Omar Suleiman: Palestine, Gaza, Oct 7, Israel, Resistance, Faith & Islam

00:00:00.000 | You always know when you live in Gaza that it's only a matter of time before

00:00:04.560 | the next bombs drop, you know, if you're in Gaza, that you are waiting for your

00:00:11.800 | death, people dream about going out in the world and pursuing education.

00:00:18.200 | People dream about going out in the world and pursuing economic opportunity.

00:00:21.720 | In Gaza, your idea of opportunity is an opportunity to see the next year.

00:00:26.920 | That has been the case.

00:00:29.480 | And so when we talk about, you know, this not existing in a vacuum, if people

00:00:35.600 | only hear about Gaza on October 7th, that is, that is a major part of the problem.

00:00:42.920 | And that is again, part of the problem of our ignorance and our apathy, right?

00:00:48.720 | Why is it that the plight of the people of Gaza is not brought up

00:00:53.360 | until an attack happens on Israel?

00:00:59.240 | The following is a conversation with Imam Dr.

00:01:01.760 | Omar Suleiman, his second time on the podcast.

00:01:04.680 | He is a Palestinian American, a Muslim scholar, a civil rights leader,

00:01:10.640 | president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, and is one of the

00:01:15.280 | most influential Muslims in the world.

00:01:17.600 | Our previous conversation was focused on Islam.

00:01:20.840 | This time, the focus was on Gaza and Palestine.

00:01:25.360 | This is Alex Friedman podcast.

00:01:28.360 | To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

00:01:31.200 | And now, dear friends, here's Omar Suleiman.

00:01:35.000 | What did you think, feel, and pray for in the days that followed October 7th?

00:01:42.160 | I think the first feeling was that there's going to be a lot of

00:01:50.240 | death and destruction in Gaza as a result, right?

00:01:53.280 | We always kind of see this where one Israeli casualty leads to hundreds

00:01:59.480 | of Palestinian casualties, right?

00:02:01.160 | So it's a pretty familiar cycle in some ways, where there are daily

00:02:07.960 | transgressions against Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza.

00:02:12.000 | The checkpoints, the aggression on Masjid al-Aqsa, the settlements

00:02:18.800 | expanding the stories of Palestinian death, and then you have rockets

00:02:26.320 | fired from Gaza, and that's when the Western press catches

00:02:28.880 | up and starts to cover it.

00:02:30.000 | Israel responds with hellfire missiles, white phosphorus bombs, and the

00:02:36.600 | casualties are wildly disproportionate.

00:02:39.560 | And so I think that, you know, I wasn't surprised.

00:02:43.880 | I prayed for the people that I knew were going to bear the brunt.

00:02:48.800 | Of this outbreak, but the outbreak was predictable.

00:02:52.400 | You wrote a statement on October 9th.

00:02:57.440 | I was hoping to read it, if it's okay.

00:03:00.920 | Yeah, go ahead.

00:03:01.480 | "Our Palestinian casualties are always your footnotes, the daily

00:03:06.560 | humiliation of occupation ignored, the aggression by settlers and

00:03:10.720 | soldiers alike on holy sites and souls, the annihilation of entire

00:03:15.760 | families that follows, the devastation of whatever scraps remain in the

00:03:20.200 | open air prison of Gaza, unsustainable and inhumane.

00:03:24.600 | So if you're waking up to a sudden interest in the region and want to

00:03:28.960 | know what's been happening, dig a bit deeper than two weeks and try to

00:03:33.320 | read beyond the headlines of a media that has been dehumanizing us for decades."

00:03:38.320 | Again, this was not surprising.

00:03:41.280 | This was very predictable.

00:03:43.520 | If you've been watching what's been unfolding before October 7th, 2021,

00:03:49.760 | Human Rights Watch puts out the report, "Threshold Reached.

00:03:55.280 | Israel is an Apartheid State."

00:03:57.360 | Amnesty International 2022, "The Crime of Apartheid," showing how all

00:04:04.160 | of the legal determinations of apartheid have been reached.

00:04:07.680 | The occupation is only getting more aggressive.

00:04:10.440 | Shireen Abu Aqla, a Palestinian American journalist is shot dead in 2022.

00:04:14.760 | In front of the world, the United States says initially that if it is shown that

00:04:22.520 | Israel was complicit or that Israel carried out the execution, then there

00:04:27.120 | will be consequences, of course, once it was shown that Israel was indeed

00:04:32.240 | responsible for the bullet that killed Shireen Abu Aqla, the United

00:04:35.720 | States did absolutely nothing.

