Journalist and human rights lawyer, Dimitri Lascaris on Lebanon, the resistance and bringing down an apartheid state.

After returning from his fourth trip to Beirut in the past year, Lascaris describes the changes he's seen in Lebanon, laments on the depravity of our politicians and the need to reassert the right to armed resistance for the Palestinian people.

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Resources:

• Disrupting Politics with Dimitri Lascaris - Blueprints of Disruption
• Lebanon Palestine and Resisting Colonialism - Blueprints of Disruption

Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints

of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining

power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,

we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle

capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know

we need. Today is October 7th. marking a year of Israel using the Hamas attacks to justify

their genocide of the Palestinian people. One year where Western nations have funded and

supported the brutalization of a people while suppressing those who dared to speak out. A

year where they have amassed the levers of power, showing that the systems that many believe

could bring change are nothing more than an illusion. It is clear in their blatant disregard

for international law, their persecutions of activists, students and of all of those who

raise their voice in protest. Today we welcome back to Mitra Laskaris, who brings stories

from recent trips to Lebanon, analysis of escalations with Iran, a discussion on the right to armed

resistance and a reaction to Elizabeth May's antics in the house. We have a lot to talk

about, so let's jump right in. Dimitri Lascaris is back with us. Welcome back, Dimitri. Introduce

yourself to people who live under a rock. I think a lot more people than those under the

rock don't know who I am, but I do appreciate that sentiment. And first of all, thank you

for having me. And it's a pleasure to talk to you both, always a pleasure. And I'm a lawyer,

practiced many years starting back in the 90s, and I'm a freelance journalist, a former political

candidate in Canada. And nowadays, my primary preoccupation is journalism and particularly

reporting from conflict zones. Speaking of conflict zones, you recently came back from Lebanon

and that is going to be a large focus of the discussion today, considering the most current

events, rockets going back and forth and whatnot. We will unpack all of that in the political

ramifications and... the global response to that. But what was your trip like to Lebanon?

And it wasn't just one trip, was it? Yeah, so the first trip I did is four trips altogether

since October 7th of last year, since the attacks by Palestinian militants in Israel. And the

first trip I did a week after the attacks in middle October, I was at my, I have a. home

here in Greece where I am now, where I spend several months a year. I was here at the time.

And as soon as the attacks happened, we began to hear this extremely alarming language coming

out of the mouths of leaders in Israel. I just felt I had to do something. And so I got on

a plane and I went to Beirut after I heard that Hassan Nazarallah, who was recently assassinated,

had called for... a day of rage in Lebanon. So this was intended to be protests. So I got

on a plane within like 24 hours of hearing about this day of rage and I flew into Beirut. I

was told that the main protest was going to be at the U.S. Embassy. So I immediately got

in a taxi. I dropped my suitcase at my hotel and then went to the embassy. And when I got

there, it was complete utter mayhem. running battles between thousands, really thousands

of protesters and Lebanese soldiers, the regular army. And there were rubber bullets flying

and there were rocks being thrown. To my surprise, a lot of Lebanese soldiers were picking up

the rocks and throwing them back at the protesters. A lot of tear gas. A building was set on fire

very close to the embassy. And I saw one young man tragically who had... received a tear gas

canister in the eye and his eye had been displaced from its socket and he wouldn't buy me a motorcycle

heading towards the hospital. So it was quite an introduction to the current situation in

Lebanon. And then at that point I had to hire a fixer because you can't go into south Lebanon,

it's impossible to go into south Lebanon, the current conditions all the way back to October,

without having a local who is trusted by Hezbollah. to accompany you. So I hired a journalist from

Al-Mayadeen, the journalist out at the news network that was founded by former Al-Jazeera

journalists who were very unhappy with Al-Jazeera's coverage of the war in Syria. This was founded

back in 2012. I had a mutual friend. Al-Mayadeen, safe to say, is sympathetic to Hezbollah and

trusted by Hezbollah. So I paid him out of my own pocket because I'm not paid to do journalism

by anybody. And he accompanied me to South Lebanon after he got permits for us to go south of

the Latani River, which is the hot zone between the Latani River and the Israeli border. And

when we were down there, there were regular explosions, and you could hear drones constantly

overhead. We rarely saw the drones. because Hezbollah has some capacity to shoot them down,

but if they're very high altitude, they can't with the equipment that they currently have.

And very frequently we heard fighter jets overhead. But you could almost, you never saw them. You

heard them, and sometimes there were sonic booms, and occasionally there were explosions. And

we saw some artillery shells landing on the other side of the border. From where we were,

we could see two Israeli military bases almost all the time. One is called Mitula, and the

other is called Al-Manada. and they have taken the brunt of the attacks from Hezbollah in

this conflict. So that was the first time. The second time, and basically I'm not going to

summarize what happened on each trip because that would take too much time, but basically

from that point on, the situation became increasingly violent and increasingly, it became increasingly

difficult for me to access south Lebanon and increasingly dangerous. So my fourth trip,

I did another trip in early 2024, then I went back in May and my most recent trip was in

August. There I was actually not supposed to be allowed south of the Latani River because

Hezbollah decided they would only allow journalists who were affiliated with a major media organization

and even then it depended on the media organization and I'm a freelancer. So ultimately my enterprising

fixer found a way to get me south of the Latani River anyways and we went all the way to the

border again and this time there were, the level of combat was much higher. I mean, you know,

you could see explosions going off in the distance, both on the Lebanese and the Israeli side of

the border. You often, you heard them often, and you could many times see the actual blast

and the smoke rising from the blast site, you know, dozens of times a day, dozens of times

a day. And, you know, it was very dangerous to approach the border. The... I'll just relate

to you one incident in my last trip, which I thought was really sort of instructive, and

that was there's a village called Aytashab, which is, it's a Lebanese village. I would

guess it's made a population of about 10,000 before the war. It's one kilometer from the

