Palestinian Lives Matter: Lawyer Sues US Government

Join Ghassan Shamieh, a courageous immigration attorney fighting for justice on the frontlines, fueled by his Palestinian heritage and experiences at the International Criminal Court and his deep understanding of South Africa's apartheid system. His groundbreaking lawsuit against the US government shines a light on a shocking disparity: Israeli-Americans whisked away on chartered flights and cruise ships, while Palestinian-Americans were left behind. This episode explores themes of advocacy, inequality, immigration, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the pursuit of peace.
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Transcript

Welcome to Superhumanizer podcast, where we promote empathy and understanding in polarizing viewpoints through stories told by people living them. Hello, everyone. I have Rassan Shamiyeh here with me today, who is a first generation Palestinian American and immigration attorney who is also a son of immigrants.

He completed his training and certification at Northwestern University and UCSF, as well as an internship with the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Wow. I found Rassan shortly after the events of October 7 because he was suing the government, which I was in awe of. I then saw interviews with him and two families he represented that spoke volumes of his deep passion and heartfulness, really a true superhumanizer.

Also his name drew me, which is the same name as my younger brother. So that really spoke to my heart. I'm so honored to spend some time with you today, Rassan. Thank you for being here. 

Thank you, honey. I appreciate you having me.

Thank you. So before we begin, I like to play a little icebreaker game with all my guests called what brings you joy. Would you mind playing it with me? Let's do it.

Hassan, what brings you joy? When my daughter yells Baba every time 

I come home.

Do you just have 

one daughter? I have a daughter and a son, but my son's only four and a half months 

old. Oh, and pretty soon he's gonna be like Baba. Yeah. Thank you. What brings you joy? Food. What kind of food? 

All food. I can have burritos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I can have sushi, sandwich. I mean I'm a deco opportunity 

eater.

Nice. Amazing. I love that. Same here. Thank you. What brings you joy? 

Ice cream. And sometimes I'm guilty of even door dashing ice cream to the house late at night because that's how big it is and I can't control it sometimes. 

Yeah. It's a, is it stress eating? 

Comfort food. Let's play with all that.

Nice. Okay. One last one. What brings you joy? Advocating 

for Philistine and equality for all people who are facing oppression and who are struggling. There's nothing more joyous than doing hard work on the ground that is all geared towards helping change somebody's life. And I do that on my day to day as an immigration lawyer.

And so my career. It's part of that. I just love to help people and advocate for those who need to be advocated for 

the purpose and your work shines through, right through your instagram profile to your bio. So thank you so much. Thank you. I really enjoyed doing that with you. Would you mind doing the same for me?

Of course. 

Okay. Dr. Hany, what brings you joy? Being here with you. You say that to all your guests. I 

do. I do because I feel so grateful and honored anytime somebody accepts, especially because it's a new podcast, in this series. People haven't even heard yet what the podcast is about. So you took a leap of faith and, especially you, because of all the work you're doing, it was really important for me to have, that voice on my show.

So thank you so much. That brought me 

joy. Thank you. Dr. Dr. Hattie, what brings 

you joy? I would actually echo what you said. Food brings me a lot of joy, I'm actually guilty of stress eating myself. And sometimes it's just pure joy 

that I'm overdoing. So what's your guilty pleasure? 

Cake, cake and Lebanese.

food. Thank you, 

Doctor. What brings you joy? 

I would say spending time with my partner. We have a really wonderful marriage it's full of adventure and excitement and lots of love. I feel very lucky to 

be in my marriage. When you say adventure, does that mean traveling? 

Yes, we actually travel a lot to the Bay Area.

We have a lot of friends there. Yeah. Now you have another one. Yes. And that brings me joy too. Thank you so much. So that was our two minutes. Thank you for playing that game with me. I love it because we get to know, so much about each other in just two minutes. So that really brought me a joy.

Okay. So let's get to know you Ghassan, tell us about you, where you're from and 

your background. Sure. So I am first generation. Born American, but I always add Palestinian prior to, saying that I'm American. I'm Palestinian American. The reason is that identity has been so important to me in my upbringing from when I was a young kid through today.