00:04:37.800 | Shireen's funeral was attacked.

00:04:40.680 | The Palbers were beaten.

00:04:42.280 | Her casket almost fell.

00:04:43.880 | And again, the world is watching.

00:04:45.880 | The aggression against worshipers in Al-Aqsa is getting worse.

00:04:51.800 | You have the flag march, the Jerusalem flag march, where extremist settlers

00:04:56.960 | are let loose and wild on Palestinians by the thousands, chanting

00:05:02.920 | things like, "Muhammad is dead.

00:05:04.360 | We're going to murder you Arabs."

00:05:07.360 | All with the protection of the state with Israeli soldiers.

00:05:10.320 | And throughout this time, it's like something bad is going to happen.

00:05:14.840 | And then 2023 comes along.

00:05:16.880 | You had 13,000 settler units in 2023, a plan of 13,000 settler units, the most

00:05:27.520 | in the history of the occupation, the most racist and extremist government,

00:05:33.480 | Israeli government that you have ever had, and people don't realize that in

00:05:38.160 | 2023 alone, over 600 Palestinians had already been killed.

00:05:42.120 | It just doesn't make Western headlines.

00:05:44.720 | And so if you wonder why the American public sees this so much differently

00:05:51.080 | than the rest of the world, it's because American media shows the American

00:05:56.160 | public something so much different than what the rest of the world has shown.

00:06:00.520 | And so this was a pressure cooker, this was going to explode.

00:06:05.480 | It is extremely predictable.

00:06:07.760 | You've given people absolutely no hope.

00:06:12.080 | And so I think that as we're watching that, it's important for us to actually

00:06:18.480 | interrogate the ignorance that people have of the Palestinian plight, the

00:06:26.000 | ignorance of the root causes of this violence, the ignorance of the occupation.

00:06:31.840 | And also ask yourselves, you know, why is it that Israel can violate every

00:06:40.440 | single international law on the books, have all these determinations, and the

00:06:46.640 | United States keeps on issuing these inconsequential statements, while also

00:06:51.320 | at the same time funding these aggressions.

00:06:54.880 | So it's like, stop the settler violence.

00:06:56.840 | The United States will issue statement after statement, stop the settler

00:07:00.000 | violence, stop the incursions on Masjid al-Aqsa, stop violating the people in

00:07:05.960 | Jerusalem, stop trying to wipe out the Palestinian people, stop openly saying,

00:07:10.680 | you know, that there is no two state solution, that we will never allow

00:07:14.440 | Palestinian state to be established.

00:07:16.120 | But at the same time, here's your $3 billion check.

00:07:20.720 | And if the United Nations issues any sort of resolution against Israel, or if any

00:07:27.960 | international body tries to hold Israel accountable, the United States stands

00:07:32.560 | in the way of any accountability.

00:07:34.320 | It's important for us to ask why.

00:07:36.080 | And so I always tell people, read beyond the headlines.

00:07:39.400 | Even now, with the backdrop of a genocide, over 30,000 people have been killed.

00:07:45.280 | If you open the front page of most American mainstream sites, you will see

00:07:50.360 | stories about the hostages, the Israeli hostages, you will see stories about

00:07:54.280 | October 7th, but October 8th is missing, October 9th is missing, October 10th is

00:07:59.160 | missing, a hundred days of genocide are missing.

00:08:02.640 | And you'll barely have a story that shows up every once in a while that, you

00:08:07.920 | know, is still very much so controlled by the Israeli propaganda machine.

00:08:12.320 | Because while Israel kills Palestinian journalists, it also makes sure that

00:08:17.320 | American journalists are only able to tell a certain story.

00:08:20.640 | They're only able to see Gaza from a certain perspective.

00:08:23.520 | They're only able to speak about Gaza from a certain perspective.

00:08:28.040 | And this is well-documented, that they have to review their media tapes with

00:08:34.960 | Israel before they can publicize them.

00:08:37.200 | And so this is state propaganda at this point.

00:08:40.160 | The mainstream media and the United States government are in lockstep

00:08:45.080 | telling a very skewed story, and that is leading to a greater sense of frustration.

00:08:51.200 | And I think the American public has been wronged as well by

00:08:54.480 | not knowing what's happening.