Israeli border. There is an Israeli military base on a hill overlooking, maybe no more than

one or two kilometers from the border of Israel. overlooking Aytashab, the village has been

evacuated. And the only reason we were able to get in there was because a Hezbollah fighter

from the village had been killed by a drone strike the day before. And so the villagers

went back for his funeral. And so there was a two hour period, we went in with the funeral

convoy, and there was a two hour period where we had access to the village. And the level

of destruction I saw was astonishing, absolutely astonishing. I would say it's probably comparable

to what you're seeing in Gaza. And from what I could tell, the vast majority, I mean, I

didn't really see anything that looked like a military structure having been destroyed.

It looked to me like houses, small apartment buildings, commercial shops. And the thing

that really struck me about this is that the villagers who were there were, I mean, I thought

it was extraordinary courage for these people to come and pay homage to Hezbollah fighter

in the current circumstances. And there were women, children. Especially with that position,

you know, the enemy is elevated only a kilometer away. And drones overhead and fighter jets

were flying overhead. In fact, at one point during the funeral, the Israeli fighter jets,

you know, accelerated and we heard a sonic boom. I think that was intended to scare people.

But the people there, the level of hospitality and their steadfastness, I mean, the smiling

and, you know, the warmth. I was astonished. I mean, you would think there was no war going

on. And I think that they collectively feel that it's their responsibility to show by their

behavior, every minute of the day, that they are not intimidated and they will not be, they

won't even allow themselves to feel fear. I'm sure they do feel fear. But they have made

a collective decision that they're not going to give the enemy the comfort of showing their

fear and allowing themselves to become less humane. than they normally would be. So that

was really, that made quite an impression on me, I have to say. I have to ask just because

it's of how many journalists have been killed by Israel, including journalists in South Lebanon.

Were you concerned for your safety and for your life when you were there? Sure, you know, there

wasn't a moment when I was in South Lebanon on any of those trips, but particularly the

last trip when I didn't think, you know, I could be... killed in any minute, in an instant,

without even knowing that I'm about to die because it happened so fast. I could have my legs blown

off. But I guess you kind of relativize it by looking at the people around you and realizing

that they have to deal with this every minute of the day. Whereas I have the privilege of

briefly entering into this dangerous situation and exiting at my pleasure and coming to a

place like where I am now where I don't have to deal with any of this. And that's where

I spend 95% of my time in a very secure environment. And the other thing is, you know, I've had

a very good life. I consider myself to have had, in many ways, a privileged life, although

I didn't come from a wealthy family still. As a Westerner and somebody who was in the legal

profession, I've had a very privileged life. And I'm not saying this to sound, it really

is how I feel. It's like, you know, if I died tomorrow in the cause of truth telling, you

know, that wouldn't be a bad way to go. And I wouldn't be saying to myself my life was

cut short. I'm pretty old now. You know, I'm not a young person who does this. I think that's

something that's truly amazing. Someone who has their whole life ahead of them and puts

themselves in that situation voluntarily. That's courage. That's amazing. But you know, I'm

an old guy. I'm not gonna comment on that, but I do wanna go back to you experiencing that

joy as a form of resistance. And I think we've seen that in our Palestinian comrades over

the last year. They even say as much, you know, when they smile in the face of all of this,

still, surely if they can, we can, right? But that is a form of resistance, you're right.

And to live and breathe it while yourself being terrified, surely you gain some strength from

those folks. Now Before we started recording, you spoke of an evolution within—not a revolution,

an evolution within Lebanon over the past year. Your story started off with regular forces,

regular Lebanese armed forces, in conflict with protesters who had been called onto the streets

by Hezbollah. Can you speak to that a little bit more? Has that changed? feeling amongst

regular folks in Lebanon, not members of Hezbollah? Is the resistance within them as well? I mentioned

this because I was talking to Santiago earlier, brushing up on my history of Lebanon. And,

you know, the way casualties were listed from the 2006 war, July war. In Lebanon, they refused

to differentiate between civilian and soldier or a combatant. The casualties are one and

the same. They are all martyrs. Is that true? Like when you speak to people on the ground

in Lebanon, do they feel as though they are inherently part of the resistance just doing?

everyday things? Well, Lebanon is, as I'm sure you know, a very complex country. One of the

things I've come to love about that country and one of the reasons why I do is because

it's kind of a miracle that country still exists in some form that you can, I guess, reasonably

describe as a state. But there's tremendous sectarianism and diversity of opinion. So I

remember the first trip. My fixer had to hire, my fixer was from Beirut. She actually works

part-time for Radio Canada. She's a Lebanese Canadian. But now she's based in Beirut and

she couldn't drive us around South Lebanon. She had to hire a driver. Our driver, I think

it's fair to say, was sympathetic to Hezbollah. I think it's true. He had a very high opinion

of Hezbollah. He spoke pretty good English. And one of the places he took us was a village

called Marjayoun. which is a Maronite Christian village, just a couple of kilometers from the

border. And when we drove through the village, there were people coming out of the church,

the main church, and we stopped and we spoke to them. And sort of like, the community elder

agreed to do an interview, and I was asking him, what do you feel about what is being done

to the Palestinian people? You know, and he refused to condemn Israel. He didn't praise

Israel, he didn't condemn Israel. He just said, you know, it's really not for us to decide.

