and I think we need to make them as uncomfortable as we possibly can it needs to be very clear that that the people of the

world have had enough that we will not not continue to go on with business as usual we are tired the world is tired of these endless Wars these endless Western Imperial death machines and genocides and and uh and pain and just Agony that they inflict on all of us all the time for their own greedy ends and that's what this is ultimately this is a land land grab it is a resource grab it is a Jewish white supremacist movement uh that that has always wanted to remove us from our homeland and now the

y you know it was they were at least honest in the beginning that this was a colonial Endeavor you know they called it the the Jewish uh you know the Jewish Colonial organization or whatever they had all these different associations to collect money and they were very clear about their role as colonizers and settlers right they were honest uh but now they they've switched to this like we're indigenous like like the the the the absurdities of their narrative is just mind-blowing it's and it just

passes it passes in Western media in Western discourse like it's fact just like the 40 beheaded babies and now you have these you know these rich white billionaire Hollywood Executives deciding oh we're indigenous to this land that that they you know none of us have none of them had ever set foot on or ever even probably knew about prior to uh to to Zionism you know there's so many freaking holes in this in in their in their narratives that um it's just mind-blowing that anybody would entertain

it's just it's that entertain it as like as even a topic to discuss it's that stupid and that absurd and that mythical you know I I couldn't agree more on everything you you've said about electoral politics uh electoral politics um I I find it so hard to explain to people why it doesn't make any sense that Biden or Trump can can can be our masters you know it doesn't make any sense whether you know it doesn't make any sense you know Biden will probably die if he's elected you know he can't even

speak already and you know but but what what what i i find I find it hard to grasp with it's this like you've talked about mindblowing and and it's like something happened in France recently so Sans po which is one of the most famous French universities was occupied by um you know pro- Justice pro Humanity Pro love comrades and apparently and you know you know when you've worked on this for that long that it was at the first minute you know but apparently a Jewish woman was not allowed to get in

to the amphitheater because she was Jewish like after five minutes it was dismantled this is complete bull this woman was a Zionist well-known Zionist Who was heckling every meeting who was taking pictures of people you know um without telling them who was posting pictures online so she was a disruptor and she was not allowed in the meeting because she was a disruptor and and the organizer said there were other Jewish people in the meeting including people that don't agree with this so it's this

story made headline news in every French newspaper TV show the president of macron said that you know you know anti-semitism's got no place in our universities and what's mindblowing is that it's fake news but fake news that you have the evidence in the minute that it was produced that it was fake news and still it blows it blows off you know it's like snowballs you know anti-Semitism in the our universities so it's like I really think and I was talking to a a a Tunisian author actress recently

who was involved in the 2011 Uprising against Ben Ali in in Tunisia she's been in Paris for about four years now and she was telling me Paris now is Tunis 20 2009 you can feel the seeds of to totalitarianism yeah you know and I feel you know when I speak to you now I I I can feel maybe I'm wrong with some anger and I think sometimes anger is necessary and actually anger is a gift we need to be angry absolutely that's I'm glad you mentioned that sorry to interrupt but this idea this is interrup

me pleas this is another thing that you know they have sort of planted through cultural popular culture that is somehow bad or that you should not be angry that being angry makes you um irrelevant or or irrational but it's because they fear our anger oh my God they have they have constructed this whole narrative around that to uh to ostracize anger right to make it unnatural to make it when when in reality this is I I embrace my anger I love my anger it is my fuel it is my passion it is my power

and and yeah and we should all be angry we should be outraged we should be enraged when we are in the streets because they they should fear our anger and we should be angry and we should nurture our anger um the fact that all of the whole media ran with that story that you're saying that that total complete fabrication should tell you that there that that French media Like Us Media like other Western media has an agenda and it's being it's being controlled by people with that agenda and you kno

w it's the and this is the Zionist sort of narrative that anything Palestinians do to Israelis it's that we do it because they're Jewish right which is stupid it like as if it has nothing to do with the fact that these people have been brutalizing and pouring this hatred this violent hatred on us for decade after decade after decade affecting every part of our lives and um as if that has nothing to do with it and we're just this crazy rational people want to kill Jews I mean that's the again thi

