Topic 1: Lebanon and Israel

Just as the siege on Gaza didn't start on October 7th, Israel's attacks on Lebanon didn't start with the recent assassination of a Hamas leader in Beirut.

Special guest, Lebanese educator and activist Moe Ramadan joins Host Jessa McLean to give a debrief on the history of Israeli occupation and aggression in Lebanon and an update on the current situation.

The similarities between Lebanon and Palestine are impossible to miss - and the patterns of global responses are also disappointingly the same. Displacement, unlivable conditions, collective retribution and of course, colonialism and liberation.

Topic 2: Refugees and Displacement

As the topic of internal displacement comes up, so does the issue of refugees and the push to further displace Palestinians across the globe. One can't argue with the need to evacuate people from a war zone - but, is the global community actually more interested in aiding in the permanent displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, forever?

What is Canada's role in all of this? As usual, its not good and its not new.

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There is so much out there to get mad about. Social injustices, class warfare, continued

colonization, the act of destruction of our planet by those focused on profits and not

people. We can find it overwhelming at times. The good news is there are equally as many,

if not more, stories of people coming together and rising up against the forces at play. So

the creators of Blueprints of Disruption have added a new weekly segment, Ravel Rants, where

we will unpack the stories that have us most riled up, share calls to action, and most importantly,

celebrate resistance. Welcome. Can you introduce yourself to the audience? Okay, hello, Dara.

My name is Mohammed Ramadan. You can call me Mohammed or you can call me Mo. Majority of

my friends and family call me Mo. Lebanese. Moved to Canada in 2019. I'm a teacher by trade,

by choice, a science teacher. I'm a leftist in all of my thinking and life and love and

relationships and an activist, a photographer, a lover of art and a lover of Palestine. Lebanese

by birth, Palestinian by... soul. That's why when people ask me if I'm Palestinian, that's

usually my answer. It's like, no, I was born and raised really close. But that border that

was drawn by foreign forces does not really separate us. We didn't cross the borders. The

borders crossed us. You can't see Mo, but he's wearing a kaffir and we will be talking about

Palestine most shown me here for a rant. Recently, Lebanon has entered the fray in terms of talking

about Israeli armed forces and their aggressions. Most recently, a Hamas leader was assassinated

by the idea. Yeah, I was going to say executed, assassinated. language matters, right? You

hear me carefully crafting my words as I do this in Beirut or around Beirut, which is in

Lebanon. And for those who've been paying attention, we know that this isn't the first time Israel

has struck within Lebanon or Syria or within other nations under the guise that it's defending

itself. I think two things kind of come up. as this event happens, right? People start

looking at Lebanon even more. I know this is not your first time carefully watching that

particular part of the region as being Lebanese and your family over there. I mean, you've

probably, I know you've had just your eyes glued, but I think a lot more people now are now looking

and they need some explanations. They wanna know what's happening, why. did this all start

October 7th kind of deal, which we know it did not. So you're a good person to pull into the

studio here with your knowledge and lived experience with Lebanon. I bet you Santiago is disappointed

he's not here. His family's also from Lebanon. He's got a good history too, and through his

dad and through living and what, I'm guessing his dad. grew up in Lebanon, right? It is,

yeah. Yeah. So I was born in 1986 in the middle of the Lebanese Civil War, which started in

1973. Prior to my birth in 1982, the Israeli military had invaded Lebanon, bombed and invaded

from the south of Lebanon all the way to the capital Beirut. They invaded. in the hopes

of fighting off the Palestinian resistance that they had pushed out of Palestine with the help

of the right-wing factions in Lebanon and other regional forces. Post that, a few years post

that, obviously Lebanese resistance started to form, be it the communist resistance, be

it the liberation fronts in Lebanon, which led to the pushback against the military. invasion

of Lebanon, the Israeli forces were kept towards the south part of Lebanon. They pretty much

created a fenced off south part of Lebanon and they stayed there till the year 2000.

If you are aware of what happened or if you're not aware of what happened from 1982 onward,

especially in the 90s onward. the Lebanese Islamic resistance or what you would hear called as

Hezbollah, started to organize and started to grow in fighting Israeli military and their

bases in south of Lebanon. It's a guerrilla war that they fought for all these years and

it was capped off in 2000 by pushing. Israeli forces completely out of the Lebanese borders

and liberating the occupied Lebanese territories to 99 percent, 98 percent. We still have some

Lebanese territories that are occupied in the south of Lebanon. There are the Shebaa Farms,

we call them the Mazarra Shebaa, which are historically Lebanese villages that are still currently

under Israeli occupation. So if we want to talk about, like, the United Nations. demarcation

line or like the actual borders of Lebanon and North Palestine. Those villages lie within

the Lebanese borders, which are still under Israeli occupation. So this is just historically

up until 2000, our liberation from Israel. In 2006, Israel waged a war on Lebanon, which

is known as the July war, the 33 day war, whatever you want to call it. That was its biggest.