This is a conflict between them. And however much I tried to get him to say something critical

of Israel, he wouldn't. And the whole time the driver, like a driver who was standing next

to me, was just shaking his head. He was absolutely disgusted. You know, he just said he couldn't

believe what he was hearing. And then, you know, then within hours we went to a town called

Cana, which is predominantly Shia Muslim, you know, that's the base of Hezbollah. So it's

not exclusively who supports Hezbollah by any means, but mostly Shia Muslims support Hezbollah.

And this was the site of two Israeli massacres. They killed dozens of people who were sheltering

at a UN compound. And I interviewed people there, and it was a totally different story. It was,

this is a fight to the death. We will sacrifice everything. Zionists will not defeat us. I'm

prepared to give my life." That was the kind of sentiments that I heard. So, you know, you

get... And then there are people, the phalanges, for example, who are many Lebanese regard as,

you know, extreme right-wing fascists, and they call themselves Christians, who are decidedly

pro-Israel. I personally never talked to anybody, never found anybody who said good things about

Israel, but they exist in the Lebanese society, to be sure. But having said that, four trips,

I found the level of unity was, it's just of course, this is my own personal feeling. I

didn't do any polls. So I can't, I just tell you anecdotally how I felt. I felt that the

level of unity was increasing and that, and there were objective signs of this. For example,

the leader of the Druze who normally would not stand side to side with the leaders of Hezbollah

came out and supported them in their acts of resistance. And then I met a lot of people

who are Christian Lebanese who are sympathetic to the Syrian National Socialist, the Syrian

National Social Party, SSNP, who are passionately supportive of anybody who is involved in resisting

the Israelis and their aggression and what's being done to the Palestinians, whether it

be Hezbollah, whether it be Amal, whether it be Sunni groups, they don't care. So I felt

that the level of unity was going up. The level of combat was increasing. Intensely the level

of danger went up enormously and I also the last thing I'll say is that we're very Candid

about the fact that they were they were afraid they were very afraid And they didn't hesitate

in telling us. Yeah in Beirut of the war and of escalation and they off time and again people

talked to me what happened in 2006 and the horrors so But as I got closer to the border there

were less and less sort of overt signs or admissions that, you know, of fear. Since then, the losses

that they've incurred in Lebanon almost match that of the 2006 war. So they had every right

to kind of be afraid. Oh, every, yeah. I mean, even before the current round of savagery,

I completely understood their fear. Absolutely. After what the Lebanese people have experienced,

they had every reason to be fearful. Yeah. Um, I mean, um, so myself personally, I, um, my

background is, uh, half Lebanese. My dad grew up, uh, in Lebanon in the eighties during the

civil war. I got the visit in 2019 and he actually wrote a book talking all about like his experiences

as a child, like, um, during the civil war. And the Lebanon you're describing now versus

the Lebanon that I saw five years ago in 2019 sounds so very different. Like, for example,

just getting south of the river, like back then was just as easy as renting a car and driving.

The signs of war of the past were everywhere, but they were from the past. And you could

see how how things had changed in the country since then, the healing, I felt that there

was, well, just talking with my dad about like how he felt Lebanon had changed since when

he was there, about how a lot of those old sectarian lines were, had healed quite a, in quite a

large amount since, since the 80s. And it's actually interesting, my family. Mernite Christians

from Babdah. But a lot of my closer relatives who formerly held such beliefs have now been

very critical of Israel and supportive of Hezbollah. So even that is starting to change given everything

that we're seeing. And it's just, I don't even know what question I want to ask necessarily

about this, but I'm honestly very... emotions just listening to all of this and like thinking

about like because like With Palestine, obviously it's been absolutely horrible But it's all

been filtered through a screen and here it's something where I can like imagine these towns

these villages because I've seen them with my own eyes and it's so difficult for me to comprehend

what's going on and Yeah, and you know, and I didn't even mention I'm sure you know this

Santiago the economic crisis in the country. You know, I mean, they get electricity two

hours a day, they've got hyperinflation. Even when you're walking around relatively affluent

parts of Beirut, you'll see mothers with their babies begging in the streets. This was before

this genocidal war began, which is now being waged on Lebanon. And again, I just, I can't

believe, I'm amazed. I'm awestruck by... the resilience of these people. It's truly something

to behold. You wanna find out what courage is, go to Lebanon. You'll find out real damn fast.

The economic hardships in the state of Lebanon, as you describe it, I think some of us wonder,

even though you can't tell by mainstream media narratives, calling them terrorists and...

so astonished that Iran would dare fire rockets or Lebanon would do the same. But I wonder

if that situation that they have there is part of the restraint that we've actually seen,

considering what you've described in the south of Lebanon, the way life has changed for them.

And after the latest rounds of assassinations of Hezbollah leaders, You have over a quarter

million now displaced inside Lebanon, over a thousand dead. And still, I would say the response

to those atrocities has been pretty restrained. Yet still they are demonized for having any

kind of response to the Israeli aggression that they're experiencing. I think it's just before

we've had an episode on Lebanon before, but if folks didn't catch that and they're not

aware, Israel has occupied Lebanon many times and there are still small parts of Lebanon

that are still under Israeli occupation, according to Lebanese people. And it's... It's just to

help explain the kinship that exists there, to explain why Hezbollah sees this as a fight

to the death and why there's such a relation to the Palestinian cause. It's really one in

the same. We do spend a lot of time talking about that, and I'll link that episode back

where we speak to Mohammed, whose family right now is in Lebanon, his mother and his father,

both likely to be displaced again. and has family opening up restaurants to feed the displaced

people. So there's people in Canada here that are very well connected to what's happening

in Lebanon right now and certainly worried about even greater escalation considering the US

position on it all.