s goes back to these stupid absurd narratives that they put out but I do agree with your friend because I think this stuff is going to blow up in their face and I think it's going to blow up spectacularly and we have to make sure that it does because this younger generation is a lot smarter they are um they're not having it they are fed up and and I think you know I I I think I think that's where we all need to be I think we just need to keep pushing and not despair because everything they do is

to is to take up our time I was just talking to a friend of mine who's having to deal with these stupid frivolous lawsuits that are filed against her as a professor you know they're meaningless and they're meritless but they do this stuff to occupy our time and to take us away from activism they target powerful voices to basically just sort of disrupt your lives in some way um that's what they do you know and um and so it's easy it's easy for people to get scared and to despair but um the most

important thing we can do is to resist that uh sense of being overwhelmed every single person can play a role even if it's if it's just something minor as sharing content on social media um we all need to be in the streets we all need to just support the people who are willing to take risks to do direct actions and and and so forth these people will be overthrown they will be they will be they will get crushed it will happen I have total Fai history teaches that they've got you know I think they

're counting on their little AIS and their and all their death machines and they think that they're going to be able to crush the masses and they you know they're going to take a lot of us with them no doubt but we I believe we will Prevail I really really do I think that um uh I think we are reaching that critical mass that we have always wanted to reach and and we have to because the loss in Gaza cannot cannot be in vain it just cannot be what they have done to people in Gaza is is the is beyo

nd the beyond the Beyond I mean it is just it's unspeakable it is unthinkable it is unimaginable and I will tell you something else even if they stop the bombs today hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are going to continue to die so the death toll is astronomical it is not the 31,000 that is the most underestimated number um we all also know that there are tens of thousands still under the rubble that cannot be reached but there there are so many people who have diabetes who have heart dise

ase who have hypertension who are not who do not have access to medication cancer patients dialysis patients they're all dying there are you know people who who have special needs and special dietary requirements as you have seen they are starving to death because they cannot they cannot be fed um there there are um tons of people with new with new diseases there's rampant diarrhea there's uh you know like I said earlier an outbreak of hepatitis all of this stuff is going to have a massive toll

on people and and the magnitude of this Holocaust is yet to be revealed but it is there and it is lurking and and I see it and others see it but in and the rest of the world needs to see it Israel cannot get away with this they absolutely cannot no matter how long it takes for us to hold them accountable or how much time how much effort it takes they must be held accountable and there's just that's it and I feel like honestly seeing what I saw makes me really just sort of dedicate the rest of my

life to this to to just making sure these are held accountable that's it Susie you know I I'm I'm smiling because I I cannot agree more and I've and I feel it in my gut as well that it's in they are going to lose they are losing already and it's like you know the the this whole this like old world all of them all of those white Filthy Rich genocidal right-wing racist um it's it's like the last hurah right they they know it's over and it's going to be hard it might be hard for another few years

but they know it's over and what you've been saying about the Young The Young generation I've experienced it as well I was in Paris last week uh I've been active in Brussels in London and I see the youth like you know 20 25 years old so smart they in they are in the me too feminist meetings they are in the Palestine meeting they are in the direct action meetings they they they got it they got it that everything is linked that and that Palestine actually is and could be but I think not could be i

s the key to this whole world crumbling and and you know like I remember always like when you you know listening to Elan Pape and and and and Angela Davis and saying like you know we hope we'll see a free Palestine before we we go you know before we die but you know we're not sure about it and you know I'm 46 and I've been starting like a few years ago I was like would I ever be able to go to Palestine in a free Palestine you know but now and I I was telling this to my like kids like recently I'

m I'm sure of it I know that before I die I'll experience will experience a free Palestine and I hope and I'm quite convinced that just like as you it just cannot continue it's just it doesn't make any sense for this nightmare to continue and for these people that are the 1% sending bombs to the n on on 99% of the human you know black blackground it doesn't make any sense for it to continue so again I I I I love this anger you know I'm a big fan of Rage Against the Machine you know the band and

in one of the songs Zach delarocha like screams anger is the G is a gift and I've always liked that you know anger is a gift because also what you've said a I hate these meetings when you go and the first thing people tell you is by the way we are nonviolent peaceful it's very important you know this like white whatever you want to call it yeah yeah sometimes you know we need and I'm we need them to be worried and scared you know yeah yeah I don't know what and that's another thing that non-viol