military operation post its exit from Lebanon, post its push from Lebanon. So before we get

to current events, I wanna dig in a little bit to the 2006 July war. Yeah. Because you describe

it as an Israeli aggression. That's not how most listeners would have been told the story,

and if you check. most of your kind of mainstream sources. It is written very similar to the

narrative that surrounds October 7th, that particular conflict began on a very specific day where

Hezbollah soldiers crossed the border, took hostages, IDF soldiers, and brought them back

into Lebanon as leverage. to release other prisoners. So right away we know obviously the conflict

didn't start then because you already have incurred political prisoners that need freeing, which

is very similar to Hamas's motivations, which someone can discuss and argue, to have political

prisoners freed, right? We call them political prisoners, but the reality of it is that a

lot of these prisoners are civilian prisoners. that have been taken without really any reason

to take them. So, and they've been kept under military occupation, like under military detention.

That's an important distinction to make because it does imply, you know, a guerrilla militia

figure, a political prisoner. And that's definitely not always the case. And some of them, some

of them were, some of them were resistance fighters. Some of them were leader figures or religious

figures within the frame of the Lebanese Islamic resistance. Some of them weren't. Some of them

were just villagers who were in the South, who were just abducted for just being there. Another

one of the narratives that surrounds 2006 conflict between Lebanon and Israel is that it is a

proxy war. And in this region, it is no proxy wars are not new, right? Typically we're talking

about between the United States and Russia, but in this case, it's implied that it is between

Israel and Iran and that anything bad that happens in the region is surely funded and sponsored

by Iran. What do you say to that positioning? Because you call that a war of liberation.

I find it silly that we have to look at it from a lens, from a very Western lens of proxy wars

when we want to refuse to look at, for example, why would we want to look... Okay, I'll reorganize

my words a little bit better. Why would we want to look at it as a proxy war in terms of Iran

funding, let's say, and helping out one element, but we want to refuse to see that, for example,

the US or Western allies are funding vigorously. And like... with no checks, their arm in the

region, Israel. I don't see it as a proxy war. I see it as a war of resources, as a settler

colonial war. We've talked about wars of liberation. These are nations that have been occupied over

and over and over again. From the time like... post-Turkish Ottoman Empire to the establishment

of the current Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria maps, which were divided by the Brits and the

French. They were not left to be decided upon by the indigenous people who lived on those

lands, because there's a big argument in the region for a greater Syria, for example. You

still talk to a socialist in Lebanon who would talk about the greater Syria region, which

is geographically the Levant, which is Lebanon, Syria, part of Palestine and Jordan. Like it's

not, I don't like to talk about it as a proxy war. And I say that because I grew up there,

because it is more personal to me than just sitting out and talking about these wars on

a foreign land. and how they're just part of a cold war, part of a proxy war. I think that's

the purpose though, right, of them pushing that particular narrative. One, because everyone

quite quickly sees Iran as a bad guy, whereas the war of liberation, we understand that differently.

Those are the good guys. And so, it also belittles. the liberation movement and the fact that it

even exists, like as though people don't rise up on their own with assistance, but driven

from a need for liberation and a just right for liberation. And a proxy war just is so

much easier to dismiss and then shape further narratives around, especially when you start

talking about a regional... conflict and the involvement of US troops, right? It becomes

almost automatic every time the idea of Iran being involved. And so like, to be fair, I

think most people do look at US interventions as proxy wars, like what they do in training

militia and arming Israel. I think most people do see it that way. But trying to paint...

these wars of liberation, because you get the same comments being made about Hamas, that

it is simply just an extension of Iran and all the credit for any advancements and funding

and everything just kind of goes to this one state that they've spent so much time demonizing

that it's just like the go-to card, regardless if it's grounded in any context, because we

know that's part of revolutionary movements, right? Aid by other states. Cuba is famous

for this. And guerrilla warfare often relies on training from experienced revolutionaries.

So either way, I ask you about these narratives, hopefully not to further it, but for folks

listening that are going to hear these narratives and then be able to deconstruct it from your

lived experience, right? Rather than just scoffing it off. Because I think Yeah, the war for liberation.

And every time we talk about Lebanon and its relations with Israel, one can't help see the

parallels with Gaza, with Palestine. We owe it big time, I think, to Palestinians and to

the Palestinian diaspora to have changed over the last 90 days a lot of the way we speak.

Like... I grew up in Lebanon talking about the Lebanese resistance. The term resistance and

how uncomfortable it makes people feel here in the West. When you talk about Hezbollah

as a resistance movement or Hamas as a resistance, you want to dissect about or you want to talk

about how they're bad guys or how it's a terrorist group.