The BBC just did an analysis which showed that 80% of the military operations have been launched

by Israel. OK, 80% of all military operations since October of last year. The number of dead

civilians, I think probably at this stage it's well over a thousand. I won't even talk about

the wounded. On the Israeli side, I believe the number, if you exclude the children, which

are something like 12 children who were killed tragically at Masjid al-Sabz. The Syrian Golan

Heights, which has been stolen by Israel from Syria. If you exclude them, I think there's

been two civilian casualties on the Israeli side. This is the Israeli figures. Okay? So

who is the aggressor here? Who is showing a lack of restraint? Are you kidding me? You're

going to tell me it's Hezbollah, which is the aggressor and is showing a lack of restraint,

and the other side is not only killing far more Lebanese and destroying far more infrastructure,

but they're committing a damn genocide. for God's sakes. And the resistance in Lebanon

has been clear that they'll stop attacking military targets, which is what they're attacking. I

saw one myself. I saw a military Hezbollah attack on Matullah with a thermobaric missile and

artillery shells. OK. They were very precise. They were hitting a military base, and that's

what they've been doing. And it's, you know, this narrative in the West that Israel is defending

itself against terrorism from Lebanon is an insult to our intelligence. It's an absolute

insult to our intelligence. These people are trying to stop a genocide. And one thing I

want to say about the restraint, which they have shown and the Iranians have shown, you

know, we need to understand that they have their own constituencies. You know, the leadership

of Hezbollah can't only think about the Palestinian people as much as they care about their destiny.

They also have to think about the people who have empowered them. And those people, as much

as they have suffered up until now, they haven't suffered the level of depravity that the people

of Gaza have had to experience over the last year. And Israel's perfectly capable of doing

to Lebanon what it has done to Gaza. So they've been walking this very, very delicate line,

very fine line, trying to cause enough damage to Israeli military bases in the north that

Israel is— required to divert military resources to the north, away from Gaza, away from the

West Bank. They've been trying to degrade Israel's surveillance capacities. A lot of their attacks

have been on surveillance equipment and radars. They are trying to do economic damage to Israel,

and they have. All of those people who have had to leave northern Israel are being maintained

at government expense in Tel Aviv and other parts further south. And the economy has taken

a huge hit because the economy of northern Israel is basically, it's comatose. There is no economy.

All the shops have been shut down. So through a variety of ways, they are helping to weaken

Israel and divert Israel's resources away from Gaza and the West Bank. But if they go too

far, their country will become Gaza. It's as simple as that. That is a very, very difficult

line to walk. And they did it for as long as they could. And I think it finally got to the

point where the Israelis, the Israelis, their economy is a mess. It's an absolute basket

case. And they have not managed to defeat Hamas, which is a humiliation for them. So they finally

said, okay, well, to hell with it. We don't care whether they're being restrained. We're

going to, and we're going to ignite an all out war with Hezbollah. And I wanna just be absolutely

clear, because this has to be said over and over again, this crap we've been hearing from

the American government that they... They didn't know that they were going to kill Nazrallah.

I mean, what do we do? Children, they think we believe this crap. They killed the leader

of Hezbollah, potentially igniting attacks on American military bases. Israel requires the

support of the United States for its very existence. And Netanyahu, who was in New York, he was

in the United States at the time, didn't even have the courtesy to tell his American compadres,

oh, we're going to go massacre hundreds of civilians for the purpose of killing Nazrallah. Okay,

they knew, not only did they knew, they helped him. They helped him and an article just came

out in Politico, in Politico, you know, which said, behind the scenes, the Biden administration

was supporting Israel's escalations. Okay, so this is an American genocide. This is an American

massacre that's taking place every day in Lebanon. It is the Americans who are behind all this.

Israel is a giant. American military base masquerading as a country. That's the way to think of it.

One thing that was really telling for me over the last couple of days was how, well, the

US ships in the area were launching interceptor missiles to protect Israel from attacks from

Iran, right? Now, they've been talking all of this big game about like wanting peace and

wanting a ceasefire and yada yada. feasibly and I'm not naive enough to believe that they

ever would but feasibly they could have also used similar technologies to stop attacks from

Israel Into Lebanon or into Gaza now, obviously they would never do that but it just The the

quickness which with they always defend Israel and yet they talk about wanting Peace and wanting

a ceasefire their actions are the loudest thing always and absolutely the words are words mean

nothing they mean nothing though their word is mud no one should believe a damn word in

fact i'm going to give you i'm sorry to interrupt you santiago but just to give you a sense of

how skeptical this is how skeptical i think people should be okay netanyahu he goes to

new york and uh we're told the reason for him going there is he's going to speak to the he's

going to go flap his gums at the un general assembly okay Now you stop and you think, I

didn't think about this at the time. I just believed it like a fool. Oh yeah, he's going

to New York, you know, he wants to be on the big stage. He's going to go speak to an empty

hall. That's Netanyahu. But two days later, I thought to myself, what if this was just

a cover story? And the real reason why he was there was because he and the Americans were

about to execute an extraordinarily dangerous and devastating military operation in Beirut.