And it's something that I want to instill within my kids as well, even though they'll be second generation. One more degree removed from it that I am. I'm born and raised in the Bay Area. Like you said, I went to school at University of San Francisco, and I went to law school in Chicago and a lot of my friends after graduation decided to pursue a path of law that was very prestigious Rewarding financially.

 I have nothing but the utmost respect for that, but for me, that just didn't align with what I went to law school for and what I thought I needed to do as a Palestinian American. So my uncle, who is a partner of mine in this firm has been doing immigration law for 40 years. He told me, Hey, why don't you come work with me a little bit?

See if you like it. And if you do, then, we can move forward. I came in right away. I knew this was the type of law for me. Cause like I said earlier, every day I wake up, my sole goal is to help change someone's life. I may not always be successful, I may not win every single case, but I can go to sleep at night knowing that everything I do throughout the day is geared towards bettering this person's life and helping them achieve what they need and want to achieve.

For the safety of themselves and their families. So I think the passion for helping people comes from being positive. Comes from identifying with other people's struggles. And that's a lesson my parents ingrained in me from a young age. And so that's that's about me. I have two kids.

And. I just I enjoy what I do really 

 Admirable that you merged your heritage and the struggles that you've known in your family into activism within your job. That is so beautiful, connecting purpose and mission in that way is so beautiful. Would you tell us about like your parents journey coming here?

Yeah. So they came here when they were in their teenage years. I remember hearing stories that my great grandparents, when they first got to the States, they were obsessed with the light switch, obsessed with the toilets flushing because they didn't have that back then, but those are funny stories, right?

Cause now when we look back at it, but more importantly, I remember stories of them being forced out of their homes because of the wars and being forced to flee essentially because of the occupation. So that was their journey. They were kids when they moved here. But they have instilled in us a deep sense of identity and connection to being Palestinian, where we would go every other summer at home.

We saw family. My family has, a home . Wow. Amazing. Yeah. It's it's a, an amazing way to keep connected to the homeland because it's really sad that a lot of my generation, our generation has lost the ability to speak the language and, the next generation is gonna lose it a little bit more and so forth.

 So that breaks my heart and so I'm super grateful for my parents for instilling that in me. from a young age, it's something I hope I can instill 

in my kids. Their struggle should never be forgotten. Anybody who comes from Palestine, who endured occupation and expulsion and all that stuff, it should never be forgotten, forever.

I think books and volumes of books are Continuing to be written about this for good reason and I echo you my grandmother was a palestinian refugee who? married my lebanese grandfather, in lebanon and My dad similarly had you know, the struggle of having to take himself out of poverty under our schools, etc and his struggle was instilled into me and You know the feeling of being attached to that struggle is in many ways why this podcast formed so, there's so much to be said about taking our struggles and Trying to do something with that rather than just sitting in it and feeling spiteful or feeling hopeless So i'm so grateful for your parents And I think 

beautiful.

Thank you. I think that our generation Is able to do that a lot more than our parents generation was because when they immigrated to the states, they were focused primarily on providing for you and I, right? Providing for their kids. They've done a tremendous job. You're a doctor. I'm an attorney.

They've done nothing but amazing things to set us up to be able to carry the struggle with us and to advocate in ways that they could not because they were busy focusing on providing for us. I'm forever grateful for the entire generation before us, for setting us up for this kind of success and ability to commit to the cause and to the struggle as we have been.

Without their sacrifice for us, we wouldn't be able to do this kind of work. 

Would you mind telling us a little bit about the lawsuit you filed against the government? You would think like the government is a big monster to take on. So how has that went and what has been the outcome of that? 

Yeah.

Thank you for asking. After October 7th happened, the United States soon realized that there was a lot of U. S. citizens who were stuck in Gaza. There was also a lot of U. S. citizens who were in Israel. Less than 10 days after October 7th, Israeli Americans were evacuated. from Israel through three different means.

The first is a Royal Caribbean cruise line. So at the request of the U. S. Embassy, Royal Caribbean cruise line chartered a boat to take people from Haifa to Cyprus. Israeli Americans, not just people, Israeli American. And when these Israeli Americans got to the port, they were greeted by U. S. government officials, people from the embassy, answering questions, guiding.