The challenging of the narrative in terms of terms that we use to describe these movements

as a resistance to the occupation forces is something that has been very costly to Palestinians.

And I think the Palestinian diaspora knows that it's so very costly, yet they have not been

silenced and yet they have not have refused to let go of using those terms.

You know, as an armchair observer, prior to October 7th, you would see some of the use

of words, martyr is another use of language there to refer to someone killed by the Israeli

forces, civilian or soldier. And you know, there's probably other examples that in your mind,

you know, you go, that's That's risky language to use. You'd go that because of how you've

been taught, the narratives you grow up hearing here. Not just that, like as someone who's

worked in politics, you understand that like sometimes your language should be measured,

right? You're trying to encapsulate as big a crowd as possible so you don't wanna alienate

people. Like there's other thoughts involved, but I was just. Once you kind of got to October

7th and realized that any form of resistance was now going to be like really criminalized,

it was going to like we saw that reaction and that's for me that's why I asserted myself

right from the beginning is like this is a right. I don't condone civilians dying but this armed

resistance is a right. This is not a criminal act up on face. It became clear to me why that

language had always been important. but I was naive, right? And I didn't criticize them for

it. I'm hopefully a better ally than that. But in my mind, sometimes I'm going, ooh, wow,

that, you know, it hit you a different way when you'd read it and you would know which groups

were using this language and which groups were maybe trying to do what I was talking about,

being a little more broad, being a little more

delicate with the settlers. So I'm gonna take from what you just said. I'm gonna take a point

that talks about when you mentioned having to talk about, like, we don't condone the killing

of civilians, right? And I'd like, I'm going to ask a question to the audience or to listeners.

And it's like, if we were to look at the resistance movement in Lebanon or the resistance movement

in Palestine and to look at the target of their resistance. Who are they targeting in their

resistance? Are they really going after civilians in a vicious way? Or are they, is there war

against the military occupying machine? Will there be civilian casualties in that process?

War is ugly. Liberation wars are not something, Koshy, they're not a piece of cake. They're

not something comfortable to engage in. And yes, there'll be civilian casualties, right?

But what is the target versus when you look at the settler occupying forces in Israel and

their targets and the way they go about their military missions, be it in Lebanon or be it

in Palestine. The casualties are the civilians on that end, way more than the resistance they're

trying to fight. Or quote unquote, like the terrorist organization there. And I use the

word terrorist from their point of view. I won't argue that. And it gets really complex too

when you look at the act of settling. The act of act of settling. Like I think I'm not trying

to remove myself from any responsibility, but I think there's a difference. in this moment

of, and maybe I will regret this and rethink this, but between like Canadian settlers and

Israeli settlers that are continuing to violently encroach on land. But on the other side, when

we talk about guerrilla warfare, and that is one of, I do enjoy reading that book written

by Che Guevara. And civilian deaths. are to be prevented for not just like moral reasons,

but also strategic reasons. Like let's war is dirty war. Like in all wars, civilian deaths

are very high. Chigavere writes about the need to win over the populace. So it has a bit of

a different application when you are talking about a civilian force that is recruited into

the army and that is actively settling against your cause. The Cuban revolution was done in

a way that liberated the people in the territories the guerrillas needed to pass through. But

still, I still feel grounded in saying that in any kind of war for liberation, the goal

should still be to avoid civilian death. but it's not my role ever to second-guess acts

of resistance like this. And in this fog of war that exists particularly around this conflict,

there's, you know, it's not even fully understood exactly how everything unfolded or the motivations

or the plans. So, and that becomes almost besides the point because it's still always framed

as... this insinuating or this initiating event, which it is not. It is a response to severe

oppression and violence. And again, you can speak to some of the similarities that the

people of Lebanon have been experiencing, like not just in the occupied territories, but the

impact that war, both of those wars that we've referenced have had on. the people of Lebanon

over all these years who are still, you know, so now you've got the, you know, we're kind

of, we're moving into modern times and you're going to lead here because you know more. But

I want to just kind of throw in that it's not just the leaders of Hamas that were targeted

in Lebanon. The U.S. intelligence has reported that they have hit many Hezbollah targets,

many civilian targets, and they've also hit the LAF targets, which is really upsetting

the Americans because that is the US trained and backed alternative that they'd like to

have for. And again, this is just a mirror of what they're attempting in Palestine. And I'm

sure we can name many other states where- So we're gonna talk the Lebanese armed forces

who have lost, and I'm gonna say martyrs, because- Their job is, like their purpose as an armed

force is to protect, technically to protect your borders. In the South for us is to protect

our borders from the Israeli occupying forces. To ensure the sovereignty of the Lebanese people,

right? To die in the line of duty is kind of the definition of your martyrdom there. And

they've, like the Israeli military forces have targeted Lebanese armed forces. The Lebanese

army forces based some one of the bases a few weeks ago Multiple times killing I think not

just one. I think more than one officer on duty for soldiers But again the Lebanese armed force

is a weakened military force that is like you said the alternative solution that the US is

trying to provide. But we're talking about a Lebanese armed forces who still have tanks

from the 1970s, whose all their modern gear is decommissioned gear that's from the US that

is no longer allowed to be used in the US that is now donated or sold. Okay, so when I say

U.S. trained and backed, we're not talking about like Israeli style U.S. trained and backed.