00:08:55.600 | - So you mentioned settlements.

00:08:57.320 | So to you, this is bigger than Gaza.

00:09:00.160 | It is the West Bank.

00:09:01.400 | It is the Palestinian people broadly.

00:09:04.520 | - Absolutely.

00:09:05.760 | You can't disconnect Gaza from Palestine.

00:09:09.640 | You can't disconnect the West Bank from Palestine.

00:09:12.440 | You can't disconnect Jerusalem from Palestine.

00:09:15.000 | And you can't disconnect the very human story from the political plight.

00:09:18.800 | You interviewed Mohammed al-Kurd, met him.

00:09:21.280 | What did the world do when it saw the images of the Kurd household being taken

00:09:27.520 | over by a guy from Brooklyn or Long Island who just shows up and lays claim to their home?

00:09:33.600 | What did the world do when American settlers suddenly decided they could walk

00:09:41.520 | into historic Palestinian homes and throw people out of their homes?

00:09:45.320 | What did the world do?

00:09:47.240 | And so, yes, this is very much so connected to the broader issue of Palestinian existence.

00:09:55.080 | If you realize here, we are erased in peace and we are erased in war.

00:09:59.080 | In peace, it's the Abraham Accords, agreements between Israel and its Arab

00:10:05.080 | neighbors, which is supposedly to solve the Palestinian problem.

00:10:09.560 | The Palestinians are absent from their own fate, from discussions about their own fate.

00:10:14.560 | In war, it's the Israel-Hamas war.

00:10:16.960 | It's Israel and Gaza.

00:10:18.800 | Where are the Palestinian people, the millions of Palestinian people that have

00:10:25.120 | either been removed from their land or are being tormented on their land?

00:10:29.840 | Where are they in this discussion?

00:10:31.520 | - What are the Palestinians in the diaspora feeling?

00:10:38.120 | - I think deeply frustrated, a great sense of anger, sadness.

00:10:44.800 | Every single Palestinian right now knows someone that's been killed.

00:10:49.080 | Every single Palestinian is a part of a story of displacement or destruction.

00:10:54.680 | Every single Palestinian has a relative that's either missing a limb or a loved one.

00:11:00.960 | Every single Palestinian in the world is traumatized by this.

00:11:07.800 | And in some ways, being outside of Palestine, being away from it all, hurts

00:11:13.200 | even more because you see your people being killed and starved and brutalized

00:11:20.240 | and slaughtered, and you can't do anything about it.

00:11:22.960 | And the people around you are justifying that slaughter.

00:11:26.520 | If you turn on a TV or if you open a mainstream news site, these

00:11:31.360 | sites are justifying your slaughter.

00:11:35.240 | And people are being killed over there because they look like me, because

00:11:39.120 | they're Palestinian like I'm Palestinian.

00:11:40.840 | And so we're watching this in diaspora with agony.

00:11:45.000 | We can't go, we can't heal our loved ones.

00:11:49.160 | We can't comfort the people that are there.

00:11:50.920 | I recently spoke to a doctor who's lost 75 relatives, 75 relatives in Gaza.

00:11:59.040 | And he's a medical doctor.

00:12:02.400 | And all he wants to do is get in there and just use his medical

00:12:06.480 | expertise to help his people.

00:12:08.240 | And he can't.

00:12:09.000 | And so we're watching it from afar, but our hearts are there.

00:12:14.440 | They are in the buildings that are being destroyed.

00:12:16.960 | They're in the hospitals that are being bombed.

00:12:19.080 | They are there and they are with the people.

00:12:21.840 | You're somebody who's always rushed into the midst of a crisis.

00:12:29.360 | So what does it feel like on a personal level to not be able to do

00:12:32.840 | that here, to go to Gaza to help?

00:12:35.040 | Yeah, it's really hard.

00:12:40.200 | I mean, when any group of people are killed, my instinct and I think a lot

00:12:48.600 | of people is to go there to help, whether it's a natural disaster or

00:12:52.440 | especially after an incident of terror, wherever it is, right?

00:12:58.560 | It's rush there and do the best that you can to help people get through it.

00:13:03.360 | So it's been extremely hard to watch this from afar and feel like

00:13:10.920 | I can't do anything about it.

00:13:12.000 | And so that's why instead, I think that most of us are driven to continue

00:13:17.360 | to be the voice of the voiceless.

00:13:18.840 | You know, I always say that if they've made them faceless,

00:13:22.040 | they can't make us voiceless.

