Lex Fridman speaks to Palestinians in the West Bank

00:00:00.000 | Listen, you have to know something.

00:00:02.000 | Everybody here, any human being in this area, in all the world,

00:00:08.000 | is not against peace. Everybody likes life.

00:00:11.000 | Even Hamas in Gaza, they like life, they like peace.

00:00:15.000 | But peace is not like what you want.

00:00:18.000 | If I want to buy something from you, if I agree for your price,

00:00:23.000 | and I am happy for your things, I will buy it.

00:00:26.000 | So our situation here, what's going on with the Israelis, we are not against Israel as people, Jews.

00:00:32.000 | We are against occupation.

00:00:34.000 | You remember what's happening with Russia and Ukraine.

00:00:37.000 | Look, one year Russia, they have a problem.

00:00:41.000 | They are afraid from NATO, come close to, they are going inside Ukraine.

00:00:46.000 | All the world, and all the arming of the world against Russia.

00:00:52.000 | I am a refugee in my land. Why I lost my house?

00:00:56.000 | Did I make something for Israel?

00:00:59.000 | Did my, Hitler was my cousin.

00:01:03.000 | Did I make anything for the Jews in the world?

00:01:05.000 | Me and my family and the Palestinians.

00:01:07.000 | Do you have hope for peace?

00:01:09.000 | My age is 50 years. I have seven kids.

00:01:12.000 | No hope. If I told I have hope, I am a joke.

00:01:15.000 | And if you want to say the truth, there is no justice in the world.

00:01:18.000 | If you are strong, everybody afraid from you.

00:01:22.000 | If you are not, everybody kill you.

00:01:25.000 | They make you like this by your foot.

00:01:28.000 | That's what's happening.

00:01:29.000 | There is no peace, my friend.

00:01:31.000 | If you want to see the peace, come to our camp where I live.

00:01:34.000 | You will cry. You will cry, you see our peace.

00:01:37.000 | What are the conditions like in the camp?

00:01:41.000 | My friend, they waiting for water, water, you know what's mean water?

00:01:46.000 | In Europe, the dog, he live in good condition.

00:01:49.000 | Dog, animals.

00:01:51.000 | How come a human being don't have water, water to drink?

00:01:54.000 | I asked you about anger. What about love?

00:01:56.000 | You got love in your heart?

00:01:57.000 | Well, I love everybody.

00:01:59.000 | Even the Jews, they kill us.

00:02:01.000 | They destroyed our houses.

00:02:03.000 | I'm not look to fight. I'm not look to kill.

00:02:05.000 | I am against violence.

00:02:07.000 | We love your kids to live in good condition.

00:02:10.000 | The Israeli side and the Palestinian.

00:02:13.000 | We are against violence. We don't want to see more blood.

00:02:16.000 | We want to destroy this wall.

00:02:18.000 | You come to me, I come to you.

00:02:20.000 | That's it. That's my hope.

00:02:23.000 | Thank you, my brother.

00:02:24.000 | My English not so nice.

00:02:25.000 | No, it's pretty good.

00:02:26.000 | Spanish.

00:02:27.000 | Thank you.

00:02:28.000 | Good?

00:02:29.000 | Spanish.

00:02:30.000 | Hola, Colombia. Arriba Colombia.

00:02:32.000 | How are you, Colombia?

00:02:33.000 | How are you? All good?

00:02:35.000 | Hello, friends.

00:02:37.000 | I recently traveled to the West Bank and spoke with many Palestinian people there.

00:02:41.000 | From all walks of life.

00:02:42.000 | There was anger and there was hope.

00:02:45.000 | In their voice, in their eyes, in their stories.

00:02:47.000 | In ways that I probably can't express with words.

00:02:50.000 | But I wanted to begin to experience directly.

00:02:54.000 | Most conversations were offline, but a few were on camera.

00:02:57.000 | And I include those latter ones here in this video.

00:03:00.000 | I'm not a journalist nor a documentary filmmaker.

00:03:05.000 | Just a fellow human being.

00:03:06.000 | Trying to understand the struggles and the beauty of other people.

00:03:11.000 | And I just sometimes may bring a camera along.

00:03:14.000 | So I ask for your forgiveness if I fall short of what I could have done with this opportunity.

00:03:19.000 | I will work hard to improve.

00:03:21.000 | And I will do many more videos like these.

00:03:24.000 | I love you all.

00:03:26.000 | So I think a lot of people would be surprised to see a Palestinian who's a Christian.

00:03:31.000 | Yes.

00:03:32.000 | Is there a tension in that?

00:03:33.000 | Can you explain what it's like to be you?

00:03:35.000 | Yes.

00:03:36.000 | Actually, because I've been to America once when I was there.

00:03:39.000 | And I said that I'm a Palestinian Christian.

00:03:41.000 | And they asked, "How come you are a Palestinian Christian?"

00:03:44.000 | They don't know that in Palestine there are Christian people.

00:03:47.000 | Palestinian Christians have existed since Jesus was born.

00:03:51.000 | The house that I live in, it's 200 years old.

00:03:55.000 | And it was my grand-grandfather who lived in this.

00:03:58.000 | And my grandfather and my father and me in the same house.

00:04:01.000 | In this area, in Palestine especially, you can see Christians and Muslims together.

00:04:07.000 | Living side by side.

00:04:09.000 | And as neighbors.

00:04:10.000 | As we go to the universities together.

00:04:12.000 | We work together.

00:04:13.000 | We do everything together.

00:04:15.000 | What aspects of life has made it difficult here because of the tension between Israel and Palestine?

00:04:20.000 | Yes.

00:04:21.000 | Actually, since Jesus was born, it was occupied by many.