No, see there's a big difference between a German, let's say military that goes and trains in

the U.S. or an Israeli military that goes and trains in the U.S. or Canadian military that

trains in conjunction with the U.S. military versus kind of like throwing your crumbs at

and leftovers and saying we're training you and we're providing you with help. Because

there's much to be said. And people have argued, and there's evidence, that Benjamin Netanyahu

funded Hamas, or at least encouraged its development. And that- In a divide and conquer move. Absolutely.

And so there's a vested interest in kind of having a continued struggle rather than a clear

winner. And this is again, you know, equally applied to Palestine and Lebanon. And so I

think people can start to see why there has been so many rocket launches from Lebanon into

Israeli territories in response to the siege on Gaza. So we'll jump into the Lebanese side

of this that started to happen at the start of October, the second week of October. Israel

started to bomb heavily, to bomb the north of Gaza heavily. I think the Lebanese resistance

took it upon itself to start targeting military outposts all across the southern Lebanese southern

borders as a way to alleviate a little bit of the pressure. In doing so, it has drawn a huge

amount of the Israeli reserve forces and the Israeli military forces towards the Lebanese

northern. borders. So had it not done so, Israel would have, let's say, sent those forces or

a big chunk of them to the borders with the West Bank or with Gaza. So by doing so, I think

the Lebanese arm, the Lebanese resistance has just taken it upon itself to partake in this,

let's say, act of resistance. Someone has to. I hope most people can hear this and understand.

When we call representatives here to force them to ask for a cease-fire, to demand a cease-fire,

that's us partaking in an act of resistance to a genocide that we're witnessing. With the

Lebanese resistance and its military capability, it's able to target military outposts. And

I think, in the last couple days, Hassan Nasrallah, the... the head of the Lebanese Islamic Resistance,

aka Hezbollah, talked about the fact that they are intentionally not targeting civilians that

are left in the settlements on the northern borders. They are avoiding targeting civilians,

although they are fully within the reach of their artillery, their missiles, their whatever

ammunition they have. Their target has been on a daily basis, the military basis. And Israel

has some really big bases along its northern borders that serve as surveillance and drone

control and like, I don't know all the military terms for all that stuff. There's a few other.

They've launched the blimp. I don't know, people might have seen that. It's a giant blimp that

has massive kind of radar capability, completely a gift of the United States military regime.

But it's been trying to just weaken the capability of Israel to engage in an all-out war. And

there's real validity to this because the Washington Post reports that US intelligence is telling

Israel that they likely cannot afford to engage in a full-on battle with Hezbollah at this

time, with all of the resources going into fucking genocide that they've left themselves stretched

too thin. Now Israel's reporting that they've ended combat in the North. However, we know

that they're just headed. to the south where everyone has been squeezed into a smaller and

smaller space to make it easier for them to kill. However, you know, this is just to say

those actions by Hezbollah are not fluff, right? They have impact and justification, frankly,

right? Because they are actually doing what they're meant to, right? They're making Israel

question that northern front a little bit. and drawing away genocidal resources. They're resource-breeding

the Israeli military, which is, there was, there's at some point a report, or a report that an

American ex-military spoke about how the attacks that... the Palestinian resistance is doing.

When they launch their Qassam rockets, which are cheaply made rockets, of a few, like, thousand

dollars per rocket. When they launch them onto the iron, and the Iron Dome has intercepted

them, the Iron Dome is spending about a hundred thousand dollar per interception. So you throw

a thousand dollar rocket, you get intercepted with a hundred thousand. So then when you throw

a hundred of those rockets, you're now bleeding into the millions of dollars with every, like,

response. It's a, the resistance movements in the Middle East are not dumb movements.