00:13:24.280 | They have reduced our casualties in Palestine to a number.

00:13:30.440 | The number is hundreds a day, over 30,000 people.

00:13:37.880 | We're averaging 10,000 people a month.

00:13:40.240 | The fact that they've been turned into faceless numbers with no stories,

00:13:46.320 | with no humanity, makes it that much more important for us to tell their

00:13:49.920 | stories here and to remind the world that you've lost your humanity.

00:13:54.160 | If you can watch this unfold and not even have the decency

00:13:57.200 | to call for a ceasefire.

00:13:58.640 | I mean, that's the, that's where we've reached.

00:14:01.760 | That's how low it is right now.

00:14:03.000 | Calling for a ceasefire has now become radical.

00:14:06.440 | Uh, so we have to remind the world that if you're okay with the demolition

00:14:13.320 | of an entire town or a city or whatever it is that you want to call Gaza,

00:14:19.960 | because it wasn't always the Gaza Strip, but if you're okay with this and you're

00:14:23.680 | okay with this casualty count every single day, it's not just them who are

00:14:28.480 | being killed, it's your hearts that are dying and I think that when I look

00:14:32.600 | back to Dr.

00:14:33.520 | Martin Luther King Jr.

00:14:34.400 | and I mentioned this, he wrote about Vietnam.

00:14:36.280 | He said that if America was to succumb to its spiritual death,

00:14:41.640 | the autopsy would read Vietnam.

00:14:43.160 | I would say that it would read Gaza now.

00:14:45.000 | Speaking of the people, the faces, the voices, one of the people you've talked

00:14:54.000 | about, you've posted about, you've written about is Wael Al-Dahdouh and being

00:14:58.800 | hospitalized.

00:14:59.920 | He's a Palestinian journalist and a bureau chief of Al Jazeera in Gaza City.

00:15:04.640 | What can you tell me about this man?

00:15:06.680 | If Wael Al-Dahdouh wasn't Palestinian, he'd be on the cover of Time magazine

00:15:10.640 | right now, he would be the most celebrated journalist in the world.

00:15:14.200 | Wael Al-Dahdouh is from Gaza, he has been in Israeli prisons, he has been under

00:15:22.280 | Israeli airstrikes, he has seen the worst of the occupation before he's seen the

00:15:27.400 | worst of the genocide while on TV.

00:15:30.440 | I mean, and this is insane when you think about it.

00:15:34.000 | We have over a hundred journalists now, right?

00:15:36.800 | That's more than any conflict in history that have been killed.

00:15:40.920 | And there is sufficient evidence by international watchdogs that this is

00:15:45.600 | intentional, that journalists have been killed intentionally, but then their

00:15:49.440 | families, Wael was reporting on TV when an airstrike hits his wife, two kids,

00:15:56.560 | and a grandchild, he goes to the scene and he said this, you know, you never

00:16:03.280 | expect as a journalist to be the subject of the story.

00:16:06.840 | Suddenly the camera's on him, mourning over his dead wife and kids and grandkid.

00:16:13.600 | And he's saying, he even says in Arabic, he says, "They're taking it out on our

00:16:18.440 | children, they're taking it out on our children."

00:16:21.080 | Uh, you know, I've heard this from multiple people that have had relatives

00:16:26.600 | targeted that I wish it was me instead.

00:16:28.440 | He gets back on camera the same day because he feels a responsibility to

00:16:34.640 | continue to cover the lives of the people of Gaza, he understands that his

00:16:38.800 | story, as devastating as it is, is not unique in regards to the people of Gaza.

00:16:46.120 | That there are many people whose families have been killed in airstrikes.

00:16:49.560 | All 2 million people have been traumatized in some way.

00:16:53.520 | And so he gets back on camera, tells the story again, and then he is targeted

00:17:01.680 | himself, uh, his arm struck, his cameraman, Samer Abu Dhaqa dies in front of him.

00:17:09.960 | He bleeds out, Wa'el watches him bleed out for hours.

00:17:14.080 | And while any aid workers try to reach them in the building that they were in,

00:17:18.760 | uh, snipers would shoot all of those that were rushing to Samer.

00:17:24.120 | So he watches his cameraman and one of his best friends bleed out to death.

Omar Suleiman: Palestine, Gaza, Oct 7, Israel, Resistance, Faith & Islam | Lex Fridman Podcast #411

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