The U. S. was also chartering flights out of Tel Aviv airport from Ben Gurion, and for Israeli Americans, and people who could make it to the West Bank and to Tel Aviv to fly up. But then also Ron DeSantis. Republican presidential candidate, governor of Florida, chartered his own personal flight, his own personal plane to evacuate Israeli Americans out.

But about a month passes and Palestinian Americans, who there was about 400, best estimate, were still stuck in Gaza. There's only two ways in and out of Gaza, and that's through Israel. And through Egypt, the Rafah crossing, what this organization out of Michigan decided to do, the Arab American civil rights league is to take on and represent the families of those U.

S. citizens who were stuck in Gaza and sue the government because we felt that the government was not upholding their constitutional duty to protect their citizens and evacuate them. We had a benchmark, right? Because they were able to do so for the Israeli Americans. Chartered flights and everything. But the system for the Palestinian Americans and Americans in Gaza was completely different.

There was no way to evacuate the US citizens out of Gaza. There was no guidance. There was no Royal Caribbean cruise line. There was no US embassy, government officials. There was no planes. There's no airport. Palestinian Americans and Americans in Gaza felt abandoned, and calls to senators and elected officials went unanswered, and when they did get an answer, they were templated emails.

Phone calls to the State Department said, sorry, we're working on it, there's things happening behind the scenes. But that was a generic response to. So out of lack of any other options, families decided to sue the government. And as you said, that's intimidating, but it had to be done because there was no other options.

Shortly after these lawsuits started piling in, there was about seven that were filed prior to people being evacuated, the government started to open the crossing and started. Develop a system to evacuate these Americans out of Gaza Now, I'm not saying that the lawsuit gets 100 percent credit for this.

Of course not. There was a lot of pressure from organizations and the masses and others to help make that happen. But I can't help but think that the lawsuit had an impact on that decision and helped speed that along. And 

I represent more of those would be coming. Yeah, 

exactly. It costs money and time and energy to defeat the defend this type of lawsuit.

We knew it was an uphill battle for sure. But we still felt the government was not upholding their constitutional duty to the U S citizen. I represented two families here in Northern California, and the story of one really sticks out, if you'll allow me to use, absolutely. She was an 81 year old grandmother.

She hadn't left the United States in over 30 years. She's originally from Gaza. She came to the United States, became a United States citizen, was living with her daughter's family. Her daughter is her permanent caretaker because she's elderly and medically fragile. For the first time in over 30 years, this poor woman travels to Gaza in August of 2023 and was going to come back with her son who had a US visa.

She gets stuck in Gaza because of what happened in October and everything after that. The childhood home that she went back to visit So she saw it for the first time in 30 years, and she saw it being destroyed all at the same time. When we were finally able to get her across into Egypt, she spent approximately two weeks in Egypt just recovering.

The trauma, psychologically, physically, and emotionally, was real, was palpable. I would speak to her grandson, who was the face of the lawsuit here, and he said, She's struggling, she's alive, and we're thankful for that, but she's struggling. But she leaves behind a son who's not a U. S. citizen.

She leaves behind other family members who are not U. S. citizens and who could not make it out. So it's an unimaginable choice for a parent to leave their child in a situation where they have very high likelihood of being killed while you escape and get across. That in and of itself, I think, is traumatizing on the psyche of anybody, let alone an 80 plus year old woman who has just witnessed some of the most horrific things in her life.

I 

can definitely say that is trauma. That is multi layered trauma from the atrocity of what she witnessed, from loss, losing her home, and then leaving her family behind. , going through all those situations where she probably didn't have medicine, she was wearing the same clothes, she was, she's an, you said, 80 years old, over 80 years old, wow, , frail and there's no health care system and it's collapsing and you can't go anywhere without feeling like you might be shot at or aggressed in some way or under an airstrike.

That is so ridiculous. To think that the same ship that docked To get American Israelis out what few kilometers away is Gaza's coastline it just doesn't make sense that one ship was sent to a place where it could have just taken An hour or whatever down the coast to go to Gaza Same process and that didn't happen.