Is it a coincidence that Netanyahu was in the United States? when the bomb started falling

on Nasrallah's head, wiping out six residential apartment towers, maybe, maybe it was a coincidence,

but I don't think so. I don't think so. These people are pathological liars and the Americans

want this war. They want war with Iran, not just with Hezbollah. That should be our operating

assumption. Sorry, I'm giggling because Santiago and I had this kind of conversation and really

like it's hard to understand though.

why the Americans would want to go to what would likely be such a devastating conflict war with

Iran, but it's really hard to interpret all of this as anything but and to then turn around

and Classify Iran's most recent strikes on Israel. I think is just displays the farce for what

it is like they've allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to play that dance for so long right to his

benefit to maintain power in Israel as though he's He's a defiant leader. He even flexes

his muscles against the mighty US, right? It allows him to gain that kind of bravado when

we all understand that behind the scenes, no one breathes in the Israeli military unless

the Americans are aware of it. I mean, they're funding it. They're facilitating it. They would

need to back them up should anything go awry. They have assets in all of these places that

would need to be avoided. And the communication would just... Definitely be happening before

it ever happened. And so it's all just this play on display for us but it's quite convincing

for a lot of Canadians for example who have totally bought into the narrative that Hespola

is nothing but a terrorist organization Hamas the same for a bunch of nefarious reasons,

you know, the media feeds into this, but our political leaders feed into that. But I mean,

we all have been taught, or most of us have been taught, what crimes against humanity are.

And we even have gotten our leaders to kind of acknowledge that there is a genocide ongoing,

that there is crimes against humanity being committed. But yet, never in the narrative.

is the underlying premise that we all hold responsibility to respond in the way Iran has. Now, I don't

know if you want to make the points on Diego, but Iran didn't actually respond for Gaza.

You know, even though I'll admit, like, when I saw videos of the rockets hitting Israeli

air

there'd be civilian deaths because those deaths would be weaponized. But I did. feel a sense

of joy. Um, of a finally, finally someone is using these goddamn weapons that they've hoarded

for so long and deprived their people of funds so they can have these armed forces, all of

them, all these fucking states with all these armies and yet none of them are using them

for- Good. None of them are even pretending that they're going to use these weapons they've

accumulated to stop women and children from being slaughtered en masse, like in front of

our fucking eyes. And so I don't know. I hope it's not right to watch airstrikes or missiles

flying and being like and feeling a sense of like relief or it wasn't dread I really felt

that like and we should right when we see people trading weaponry like this. We should not feel

anything but kind of.

disappointment at least that it's gotten to this point. But what else can the global community

do other than fight back at this point? I don't know. Look at it this way, you know, I don't

think if I'm asking you the question rhetorically, I think I know what your answer is, but imagine

we were alive during the time of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. And as the uprising was occurring

and the Nazis were brutally massacring. Jewish people who were trying to break out of a death

camp and simply, you know, attain their freedom and save their children from certain death

and torture. You know, the Soviet army or the Americans or the British started bombing the

bejesus out of the Gestapo's headquarters in Warsaw. I think there'd be a lot of cheering

in the West. People would say, go get them, wipe them out, destroy those Nazis. Okay, well,

right now there's a death camp. There's a death camp in Gaza. That's what this thing has become.

Hundreds of thousands of people possibly have been wiped out. At a bare minimum, it's 40,000,

50,000 people. And the number is growing by the day. And these people have basically, to

say they're treated like subhumans is an insult to subhumans. I mean, it's unspeakable what's

being done to them. So why should we apologize if somebody has the courage at great risk to

themselves? to attack the military forces that are annihilating them and torturing them with

glee, and bragging about it to the entire world. I'm not gonna apologize for that. I would prefer

as I'm sure you would that this all be solved peacefully. And there's a simple way to do

it. Joe Biden picks up the phone and he says to that psychopathic war criminal Netanyahu,

no more bombs for you, Bibi. And the thing is done, it's over. But genocide Joe won't do

that. So what is the alternative? All of our protests, what have they accomplished? What

have our protests accomplished? Nothing. Has Justin Trudeau, even Justin Trudeau, stopped

sending weapons to Israel? No, he hasn't stopped. Has he stopped giving charitable status to

organizations like the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, which is whitewashing the genocide?

No. Has he stopped voting in favor of Israel and the United Nations? No. So the protests

aren't working. They've not accomplished a damn thing. What's left? The only thing that's left

is armed resistance. That's all that's left. That's the only way the Palestinian people

would be saved. And I'm not gonna apologize, nor should you, or anybody else, for supporting

armed resistance against the, not terrorism, armed resistance against the military that

is committing a genocide before the eyes of the world. It almost sucks that we still have

to say the word like not terrorism when like it's very clear who's attacking civilian targets

and who only attacks military targets. Like it's... I wanted to ask, last time you were

on was around the era of like the ICJ rulings and back then you were quite optimistic about

international law being able to do something about the genocide. I hate to ask but like

months later, how are you feeling about that very same issue? I underestimated the depravity

of our governments. I really did. As you guys know, before this all began in October of last

year, I was very critical of Western governments. Even I did not think they were this sick and

deranged. I thought that if the ICJ says it's plausible that Israel's committing genocide,

at least some of them would begin to impose sanctions on Israel. At least some of them

would stop sending weapons to Israel. None of them has done that. Not any of the major suppliers

from the West, not Germany, not Britain, not France, not Canada, not the United States,

not Australia. Okay? So, this is a level of depravity that I had not understood. At this

stage, I don't think that there is anything that any international court or tribunal could