ence narrative as well that's another thing that they have sort of made yeah um you just made you know as as that's this it's and it's so interesting because like you will often hear like these white liberals say well you know where's the Palestinian Gandhi or something God okay you know first of all and then and then sadly Palestinians will respond well we did but they assassinated as if as if that's that's the only way and I and I'm like you know what we don't want a Gandhi or we don't want th

at we we we are going to meet your violence your unspeakable terrorism with whatever whatever violence we can we can muster and we have that right we have the right to resist this unrelenting terrorism against us decade after decade after decade we have that right and and anybody anybody who who suggests otherwise has no no place in our movement honestly there's nothing you know nonviolence is a great it's a great option it's an option it's one of the options as a matter of fact it's been the pr

e prevailing option for Palestinians who just you know exist every day on their land I mean that's a form of non-violent resistance just to exist and go to school and build businesses and build schools and and continue to live and to hope that is the ultimate non-violent resistance but we also have the right to take up arms we have the right to you know to stab somebody coming into our into our home we have that right and um and people who try to say otherwise are are trolls and they are um disr

uptors of of what we need to do yeah I I I think I want to end it this way because it's it's it might sound funny but it's a positive message and and it's also becoming the like brainwashing of like you know we we have the high moral ground but it doesn't mean that we cannot meet them with Force as well and um and also you talk about the the Palestinian Gandhi or or whatever you know most people who say this don't even know who the gandi was or who the Mandela was where is the Palestinian Mandel

a Mandela was the founder of the armed wing of thec what the talking they even know the history of Mandela right they know know anything about thec or what the ANC was doing and what they represented and you know what like what pieces me of the most is that we are our leaders I me not mine but like they are called leaders are thick as brick they are really uneducated Rich you know idiots you know and that's like I feel ashamed you know I feel like you know yeah it's just mediocrity I mean they t

hey they just wreak of mediocrity it is shock you know when you're a child I remember when I was a child they you know you kind of look up at these adults and these people in in uh leadership positions and you think they're so smart and they know so much more than you do and then you grow up and you listen to them speak and you realize like oh my God these are the people who have been running the world and it's it is shocking it is shocking there there's some of the are just outright stupid who

have no sense of History who have no uh no real like cognitive capacity even it's shocking I did I did Lobby for year like MPS in in the British Parliament oh my I was shocked by their D I mean how dumb they were honestly I was leaving meetings like are they really like that thick like yeah man yeah it took me a while to really comprehend it but it's true but you know I do want to say one thing you said that you know that they know this is their end I actually don't think they know I think that

they they believe that the the you know the old tactics are still going to work I think they believe that they're going to be able to kill their way out of this and to brutalize their way out of this um and uh I was there's this guy on social media that I follow uh I can't remember his name he's just sorry I'm just getting old but he um he was talking about how a lot of what's Happening reminds him of uh the way something Maran toet said just before the Revolution was that all of these people um

in you know in court were sort of dancing their way at the edge of the Abyss you know they were on the abyss and they didn't know it and they were still having these high futin parties with all their jewels and fancy clothes and they had no idea they were about to fall off the cliff and I think I and and I think he's right um I think they don't know it's even better I like the surprise aspect of it push him off the abyss no but you know honestly like I've got so much like I know like hatred is

not like a good feeling it's not nice but I've got so much hatred for these people honestly I I don't I don't give you know anyway you're allowed no no I mean it's that's a very natural reaction towards people who are who are who are so hateful who have no um you got no there's a anyway no yeah I training anyway just saying it's a normal reaction towards people who have been literally pouring so much violence um on all of us for so long destroying our planet destroying our lives destroying our s

ocieties all so they can they can line their pockets a little bit more these people for whom nothing is ever enough no amount of power is enough no amount of money is enough no amount of homes or cars or wealth is enough and and and they want more in their happy to just destroy us all to get a little bit more yes they deserve our hatred they deserve our contempt they deserve our violence they deserve our anger they deserve everything that that we feel towards them and um yeah you can we I'll lea

ve it at that thanks Susan um you know it was um quite invigorating actually which is nice we need to give each other strength you know we need you know you know get there Frank yeah we we will We Will We Will and we will we'll party for days with everyone in a gonna yeah yeah we're gonna all meet in Jerusalem we're gonna have one big meth party oh yeah hey thanks Susan thanks Frank we'll see you soon speak soon yeah bye Susan bye