So that is mind boggling to me. Why do you think, why was there a double standard here? What do you think? I can't 

help, but think that it has to do with what's national origin, right? Where these people are located geographically, because as you so correctly pointed out, this is on the coast, the U S military and Navy is one of the most sophisticated and strongest in the world, I am sure.

That they have a mechanism to dock a boat and help people get on despite the lack of infrastructure to evacuate its own citizens. The United States has history, there's precedent of various evacuations from various war like situations in the past that they've implemented. So why is it different for Palestinians?

The only answer I could possibly come up with is because they're Palestinians. It's because these Americans were in the Gaza Strip and because they were somehow less deserving of The equal protection of their own 

government. It's just so disappointing. , I am a first generation immigrant and I came here because, in my mind, America was the American dream, the ideal.

And, for me specifically coming from the Arab world there are certain rights I don't have there that I have here in the U. S. So I really wanted to come to a place where supposedly I have all my rights. And I've always thought that you're saying, God, I'm an American now, because if I'm ever stuck anywhere in a war zone or otherwise, I know I will be rescued.

 When this happened, I thought, wow, I won't be rescued. It depends where I am. It depends who I am, if I will be rescued or not. And to me, that was one of the most shocking things ever as an American to witness, because this is the government not upholding the 

American dream. And, Hani, it was.

What was really perplexing to me was just the level of dishonesty that was coming out of the media and from the government, where, for example, I held a press conference when we filed the lawsuit and there was a bunch of local media stations and one of the reporters says are you naming Hamas as a defendant in your lawsuit?

Of course I'm not because Hamas is not responsible for U. S. citizens. The U. S. government is responsible. He says, but my people on the ground in Cairo are telling me. That it is Hamas who is preventing people from exiting Gaza. I heard that. I said, my client who's on the ground in Gaza is telling me the complete opposite.

And what happened, according to my clients who lived this experience, not according to reporters who are on the other side of the border, who have no idea what's going on over here. 

It's propaganda. A hundred 

percent. What happened is, They were told to go to the border at a certain time. The border was either closed with no US government officials, or it was bombed shortly before, after, or during their presence there at the border.

And so there was no Hamas at the border. There was no people preventing people from leaving. It was, and the United States has the leverage over Egypt, right? It has the leverage over the Saudi. To facilitate a, an evacuation of U. S. citizens. We're talking about U. S. citizens. We're not talking about all of Gaza.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's just, it's perplexing to me. It was perplexing. 

It's so perplexing. I know, , you were successful in bringing back two grandmothers. Did you get to see them after they came back? Only one 

has made it back so far. And I have not seen her. She just actually got back on Thanksgiving Day.

She flew in, but I'm hoping to be able to connect with her soon. 

I'm sure it's going to be a moment filled with joy and purpose. And the fight is still not over. There's many more American Palestinians are stuck there in Gaza. What do you think is going to happen next with those Americans? 

For the most part, I think most Americans have made it out because of the continued efforts by not just these lawyers from across the country who were part of this initiative, but also the groups and the activists and the people putting pressure on elected representatives.

So as far as I know, and my goal was, of course, I hope every single one of those 400 U. S. citizens becomes a client so that we can sue the government on behalf of all of them. The reality is not all of them did, but what we can. I don't think there are any active lawsuits going on now for people who are stuck.

How do we ensure this doesn't happen again to American citizens, from an immigration attorney perspective? 

It's a great question. I think we continue to make sure that our government knows that we're going to hold them accountable through whatever means necessary. Through the ballot box to the judicial system, especially exactly throughout where we spend it, how we donate our money, what elected officials, what governments and then the continued pressure from various organizations combining all of these pressure points will ensure, at least I'm being optimistic.

government doesn't do, isn't negligent like this in the future when it comes to evacuations and to 

Palestinians.

Yes. For these two grandmothers. And that is really a heroic act for you to do, to take on such a huge lawsuit and to do that just for the purpose of saving people. And you were really, I think one of the first people that went down this route. I'm sure many modeled after you. So thank you so much for doing that.