do. There's nothing, I hate to say this, that civil society can do that will cause our governments

to stop supporting this monstrous regime. Nothing. I mean, can you imagine worse atrocities than

those that we have witnessed, than those that we know to have taken place? I can't. So if

we're not going to pull the plug on Israel in the face of those atrocities, why should we

think that other atrocities will finally cause them to have a human conscience? They have

no conscience, these people. They have no conscience. So, yeah, I'm very skeptical about the international

legal system being able to alter the behavior of Western governments. You talk about them

not having a conscience and like no one's arguing with you here at all. But they have a fucking

constituency. Right. You talk about Hezbollah having to walk a fine line. Right. Because

they're afraid they're not going to be in power if they make the wrong move. Right. If they

are too much on a one issue item, you know, whatever, even if that is a genocide just next

door to them. And yet what the fuck is going on here in Canada that our politicians don't

feel like they've got a constituency to answer to because the response that the politicians

have felt and the polls that they're reading all tell them that the people that they've

got to answer to at the ballot are not in favor of their actions, right, or are horrified.

So As we stand now, maybe civil society can't do shit about that, clearly, because we've

haunted them at their lunches, their fundraisers, everywhere they turn they're faced with Palestinian

solidarity activists trying to remind them that there's going to be a price politically to

pay. That hasn't been enough, clearly, because they're still operating as though they don't

have a constituency to answer. or that we won't hold them accountable at the ballot box. And

if that's the case, if that's not even gonna be a Canadian federal election item at all

that we are gonna force to the issue, then yes, all hope is lost. But it's really frustrating

to hear that like, you know, the leaders of Iran and Hezbollah and all these other places

are walking these fine political lines and ours are just like fucking plowing through with

genocide and we're just pinging off the side of them like we aren't voters. Well, I'm not

really anymore, but you know, like it's our political system so fucked that even can exist

that all of these mainstream parties, it wouldn't really matter. Those weapons would likely still

be going. So yeah, incredibly frustrating. I have to push back on one thing though. And

it pains me to do it, Jess, you know, but this idea that we're going to hold them accountable

at the ballot box. I mean, you know, look at the polls. Who's in the lead? by a wide margin.

Who is going to win a stunning majority if an election were held today? The most radical

pro-genocide, fucking unconscionable liar, pro-Israel liar on the Canadian political scene, Pierre

Poilier. So if you're a Canadian politician and you're looking at the polls, why would

you think that your support for Israel is going to harm your chances at winning? It's not harming

you. That's a good point. That's a good point, but I would argue that the cons have taken

a position. So they're going to capture folks who they're going to capture. I get it. But

there is no alternate position. It's wishy-washy. I'm not going to give the NDP credit for shit.

I'm really not going to give May credit for what she's saying in the House of Commons right

now. It's a year past. I'm so pissed off with them now. But to voters that are working every

minute now against the genocide, doing whatever the hell they can, have nothing. So they've

lost, like there's got to be political ramifications for the NDP and the liberals who try to play

themselves as they would be the humanitarian choice, right? The bleeding heart liberals

and the progressive NDP. They should be an alternate for people to go there, for people to witness

a genocide, hour an action, and then have somewhere to go politically. But there's nowhere. So

all of those people are off in the fucking wind when it comes to, when it comes to E-Day. You

know, they're not working politically, but they have they're not going to be knocking doors

for the liberals or the NDPs There's no fucking way and they haven't gone to the conservatives

either and the most people who When we're talking E-Day most people don't vote at all So we're

talking about a shit ton of people who have no political home Because there's no impact

because there's it seems futile So I'm not telling people to go vote for the NDP. That's not my

solution Right, so I readily accept that there are millions of Canadians of conscience out

there who are very upset about what's being done to the Palestinian people. And you know,

I honor them all. I'm proud of them all. I identify with these people. And there are many of them

right across the country. But the fact of the matter is that most Canadians don't particularly

care. Not enough at any rate. They may think, oh, this is terrible. I wish it wasn't happening.

You know, Israel isn't quite the country that I thought it was. but are they actually going

to change their vote because the major parties all support a genocide? No, they won't change

their vote. They probably won't vote at all. Yeah, and that's something that concerns these

people. But at the end of the day, whatever influence the voting public may have from time

to time on the political parties in Canada, I happen to ascribe to the view, and maybe

it's simplistic, that they're just vassals of the United States government, and they're gonna

do what the US tells them to do. If Joe Biden tomorrow imposed sanctions on Israel, I guarantee

you within 48 hours, Canada would impose sanctions on Israel. You know, the Israel lobby be damned.

Trudeau would do what Biden tells him to do. And that's ultimately what's driving this.

It's not the ballot box. Our government is a slavish vassal of Washington. I'm afraid that

this is as simple as that. But can I just, I just want to say something else, Jessica, because

this sounds very negative. Okay, I actually am very, I can't stress this enough. I'm actually

very optimistic about the future of West Asia and particularly the Palestinian people because

I believe that Israel is going to be defeated strategically by the resistance. I have no

doubt in my mind about this. Israel cannot survive in its current form. The people of the region

are fed up. They now have the capacity to inflict enough military and economic pain on Israel

that Israel will not survive. People are leaving the country. The economy is a disaster. It's

getting worse by the day. The Israeli people are coming to the conclusion that it is not

in fact a sanctuary for the Israeli, for the Jewish people after all. And whatever they

may feel about Palestinians, they're going to vote with their feet. They're gonna say, I

don't wanna be part of this. I don't want to be part of this because I don't feel safe here.