The level of education that is involved within those movements is insane. You ever get the

chance to sit and talk with people who actually are involved in resistance and you realize

the level of education that they have just dedicated. to understand what is economic warfare, what

is political warfare, what is military warfare. Like, it's just, so, it's not just attacking

Israel to draw them into a war. No, it's more attacking them into bleeding their resources

economically. And again, like you see the narrative shaped around not that maybe those attacks

are stupid, but perhaps they're futile. And that isn't the case at all. And one of the

main tenets of resistance, particularly guerrilla style resistance, is the need to wear down

your enemy. You can't meet your enemy head on. That is the purpose of guerrilla warfare. We

didn't really kind of- It's not two military forces that are equal in capabilities. That's

why they can't meet head on, right? And so sneak attacks and- There's a lot of strategy involved

and it's not only applicable in warfare, right? It's how, you know, the way that you describe

this is what Lebanon is doing with the resources it has. And it gives validity to the tactics

that we're seeing here to make blockades, to shut down Indigo one day at a time. To talk

about BDS. Yes, yes. And so, like, everyone has a role to play there, but it is. part of

legitimate resistance. And it does work, right? In certain circumstances and learning about

previous successes because guerrilla warfare is not new, right? We had a guest on from the

IRA and talking about how everything that they did and built on were previous revolutions

from all over the globe. And we'll talk, well, I'll throw in a small bone for those who Was

it last year that they marched on Ottawa? Who? The convidients? With, yeah, with convoys to

pretty much block the economic wheel of the capital. And the border, right? Isn't that

a form of, technically in their eyes, a form of resistance, right? Don't you give them that

credit, Mo. No, but we got to give credit where credit is due in terms of... what it's done.

But the dissonance to not be able to see what's happening now on the ground as a form of resistance,

that dissonance, that like schizophrenia almost. It's maddening sometimes. It's insane. And

it's not even a right-left hypocrisy. It's kind of permeated everywhere. And it's, yeah, it

is, I describe it as the Twilight Zone sometimes. I think I've said that. It's not right-left

whatsoever. It's, yeah. I wanna go back, like I feel like, I'm going back to July, that July

war, because the more I read about it, the more it was kind of the writing was on the wall.

July 2006 for our listeners. Yes, thank you. Yeah. We'll have some show notes in there for

folks to do a little bit more digging. But, you know, when you read about it, it also ended,

which is really, you know, uh, typical on how we write wars or definitely how we depict,

um, movements of liberation. So there's a definite date that it was ended, but part of the process

became a discussion on, you know, who would. police the area, who would, there were, a UN

resolution was passed to disarm Hezbollah. They were not a legitimate resistance anymore. They,

in the eyes of the world, right, that was the result. And hopefully I don't have to draw

those parallels where everyone is asking for Hamas to disarm and then we have Biden and

Netanyahu in negotiations talking about who should rule. Right now they're talking about

the north of Gaza because that's essentially been annexed. Listen, Hamas will disarm, let's

say. Someone else will pick up arms within the next five years, 10 years. If we want to be

realistic. Hamas won't disarm. I think that's just empirically impossible, the way that what's

happened has happened, just like Hezbollah does not disarm. And... In the end, the U.S. did

not get to decide who controlled. If anything, the Lebanese resistance has grown stronger

from 2006 till now. The U.S. military actually issued a report for its personnel post the

2006 war in terms of here are the things that we should not be doing, like learn from the

mistakes that Israel has done in its war in Lebanon. They clearly stated that Israel lost

in every possible way. in that war. And it's, Hezbollah has managed to grow from then till

now. That's 2006. We're talking, we're 2024 now, almost 20 years. But the human toll was

huge for... Yeah, no, they didn't learn their lesson though, or at least Israel didn't learn

their lesson, or perhaps this is the intention. You know, you say they lost. but they still

occupy territories. They pummeled parts of Beirut. Oh, they, like the destruction we're seeing

in Gaza is now folds and folds of what also we witnessed in Beirut, but for the density

of what Beirut is. So Beirut is about... 600 kilometers squared, really small, highly populated

because it's not laid out like cities here. There's no homes, it's all apartment building.

I like to call it the concrete jungle. It's just apartment buildings. They pummeled the

southern suburbs of the city. And when we talk about the southern suburbs of the city, it's

like talking about like two, three kilometers away from you. Like anywhere where you are

in Beirut, you're about two, three kilometers away, radius-wise, from anywhere. They pummeled

apartment buildings down. They were just dropping unguided bombs, unguided bombs, and vacuum

bombs, and just for the sheer point of destruction. No, no, no. They were trying to get the hostages

back, Mo. Right? Wasn't that the premise? That was... the major incursion, that was the start

of the war. There's always a reason. When a tantrum is thrown by a child, the ex-child

will always find a reason for their tantrum. And they will cling on to that reason as their

tantrum is getting wilder and wilder, and as their rage is becoming bigger and bigger. No,

because you're letting Israel off the hook there because they are not children. They have crafted

these situations. They are the child of their settler, mother and father in the West. But

yeah, but they're also not reacting to outside stimuli. They are creating said, you know what

