In this episode of Learning to Listen to Palestine, we dive into the untold stories of Palestine, shedding light on the rich culture, history, and resilience of its people. We explore how biases shape perceptions and discuss ways to overcome them. Join me in uncovering the narratives often left out of mainstream media. 

This episode promises to broaden your understanding and challenge your viewpoints. Tune in for an enlightening journey through Palestine's past and present.

They killed men, women, and children. There were massacres, and there were rapes, righteous? They bear, They plant trees over the destroyed villages now to hide the evidence. Okay. So, I'd never heard any of this before, this was a complete shock to me, I never heard any of this.

Narrator: Welcome to Learning to Listen to Palestine, where stories come alive and hearts connect. Each week, your host, Lani Lanchester, will dive into the untold histories, powerful narratives, and insightful interviews that bring us closer to understanding Palestine. Ready to be educated, empowered, and motivated?

Let's get started.

Lani Lanchester: Welcome to Learning To Listen To Palestine. I am so glad all of you are here. And today, I'm going to invite you to come on this journey with me to Learn To Listen To Palestine. I've written a book called, Learning to Listen to Palestine. And this last week, I met with a pastor, a friend of mine, he's a retired pastor and a friend.

I'm going to tell you, all about that and why that was. And some of you maybe like me, or like I was, and some of you may know people who have trouble hearing stories about Palestine. So, we're going to talk about what we're going to do about that. But one of the things my pastor friend said to me is, you're going to have to address October 7th.

If you've been with me on this journey so far, and if you were here with me last week, if you did not hear last week's story, podcast, I ask you to listen to it. Because last week, we met a woman from Gaza, and her family came from Gaza. She left when she was very young. But her family is scattered from California, Egypt, Texas.

And the family that she left, that remained in Gaza, they're all dead. And all of that happened before October 7th. So, I want us to branch out and to learn to listen to the stories before October 7th, after October 7th. Because there's so much more to learn about Palestine and Hamas is less than 1% of the population.

I read a lot of books, and I listened to a lot of news. But I had a friend, when I worked at the University of Texas, there was another professor who worked there and I respected him in every way. And we were friends, but he wrote a book about Palestine, it had Palestine across the front of it. And even though I would read everything I could get my hands on, I never read his book, and I distrusted him a little bit because he wrote that book.

My daughters weren't talking to me. And so, I had this broken mother's heart and I didn't know what to do. So, I was going to go to Hawaii to sit on a beach and cry. And my friend from Israel, he said, why would you do that? Why would you go to Hawaii to be miserable? It's a good point really, isn't it?

So he said, you need to come to Israel, walk in the steps of Jesus, go on a pilgrimage. And if you need a beach to cry on, we have a beach. And I went, I thought about it and it sounded like something I always wanted to do, and I prayed about it. And interesting was, I thought I really heard God telling me to go.

Here I was going on my first trip abroad, to a foreign country, and I was going by myself. I was going to rent a little car and just drive around to different places that my friend suggested that I should go while I was there. And I was just going to do this on my own. Because that was actually my plan, is I wanted to be alone for a while.

My dad was concerned. Can you imagine? He's a good dad. He was worried that I would get mixed up in something. There's so many fearful things when you hear about Palestine, and, Israel, and the, wars, and the rockets, and the things that were happening there. So I'm like, but dad, I'm an American. What could happen, right?

She was a Palestinian Christian, who from, I believe, Jerusalem originally. And she moved to the States. She got her citizenship here, and she worked here for some time. And then she moved back to Israel, because she felt called to tell the story of, what was going on in Palestine between Israel and Palestine.

And so, they were walking slowly down the middle of the street, both with her hands showing, walking slowly, and the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force targeted her and shot her in the head. They denied it for a while, but in the end, they had admitted to that, yes, it was their bullet. It was a sniper fire because it wasn't 1 shot, it was 8 shots at a tight formation. And they would not hand over the person who did it for any sort of punishment, and I'd never heard of it.

There was a problem with the press, why wasn't the press reporting this? She was press, and it was caught on camera, and it was investigated, and it was proven that it was a murder, and why, why wasn't the press covering this? They were all over this story about the basketball star, every newsreel was showing it Over and over and over again.

But we didn't hear anything about Shireen Abu Akleh. So, that surprised me. Next it was the America, she was an American citizen. I thought if I got in trouble going abroad, even if it was doing something illegal, like illegal cannabis, that we would be doing everything we could to get our citizen out of harm's way.

And you know what else surprised me is the IDF. IDF stands for Israeli Defense Force. I has always thought that Israel was this place, where people who were at risk living someplace else, did not have safety living someplace else, would could go there and live in safety. And the IDF was Israel Defense Force would give safety and security. But it didn't for Shireen, and it didn't follow up, and fix what happened in any way.

So, that's how I started my journey, is I started my journey with this confusion and with questions, and everything I thought I knew was wrong, and so I was prepared to listen. And I've learned a lot of things as I was on this journey. Everywhere I went, it seemed like I would meet a Palestinian. At first, it was Palestinian Christians and towards the end of the tour, I met Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims.