You're a super humanizer for 

sure. I appreciate that, but I am by no means a hero. The heroes are the ones on the ground. Like Martez, like Nisan those are the heroes. I'm just somebody trying to use the tools that are available to me to help 

our people. Humbleness is always a sign of a good leader.

So thank you for saying that. I agree totally. Those people are heroes. And unfortunately, today the ceasefire has been broken and the atrocities continue. My nervous system had a rest for a few days. And it's back to exactly where it was when all this started. How are you feeling about everything that's been going on there?

How is it affecting you as a human 

being? It's affected me tremendously. I think prior to getting involved in these lawsuits, I felt a deep feeling of depression and helplessness. , the news, Al Jazeera English, was on my TV from morning to night. I woke up with it on, I went to sleep with it on.

I was fully immersed in everything, but I was so down because I just didn't know how to help. But when I came across this lawsuit and this initiative, It was a way to put my anger and sadness, channel it into something tangible. So that definitely helped lift my spirits a little bit. Although I know that my efforts were only for American Palestinians and there remains millions of Palestinians who are still suffering.

 So now that the lawsuits are done, and now that, this temporary pause is done, we need to continue as a collective to find ways, how can we do things that have a tangible impact? Donating money to organizations is great, but right now that money's not getting to us. I am actively, constantly thinking of what is my next, I don't want to say project, but what is the next avenue that I can channel my energy into to create tangible change?

 I don't know what that is yet. I don't know. You're super 

inspirational that you're at least channeled your hopelessness and feeling helpless into helpfulness and what you did. I'm sure that we're all going to learn from you even more when we see what you do next with all of this.

 I know that I felt the same way, which is why I did this podcast and I've been very vocal. On social media and I'm even giving a talk at the Rotary Club next week here in our city also raised awareness So i'm doing all of that stuff and even then, you know I feel like it's just a drop in what we're facing I will tell you i've had people call My boss and ask for me to be fired I've had profiles physicians against antisemitism label me as antisemitic I'm right there, I tried to report that post, they wouldn't take it down and, I've noticed that for those of us that are fighting for humanity.

And mind you, I have many Jewish friends who I absolutely love. I don't have any hate in my body towards anyone. But for all of us, it seems that are, trying to do something about this, where the backlash is evident. Are you experiencing any of that? Has anybody directed any form of hate towards you for standing up for Palestinians?

I 

think there's, as you said, you will always receive some level of quote unquote hate from people who disagree with you. I am privileged to be in a position where I work for myself and I'm not accountable to a boss or anything like that. The clients I serve are like minded because they're all also advocating for equality and freedom and justice.

So I'm privileged in that regard. But, definitely on my social media and comments I've definitely gotten some incendiary comments. So I just choose to ignore that because it's irrelevant to me. Those are not the people that I'm trying to reach. The people that I'm trying to reach are the ones that are on the fence or who are silent and who are unsure.

You said that your efforts feel like a drop, but if we all contribute a drop collectively, that can make a splash. I applaud you for starting this and initiating that because it just. Adds another drop to what we hope to become a 

splash. Reminding even me that collectively we are doing something. I would imagine it would be a really stupid move to mess with a lawyer.

You'd 

be surprised. 

The hate is real. People can be shameless about it. Yeah. We have to keep on. We have to ignore that and keep on. Do you have a vision for peace in the region? What would 

that look like for you? I think for most Palestinian Americans and most Palestinians, peace looks like equality and justice for all, right?

Regardless of your religion, regardless of your national origin. Everybody to be treated equally. I look at South Africa and when I was an undergrad, I did a semester abroad in Johannesburg, South Africa. I think that should be the model of what we hope a solution should be and what we work towards because black South Africans and white South Africans, yes, there's some lingering racial tension, but by and large, there's no violence.

There's no apartheid. There's equality, there's equal representation, there's justice, there's fairness. I don't care what you call the land. And maybe that's controversial. I don't care what you call it. Call it Palestine, call it Israel, call it, I don't care. As long as the people in the entirety of the land are living freely and equally, that's what peace to me, that's what a solution 

to me.