I mean? Like they create the conditions for armed resistance against them and so that they

can use any, they were waiting. They were waiting for Hamas's next big move. to do this, whether

it happened on October 7th, or whether something happened six months later, or maybe it would

be like another great return. In the meantime, they were just starving. They already were

starving. And like the UN had the report, the United Nations had the report, was it four

or five years ago, about the unlivable conditions in the Gaza Strip? Like it was already deemed

unlivable. This is before any... October. It was already deemed. It's hard for people to

go back and remember that or have time to talk. I know it's our short term memory. Yeah. The

ability to forget. Yeah. The block paid on Gaza has been for years and I can't even remember

if I've talked about it on the show, but it includes things like baby bottles and dairy

products. It includes everything for people, like people in the West. People in the West

struggle to understand that everything,

everything that went into Gaza through the crossing borders, on their Western crossing borders

with occupied Palestine, or on the Southern crossing border with Egypt, was controlled

by Israel. Like Egypt was not fully in control of what was going in and out. And then when

people would be like, well, why did they build tunnels out of us? I was like, would you not

build tunnels out of your house if someone just blocked all the doors and fed you through the

window one piece of bread every two weeks? Like, would you not dig tunnels with your nails to

sneak food to your kids? You would. They would. And that's why it's important to keep people

reminding the conditions that existed for so long before October 7th. And... I kind of want

to go back to the food in the blockades and the unlivable conditions because not only are

the bombs killing people now, but we know that folks are also dying of starvation in Gaza.

And this is by design. It's not just because they're surrounded by soldiers and it's just

logistically impossible to get food. It's because those motherfuckers have targeted bakeries

and farms and... This is on top of the blockade that exists on the entire region. And they,

and this is historically how they've attacked settlements as well, by raising all of farms

and destroying the trees and strawberry fields. And we've all seen footage of this. And like

famine has been used many, many times in warfare. And we're absolutely seeing it again, except

this time around, they admit to it. And And maybe not in this context, they've explicitly

said, you know, we will starve them until they hand over from us. This is also, and this is

where it's. more enraging the fact that we are now witnessing. the sheer belligerence, like

the dutch, from the politicians to the settlers, to military commanders, Israeli military commanders,

Israeli politicians, Israeli settlers, Israeli parliament members. The fact that we are witnessing

it with our eyes, it's not like they're speaking about this behind closed doors or off the records.

It is... pretty well documented by their own media, pretty well documented by the world's

media, pretty well spread out on every social media. And we are still trying to convince

people of the vile and like the evil that is the settler state, the apartheid state of Israel.

That is what's tiring. This is what would takes a big toll on me. Like why are we still, like

instead of at this point, having all of us already knowing that this is just wild. Do I really

need to convince you with all the evidence that is out there? If you are, like, I don't know

how twisted or how, I'll go back to the episode of fascism that you guys did a few weeks ago.

And maybe that's what it is. It's the fascism that we are now living in that just denies

us. Canadians are kind of our own breed of obliviousness. We have a real kind of vision of what our role

is and our persona, and it's usually quite the opposite of what we're doing as a state. I

started reading the Tyler Trippley book that you guys, you had the episode about a month,

a month and a half ago. about the role of Canada and the world, especially in terms of settler

colonial, not just our role as settlers here and the genocide, the ongoing genocide we're

still pushing onto the indigenous population of Turtle Island, where it's just our role

in the global settler colonial system is just... Yeah. Part of our role we look at as a virtue.

And I'm talking about accepting refugees. And now before we go into this conversation in

no part, one of my favorite t-shirts is, it just says welcome refugees. And I love to wear

it around my conservative fucking town. I am of the position that everyone has the right

to migrate wherever they want to go, right? I don't. believe in borders. Yes, I know they

exist. I just believe they shouldn't. Okay. So before we get into that, know that, but

you know what, just, you know what, you're not the only one. You know who also has that belief?

Indigenous people who have lived here from time memorial. They are the ones who were welcoming

to the settlers when the settlers arrived. Let's not forget that. They didn't take up arms from

the start. And it's the same thing for indigenous Palestinians when we go back in history. They

were welcoming

to the Jewish settlers that had fled Nazi Europe, but then tables turned and political... movements

start to grow and Zionism starts to grow and military Zionism starts to take shape. and

at that point, you start to take arms. Residential schools here start to happen. Forced migration

starts to happen. Starvation and famine and diseases start to happen. And then you take

up arms. And at that point you then get labeled as the terrorist by no one other than the powerful

settler. You take up arms or perhaps you flee. So like back to the refugee question. not to

advocate for us, not to let the people of Gaza come. But that is a bit of a delicate situation

because I believe this push, there was a tweet sent out by Lowkey and he was reporting, I

should have grabbed the source there, but Tony Blair has been recruited by Israel to lobby

refugees as possible. We ourselves are exploring this. The Canadian government, the cabinet

just decided they'll let just under a thousand folks who have family here. There's criteria.