And that's happening right now. So ultimately, I think that this they will prevail. And the

thing that breaks my heart and breaks the heart of everybody is that a lot of people are going

to die before it happens. That's the reality. And I think the bloodshed is going to is about

to become much worse. And it's going to expand well beyond Palestine and Lebanon. So that's

the heartbreaking part of this. But do I believe that they're going to be defeated? Not for

one sec. And I'm not like the kind of person, like before, I'll tell you, I was more pessimistic

about the future of the Palestinian people before this war began. You know, everybody was writing

them off. They did the Abraham Accords, and you know, the Americans moved their embassy

to Jerusalem and they recognized Israel's illegal theft of the Golan Heights, and the Saudis

were on the verge of normalizing. Now the game has changed completely, completely. Israel's

finished. But it's not going to be because of our governments. It's going to be despite our

governments. That's maddening. What the fuck are these people going to tell their children

what they did? What are they going to tell their children what they did? That they... I ask

myself that question every day, Jessi. Every day. But there's so many people, really, what

the fuck are you going to tell your kids? This is... It's... Not even the politicians just

the Canadians that you spoke of that just don't care enough to even change their vote or you

know Do something a little more drastic than change their vote. It's maddening, but I do

I want to push back it I mean it's hard to that to say that a Continuing year of genocide has

seen any progress but I think what the movements here have accomplished is like immeasurable.

It has not stopped the bombs or the genocide, but it will help delegitimize the state of

Israel, right? It is creating a form of resistance within these states, regardless of how our

governments act right now. But the idea of a legitimate state, Zionist state, an ethno state

that is— brutal to its neighbors or its people to the Palestinians it occupies I think That

will serve us for decades to come the The and the fact that they've seen the mask ripped

off because what our governments have had to do in order to maintain this fucking unconscionable

position is to remove the mask, right? Your argument is so much easier to make, no? Now,

like a year later than it was before October 7th of our governments being a puppet to the

United States or whatnot, like this is inarguable now. It's on display for everybody. So you

can't really put that back in the box. I mean, they will try. State's craft will try to distance

itself from this from years to come. I agree with all of that. 100 percent. People will

not unsee what they have seen, and what they have seen is horrible beyond their worst nightmares.

My point is simply that whatever the long-term impacts of these protests will be on public

opinion and political behavior, it doesn't seem to be having any impact on governments within

the timeframe needed to stop the genocide. And it's not having impact on them within the timeframe

needed to stop the escalation of this war. There's no indication it's changed. So long-term, will

many good things come from this? Yeah, I agree with that. But in the near term, which is what

we ought to be concerned about the most, it's unfortunately not gonna be the protests that

are going to save the Palestinian people. It's gonna be the resistance that's gonna save the

Palestinian people, and it will save them. And the other thing I wanna say is that there is

a benefit to these protests, whatever impact it's having on our governments, and it's a

very important benefit. And that is it gives hope to the Palestinian people. They, you know,

imagine how dispiriting it is to be suffering what they're suffering and to feel as though

the world doesn't care. When we go into the streets and they see us protesting, it gives

them strength. Even if our depraved psychopathic politicians continue to ignore our just demands,

it gives them strength. So that in and of itself is a very, very important reason to protest.

That's such a good point because that's something I think we, we forget about. And. I think after

all this time, like we're seeing the numbers dwindle because it's hard to keep the energy

going. It's hard to not let yourself become numb and to become normalized to the images

that we're seeing. But remembering and connecting it to something like that, to something real,

a real change is such an important reminder. Yeah, and Palestinians, you can see that they

say this. They say, thank you for showing us that you haven't forgotten us, that you care.

That means so much to us. And it means that as much to the Lebanese people. So stay in

the streets. I say that to all of our comrades. Keep fighting. But I believe that what's going

to bring this to a just end is going to be the resistance at the end of the day and not the

conscience of our leaders because I just don't think they have any. And that's just another

reminder why folks cannot back down from. supporting the resistance and the right to armed resistance

because that has not been an easy thing to do since October 7th with the way media frames

it and the way that our governments frame armed resistance as terrorism, but to understand

the occupation and the ways out of it, but Still it's always safer, right? You always have a

bigger catch if you just leave that out of the discussion, right? The right to resist if we

could just yell ceasefire over and over and over again, everything will be OK. But from

day one, we've been emphasizing the need to remind people that no, armed resistance is

still a legal, rational response to what is happening to the people of Palestine and what's

happening to the people of Lebanon. And to deny and to remove that language from how we speak—

it starts to diminish its legitimacy overall, right? And it gives all that more room to Trudeau

and the like to then treat Hezbollah and Hamas like terrorists and to use their might against

them, which would be. unimaginable but totally a scenario that we could see as we watch the

U.S. protect Israel yet again. So yeah, I appreciate you kind of holding that point because it's

not a friendly one. It's not a popular one, but it's a necessary one.

people have a right to resist their oppression and their destruction by arms if necessary

within the bounds of the rules of war, of course. They must be respected to the extent that they

can be, but are they required to passively submit to their own destruction? I mean, it's obscene

to suggest that that's the case. And we shouldn't be ashamed about saying so. We need to change

the way people think about resistance to oppression. We've allowed this terrorist narrative, which

is so ridiculous, because the biggest terrorist in the world is the US government, by far,

by a wide margin. We've allowed this to become embedded in people's minds, and it affects

tremendously how they view what's happening right now in West Asia. I think there should

be a priority from an advocacy perspective to talk about the right to armed resistance and

to do so courageously and knowledgeably and not be afraid. And you think that would be

obvious by now, but I think as we come up to the anniversary of October 7th and events that

will mark that time, there's a hesitancy to have it on October 7th itself. There's a hesitancy

to use the word resist. I'm seeing in a lot of smaller organizations and the events that

they're going to have vigils, a lot of vigils are planned for a year in, and the word resistance

is in fact missing. from the correspondents all of a sudden, from the posters, not all

of them, but there's a marked difference than what we would have seen two months ago because

people are starting to get sensitive about talking about this day and what happened on October