00:04:25.000 | Till now, occupation after occupation.

00:04:28.000 | We passed Palestine through the Turkish, the British, Egyptian, Jordanian.

00:04:34.000 | And that was the last is Israel.

00:04:37.000 | So there's quite a bit of tension between the various religions here.

00:04:41.000 | Yes.

00:04:42.000 | What gives you hope for the future?

00:04:44.000 | That's right.

00:04:45.000 | Yes.

00:04:46.000 | Because, you know, Christianity, Muslims, and Judaism.

00:04:50.000 | And which means that all praise the Lord.

00:04:55.000 | This makes me feel very happy.

00:04:57.000 | Because I'm not a judge to judge the other religions.

00:05:01.000 | I'm just praying.

00:05:04.000 | And God will judge everyone as what he believes.

00:05:08.000 | But the most important thing between the three major religions is just to have most important, to have love.

00:05:16.000 | First of all, how long have you lived here?

00:05:19.000 | My father was a second generation refugee.

00:05:21.000 | I'm a third generation.

00:05:22.000 | My grandfather first lived in 1948.

00:05:24.000 | What does it mean to be a refugee?

00:05:26.000 | Refugee, that's a long story.

00:05:28.000 | You know, Palestinians, they became refugees in 1948 when, you know, they lost their homeland.

00:05:32.000 | They became refugees.

00:05:33.000 | A lot of them live in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and everywhere in Palestine.

00:05:36.000 | You know, Palestine is getting divided.

00:05:38.000 | West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, Jordan Valley.

00:05:40.000 | Do you have hope for peace in the region?

00:05:42.000 | Of course, I do have hope because nothing lasts forever.

00:05:45.000 | You know, you know what that means?

00:05:47.000 | Nothing lasts forever.

00:05:48.000 | We are not alone.

00:05:49.000 | We have a lot of solidarity from the Jewish community, from the Christian community, from the whole world.

00:05:53.000 | But that's something to do with the governments and politicians.

00:05:57.000 | They are, you know, trying to control over.

00:05:59.000 | One state, equal rights, equal citizens, because Jews, Christians, and Muslims,

00:06:02.000 | they have always lived together, during the British Mandate, during the Ottoman's time, for decades.

00:06:07.000 | The only hope for people to live peacefully together, it's related to one word, which is occupation.

00:06:12.000 | If occupation ends, there's no reason for Palestinians to fight.

00:06:15.000 | There's no reason for Palestinians to throw rockets.

00:06:17.000 | But people, I think they have a legitimate right to resist.

00:06:20.000 | Palestinian people, in general, they are nice people, not what the media says about us.

00:06:26.000 | You know, it's crazy, when you resist, they call you a terrorist.

00:06:29.000 | It's a crazy world that we live in.

00:06:31.000 | We are in the 21st century and we're still occupied.

00:06:34.000 | So one day, that's why, again, like I started saying...

00:06:37.000 | Nothing lasts forever?

00:06:38.000 | Exactly. Eventually, this occupation will end.

00:06:41.000 | And I do believe that history is repeating itself, but it seems to me, people, they didn't learn from the history, you know?

00:06:45.000 | Right?

00:06:47.000 | People who get the power, they want to just keep going on, you know?

00:06:51.000 | But at least we are not alone in this damn world.

00:06:55.000 | How long have you lived here?

00:06:59.000 | I lived in this city, I was born in this city, since I was born until now, I grew up in this town.

00:07:04.000 | There are a lot of people that have anger towards Israel, hate towards Israel.

00:07:08.000 | I will give you an example.

00:07:10.000 | Like, if someone comes to fight your family, and to enter your home, you will stand closing your hand.

00:07:16.000 | If someone killed your brother, killed your father, you will be as sober as crazy.

00:07:25.000 | This is what's happened to Palestine.

00:07:27.000 | A lot of Palestinians were killed for no reason.

00:07:30.000 | What gives you hope about the future here?

00:07:32.000 | Look, let me tell you something.

00:07:33.000 | The situation is getting worse and worse and worse.

00:07:36.000 | Today, they close all over around Bethlehem because something happened.

00:07:40.000 | There's a fight between Palestine and Israel.

00:07:42.000 | And if you go all over around the city, all the entrance of the city is closed.

00:07:47.000 | Second thing I want to tell you is something.

00:07:50.000 | I don't like politics so much.

00:07:52.000 | Because, you know, in the end we are all human.

00:07:54.000 | It doesn't matter if you are Palestinian or Israeli or Russian or American.

00:07:59.000 | It doesn't matter what your religion is, Christian, Muslim, Jew.

00:08:02.000 | In the end, we are all human.

00:08:04.000 | What we want, we want just peace.

00:08:06.000 | We want to live in peace.

00:08:07.000 | We don't want any more fight.

00:08:08.000 | We want to have our freedom to travel, to go wherever we want.

00:08:12.000 | And that's it.

00:08:13.000 | Palestinian scarf.

00:08:16.000 | Speed me.

00:08:21.000 | It looks good.

00:08:22.000 | What's... tell us about the coffee.

00:08:24.000 | I make very good coffee and very good tea.

00:08:26.000 | I make the tea with mint, cinnamon, sage, thyme, ginger, coriander, rosemary, lemon, two seeds of cardamom and rose.

00:08:34.000 | This is for me.

00:08:35.000 | This is for his job.

00:08:36.000 | This is very good for working in the night.

00:08:38.000 | You know what does it mean?

00:08:40.000 | Yes, yes I know what it means.

00:08:41.000 | King of the jungle.

00:08:43.000 | Again.

00:08:44.000 | [Laughter]

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00:08:55.000 | [NO SPEECH]

Lex Fridman speaks to Palestinians in the West Bank

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