The fucked up thing about that one though is that Israel is doing the security screening.

I just want to explore this for a second because I find Israel has put itself in a bit of a

conundrum. So in order to complete the genocide, right, they can't literally wipe everybody

else out, or at least I'm telling myself that the goal is to displace folks as well as martyr

them. And in order to do that, they do need nations to take them in because they don't

actually want a refugee camp. They want the whole land. They don't want any resistance

building. They want these folks dispersed throughout the globe. That's what completes the genocide

because it's really hard to maintain your culture. Although the Palestinian diaspora is a great

example of resilience in this, but that's not the point. They deserve to live in fucking

Palestine. They deserve to live in a safe Palestine. And I know that doesn't exist. So I don't I

understand that people are trying to flee. And yes, there should be safe havens for anyone

trying to flee. But for us to latch on to now the refugee narrative and to think that can

absolve us from not stopping this. with whatever means necessary, and we will just simply take

the victims in. For me, that is, especially coming from the Canadian state, because it's

not benevolence, it's never fucking will be, right? It's complicity in this genocide. By

entering in those agreements that I bet you started well before October 7th. I imagine

the... Taking of as many Palestinian refugees as possible has always been part of the discussion

between Israeli diplomats and their counterparts throughout the world. They want, they always

want all Palestinians out of Palestine, clearly. You just need to see the shrinking map, the

embargoes, the starvation. And it's just hard. It doesn't take a smart human being to read

numbers. Very basic progression of numbers, of the number of indigenous Palestinian. Arab

Palestinians. And I'm going to refer, I'm going to call them Arab Palestinians, not Muslim

Palestinians, not Christian Palestinians, not Jewish Palestinians, Arab Palestinians. That

is just dwindling. But I think like Israel's also painted themselves into a corner here

though, right? Well, because they have spent the last, well, they've spent a long time,

but it's not- Starting five weeks plus 90 days. That's a good way of looking at it, because

it's like- this kind of asterisk in the last 90 days, like it's on hyper speed of what we've

seen for 75 years, but they've really demonized all Palestinians. So now they're in this position

of having to beg people to remove and take in Palestinians while painting them as all criminals,

as all terrorists, as all worthy of bombs dropping on their homes, right? So how can you turn

around and be like, here? here, why don't you take Hamas, right? Like, because they've sold

this narrative that there are no civilians in Gaza. That's, you know, those are things that

we've actually said. And so I think, yeah, it's a bit of a delirious situation. There is no

rhyme and reason, and there is no logic to any of their foreign diplomacy, any of their, I

don't know, I don't know. I don't know if it's just, those are all signs of... pariah state

that's just like a near collapse. I was gonna say that is an essential stage though, right?

Like people kind of gasp when we say that you have to politically isolate Israel, right?

It sounds like you want to erase them and I'm not gonna like get into the fact that an ethno

state shouldn't exist. We're talking about a state, we're not talking about a people. Let's

stop, let's stop feeding people. If I have to repeat that for my audience, I'm assuming they're

not listening anymore. Yeah, exactly. Don't worry. Exactly, like... But, yeah, it's...

We did that, we did that, we did that not a long time ago, within apartheid state in South

Africa. Absolutely. And I... You always read, and people... We've told each other, and I

felt warmth when people would say, like, all tyrannical, violent regimes fall. But I...

We can't rest on that, right? They don't fall on their own. They fall because they create

the conditions with which resistance is inevitable. It is the only logical choice for people. And

so when they get so terrible for so long, then you have created inherent resistance within

people and resilience. And so it becomes even more difficult, but.

because we had started talking about the July war in Lebanon, the 2006 war, and I forgot,

I think we drifted off. That happens when you have ADHD. Yeah, so we were talking about the

destruction and... 2006 that we witnessed in Lebanon. That again, what I'm seeing in Gaza

also is very similar to that destruction that I witnessed with my own eyes happen in Lebanon.

And I was there in 2006, like I was not far. I was about a kilometer and a half from the

southern suburb of Beirut. I was displaced out of my home, but I... purposefully moved out

of my home to go help with internally displaced refugees. There was, I think, about a million,

a million point two displaced, internally displaced refugees in the 2006 war that moved from the

south of Lebanon towards the central and the north side of Lebanon that were taken into

public schools all across Lebanon, into homes, public spaces, wherever possible. I left my

house and I helped with a whole bunch of my Scouts leaders at that point. I was part of

the Lebanese Scouts movement and we took care of refugees in a public school. We had 500

refugees that we were taking care of from 24-7 for the 40 days. It was 30 days of war but

refugees didn't just go back as soon as the war ended and turn into displaced refugees.