7th and the whatnot. And that's something we unpacked in our last episode. We're not gonna

do that again, but you know, it's in these moments, just like it was a year ago, extra important.

when people are even more afraid to acknowledge that horrors did happen on October 7th, but

it wasn't the act of armed resistance that was unconscionable, you know, that could be labeled

as terrorism. And you don't need to make that concession just because it's on the anniversary

of that date. Thank you so much, Dimitri, for continuing to do. your work especially. I mean

hopping on a plane on October 8th to go to Beirut, I mean that's pretty fire. I didn't know that.

Made for a very interesting kind of perspective there over that year and taking the time to

share it with us. No worries. Yeah I would like to comment on the Elizabeth May thing before

I go. Totally we'll use this like as a sound bite or something. Yeah. Yeah, she was spitting

fire in the House of Commons. That's not something you would have gotten away with in the Green

Party. Yeah, no kidding. Absolutely. And I think she got booed for her tame remarks. So Elizabeth

May, I have a long and painful history of interactions with Elizabeth May on the question of Palestine.

And I will tell you that she has made a political, it's a kind of real politic. take a Machiavellian

decision to frame her criticisms of the Israeli apartheid regime in a particular way, which

she thinks immunizes her, or at least reduces to a manageable level, the blowback from the

Israel lobby. And the way she does that, as I'm sure you guessed, I see you're nodding,

I know what's going through your mind, is she makes it all about Netanyahu. Oh, if only they

got rid of Netanyahu. Okay? So, or, you know, she might even add in, you know, Ben Gavir

and Smotrich, too. They've got to get rid of those guys. But she won't say Zionism, right?

She won't say the occupation. Absolutely. She won't say apartheid. She actually opposes BDS.

She went on this curated tour of the West Bank, which I understand was managed by... Palestinian

Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas. And she keeps saying over and over again, you know, they

told me don't support BDS because it harms the Palestinians. And I said, who told you that?

The Palestinian Authority told you that? The ones who actually go and arrest resistance

fighters and torture their own people? The corrupt people told you that? So she's very carefully

navigating a path through treacherous waters, which she thinks allows her to maintain legitimacy.

with the base of the party and progressives generally, who are overwhelmingly sympathetic

to the Palestinian people and very critical of Israel, and at the same time, keep herself

firmly ensconced in the mainstream. So she makes it all about Netanyahu, okay? This is actually

doing more. Because you're even free to do that in Israel, right? Sure, sure. Like, he is just

a political figure. They all, not they all, but the occupation is kind of put aside from

even the hostage situation, and all of that is then aside from the... general situation

in Israel, right, where you take economic and all of these other factors of politics into

account, right? So that's easy for her to make even in a room full of Zionists, she can say

this. Chuck Schumer, you know, the Democratic Party leader in the Senate, like a fanatical

Zionist, the US Senator, said months ago, you know, Netanyahu has to go. He said that, okay?

Of course, he didn't mean it, but he was prepared to say it publicly, right? So This is BS. How

did Netanyahu end up being in power for so long? Israelis, Israeli Jews voted him in. It wasn't

the Palestinians who supported him, Palestinian citizens of Israel, I assure you. It was the

Israeli Jewish population kept voting him in, voting him in, voting him in. Who's giving

him the weapons to do what he's doing? It's the Biden administration. If you're not prepared

to talk about the fact that Israel is a profoundly racist society and the United States is enabling

this genocide and in fact encouraging it in many ways. They're not helping the Palestinian

people. And you can stand up in parliament and scream at the top of your lungs, and you know,

tears can start flowing out of your eyes. It's all just kabuki theater, okay? You have to

diagnose the problem. And she's not prepared to do that, because if she does, she's going

to take serious heat from the Israel lobby. So there, I got that off my chest. I had to

say that. I'm so glad. I'm so glad, because I did promise you, I thought I was warning

you, you know, we're gonna ask you about your old nemesis, Elizabeth May, and you'd be like,

oh, all right. But no, your eyes lit up. You're like. Yeah. Bring it. I don't regard her as

a nemesis. I regard her as a pathetic figure who should... Did I elevate her status there

too much? Yeah. She's... Yeah. She's not... I'm sorry. I do not regard her or actually

anybody in Parliament as a nemesis. I'm ashamed of these people, every single one of them,

with a couple of exceptions. And one of them I'm going to name, Nikki Ashton. I'm not ashamed

of Nikki Ashton. Okay. Nikki Ashton's a friend of mine. I may not like her party. I may not

agree with Nikki on every way she approaches these issues, but I think she's a fundamentally

good person. She's not the only one. There's a few others. Okay. But most of them are simply

an embarrassment. You know, and that's the way we should view them. We need to disempower

these people because it's not just the Palestinians who are going to be finished off. We'll all

be finished off if we're led in the long run by people like these. That is a wrap on another

episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also, a very big thank you

to the producer of our show, Santiago Helu Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent

production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPofDisruption. If you'd like

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