And everywhere I go, they'd ask me, why are you here traveling by yourself alone? And I'd say, I'm here to listen. And it was like a password, when I said that, I had this happen many times where, the person I was talking to with lock eyes with me. And like, they understood something, they'd pull up a chair for me and they say, wait right here. And they'd go get me tea or coffee. And then we would talk, we'd talk about everything for hours.

And it was tearing our country apart. This one man, his death, but in Israel's a little bitty country. And this stuff happens a lot more than it happens in the States. And I was just hearing just a few stories at this point. And I couldn't imagine, how does this little bitty country hold together when one thing like, what happened with George Floyd was tearing us up?

So, we were driving up this windy hill. Can you imagine? And if you look off this direction, you see the Jordan Valley. And if you look off on the other direction, you see the sea of Galilee, and over here is the Golan Heights. And over there's the Valley of Megiddo, and I was in awe.

And so, I knew I was supposed to listen. So I just said, tell me about that. And he was angry and he was frustrated. What I heard though, was how difficult it is to have people. Who are good people, who don't know about the hurt that he and his family have gone through. This is such an amazing, I mean, a huge hurt. So, later I did a lot of research, trying to learn if this was true, because I didn't know if, I mean, I didn't doubt my friend at all.

I had all of these things in my head that weren't quite true. And it's difficult to figure out what's true and what's not true. It's kind of like having a beautiful garden and pulling up the weeds. And then, there's so many weeds in the garden and if you pull them up, maybe you're going to pull up something that's important.

But what was interesting about Ilan Pappe, he's, an Israeli. And so, you would think that he just wasn't really interested in telling the truth. And once he got these documents, he saw things that he had never heard before. Just like me, I had never heard this stuff before. He'd never heard the term Nakba either, isn't that interesting?

But the Palestinians were going to have to be under Israeli rule. The Israelis didn't want the Palestinians there. Because they wouldn't have a majority. So, they needed to force the Palestinians out. So, they would encircle a village, leaving one open side, and they would go in and they would dynamite a few houses with people in them.

They would pull out men of a certain age, and they would kill a few of them, shoot them in front of the other villagers, terrorize them and force them to flee. And this is how they ethnically cleanse village by village by village by village.

Narrator: Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss an episode show by clicking the subscribe button now. Don't forget to check out Lani's book, Learning to Listen to Palestine. Now back to the show.

Lani Lanchester: so we started this podcast talking about October 7th, a really bad day, but I want to tell you. About my worst day that really got me started on writing the book, Learning to listen to Palestine. And got me understanding what I had been listening to over the previous year in researching. And well, October 7th was a really bad day.

So, I was getting ready to go, and I was hurrying and knew that this was very serious. And the phone rang and I answered it. And it was my work and I found out that my boss and my friend, who had been battling cancer died that day. And she and I were the same age, and such good friends. And I cried and I made the sound I just fell apart.

I cried so hard and I couldn't move forward or back. And I made the sound like, keening sound, and I didn't know what to do. Cause I had to get to see my dad, but I couldn't drive like that. So, I reached out to my friend, my Palestinian friend from Nazareth. And I told him what happened and he said only prayer works at these times.

And then, the radio host started talking back and forth, women and children would be killed and that would be awful. And they started trying to back off it a little bit, but then they pushed forward into it and they leaned into it and saying, yes, women and children would be killed. But that's a necessary evil to send a message to Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran.

And I was devastated here. My people were calling for a genocide. And I knew by this point from my studies that if my people would support a genocide, it was going to be a genocide.

So, my heart broke.

And at that point, as I was praying God told me that I was going to have to learn how to overcome bitterness. In order to do what he had for me to do. So in the next few weeks, I'm going to talk more about this. There is stories of how Palestinians helped me overcome my bitterness as they were going

Because of the things that were revealed to me it, the back of it is full of notes and research and articles and other places to find out more information. If you have learned anything today, I encourage you to get this book. Also, if you will get two books and share it with, share one with a friend and send me a copy of your receipt, I'll send you one of these in the mail.

So what I encourage you to do is I love to hold these. It's perfect to fit in my hand. As I pray and I pray for Palestine, I pray for what's going on there. I pray for the Christians who have been asking for the, Western church to hear them and to pray for them and to help them to hear what's going on.

What they're going through. We want to pray for the everybody the Christians, the Muslims who are seeking God, who are trying, calling out to God in their distress of what's going on with them. And Will the West here. So, I pray that you will learn to listen to Palestine again, if you order two of these books, they're available on Amazon send me an email and with a copy of your receipt and your address, and I will mail you one of these very happily.

Narrator: Thank you for tuning in to this enriching episode of Learning to Listen to Palestine. I hope today's stories and insights touched your heart and opened your mind. If you found value in our conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with friends and family. Your support helps us reach more listeners and foster a global community committed to understanding and peace.

Until then, remember to listen, learn, and build bridges. Keep the conversation going and stay connected. Thank you for being part of this journey.