And that's, there's a part of that that... scares the shit out of me because I saw it firsthand

from my family member who lost homes in that 2006 war who didn't have homes to go back to.

So for the time being after the war they were still internally displaced refugees for months

and months and months at a time until the rebuilding process started to happen. And now in Lebanon

the rebuilding process started to happen. because we still had open borders with Syria, we had

open borders in our airport, I don't know what the rebuilding process will look like in Gaza.

If something doesn't happen, there's no rebuilding Gaza because Israel is annexing it and taking

it from the people of Palestine. So if it's rebuilt in their vision right now, it seems

like Gaza will be a resort city for Israeli settlers. So... Although, you know, when I

think of the rebuilding of Beirut and like there have been urban settings that have been demolished

in war and rebuilt, you make that point and Israel is kind of making the point that that's

not the plan here. When they say they've destroyed Hamas's infrastructure, they've destroyed all

infrastructure. But then they play under the agenda. This is a Hamas run. It has a strip.

And we again, we'll play, like this is a Hamas, democratically elected government that Israel

and the US both agreed that the elections were fair and square. And when they were elected

the first time, there was no foul play in those elections. But now... No, the powers that be.

It's a destruction. Yeah. Yeah, we're fine with what was happening. The destruction of not,

it's a scorched land. That's what they're doing. Like they're... Your last statement brought

up two points that I kind of want to hit before we sign off. But you talked about refugees

not returning home right away. And we talk about the delicacy or the delicateness of...

to leave Gaza or not to leave Gaza. How folks are likely struggling with, not between necessarily

armed resistance or leaving, but a variation of sorts. So you have journalists, you have

people that, like survivors of the NECBA, have the keys to their home and they wanna return.

They know and they've experienced generations of permanent displacement. And... That must

play into their decision on whether to apply for refugee status or not, whether or not to

flee if you can. And that's just not an option if you understand the borders of Gaza. It also

brought up another point that I wanted to make where I was corrected online in my language

that I had used. And it wasn't just nitpicking on my language. We talk about how language

is very important. And there was a few times where I referred to the people under siege

as Gazans. I know my pronounce, my accent there is horrible, but it's not my pronunciation

that was the problem, even though it is. It's the fact that they're not all from Gaza. Palestine

is full of internally displaced people still. That Gaza is... mostly a refugee camp. Yeah,

and that's what I was going to point out that these are not first time displaced people.

And we're talking, we're not talking about their families were displaced, some of them were

displaced in their lifetime once and twice already. Some of these people are, some of these people,

some of these people are originally from the north of occupied Palestine that have just

been driven away. Some of them are from the west of Palestine some of them are from all

across the occupied Palestinian territory and they've just landed and Gaza because That was

the two options. It was the West Bank and Gaza So like people I want people to kind of close

their eyes and imagine that shrinking map But we've made it our cover art. It's you can't

not have seen it the original 1947 map of Palestine and I think It should be a little more nuanced

than it is, but there's four variations. And the shrinkage that occurs is astonishing. And

you have to imagine that all of those people in the areas that are no longer labeled Palestine

on the world map. have either become part of the Palestinian diaspora that you see around

you, or they have gone into the West Bank at Umis and Gaza, which is why it's so densely

populated. For some of them, we also got to give it to those who are still on those territories

with third-class citizenship status with an Israeli. Like, they are Arab Israelis. Like,

Israel has granted citizenship to... Palestinians who decided to stay, but they are treated as

third class, not second class, third class citizens. When we talk about democratic state of Israel,

but we refuse to see the injustices of how that state goes about its own internal business,

it's mind boggling. And that's part of the apartheid argument, like the way that... your ethnicity

or your religion play part in how much you can participate democratically and the extent of

your right of movement in particular. And thank you for reminding me that I had left some Palestinians

out of the discussion. But the point is, imagine people, imagine you have been driven as a person,

as a family, as a generational culture. You've been driven to an area smaller and smaller

and smaller. And now that is under intense bombardment, you know, a war zone. And now it's like, do

you leave knowing the pattern of behavior, knowing Gaza is like the last bit, along with the West

Bank, the last bit, you know, hopefully not forever from the river to the sea, you know,

eventually Palestine will be free, but right now that's all it is. And if you leave, that's

it. You're leaving it to Israeli settlers. And will you ever get it back? Like it's been many,

many years since those original borders have existed with many attempts to regain some of

that territory, right? And so I can't imagine facing that choice as- And it's the urgency

of- Of mother. We either resist now or-

I don't, there's no waiting. There's no waiting to resist in the future or to wait to be hopeful

for a change in the future if you don't resist now. Absolutely, you don't wanna think about

what that or was, did you, you didn't wanna finish that. We always want hope, right? And

we always wanna cling on to hope, but hope comes with the act of resistance. 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 Jaluc Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is

an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPofDisruption.

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