Yes. It's so admirable that you went to South Africa to learn more and what a profound intersection there. I actually did an episode with a very pro Israel doctor and influencer. The goal was to talk about solutions. I used AI and I asked it based on post apartheid South Africa and post Holocaust Germany.

What kind of solutions can we have for post occupation Israel Palestine? One of the first things that came up was this justice and equality piece. I learned about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was such a vital piece of all of this and transitional justice. And so I really love, how your focus, especially as an immigration attorney is.

Peace through equality and justice. It's really beautiful to hear you say that. 

And justice, like you said, can take different forms, different mechanisms, different ways to reach that, right? Restorative justice was something that I did my college thesis on. Sense of forgiveness. I'm going to hear you out and then I'm going to forgive you for all of the atrocities.

Not everybody may agree with that and that's fine. I'm not saying that's what I'm advocating for, but there are so many different paths to justice. It doesn't have to be one way, shape, or form, but At the end of the day, if it leads to equality and freedom and justice for all, then that's all that we can strive 

for.

I've never heard that term before, restorative justice. So that's like a legal term for people basically talking about what they did and receiving amnesty for that. Yep, from 

the people. It was part of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, we are restoring our community and our faith in each other through This opportunity to hear from the person who oppressed you and for that person to hear from the people they oppressed and then to move on from that.

And that's, I think what made Nelson Mandela so profound is that he was able to rally the entire country behind this idea that I don't think had been seen before that. It's a hard pill to swallow, especially for the oppressed. He was tremendous in that and look at South Africa now. The 

two people that hated each other so much can heal from that and we can provide mechanisms as experts and as people with compassion for that mutual understanding and for us to listen to each other.

There's nothing more powerful than humanizing each other's struggles. Even for me, empathizing for the hostages. The Israeli hostages reading about their experiences, which have been extremely horrible, especially children, understanding the facts of people that, we're on the side of the attacks, and the kibbutzim and all that was atrocious, that was traumatic, that was horrible.

 I really feel like what's important is that both sides. Start to understand the suffering of each other. Of course, blame, shame, guilt, all that. We can go around in circles forever about who's to blame and why in the history and what history and where do you want to start with the history and all that stuff doesn't matter.

What matters at the end of the day is that people are suffering. We need to acknowledge each other's suffering for that restorative justice piece to happen, which is so beautiful, but what gets in the way of that is this hate, the hate piece, the polarization, the othering, the lack of compassion, talking about hate and in our government, the way I think we've seen hate in our government, other than citizens not being taken out is also in some of these Republican bills.

So I think, that were introduced to expel Palestinians, expel students. Can you tell us more about those? There's been some wild 

propositions from people in Congress post October 7th that wanted to strip Palestinians who were here on valid F1 visas and send them back. That wanted to rally and mass deport Palestinians who were here, maybe with a pending asylum case or whatever it may be.

And it's just like, that is not done. There are mechanisms for how to revoke an F1 student visa. There are mechanisms for deportation proceedings and how to deport somebody. So the way that these elected officials were framing it is, we're going to rally these people, put them in the back of a van, take them to the airport and send them off.

Because that's what they deserve. Because they're Palestinian. It was that explicit. 

Really? So no crime that they have to commit? 

Not at all. The crime was that they're Palestinian. It's not legal in the sense that there's processes and mechanisms to do these different things that they're trying to accomplish, but they're trying to subvert that and just mass deport Palestinians and mass deport people who are here lawfully.

We're talking about people who are here lawfully, 

too. You said that's not legal. What happened next with those? Did they go to the Senate? Did something happen with those? Yeah, 

 It died in the House. And then I don't think it passed in the Senate. But I know that it was a proposition and I don't think it's going to make it far, right? And even if it does become law, I think it's going to be immediately challenged because it's just unconstitutional the way it was written and introduced. But I think what politicians are doing is playing to their base and playing to the people who are listening to them and voting for them.

This is what they think the people who are voting for them want. So therefore I'm going to throw this out there no matter how inflammatory. Or how racist it is because at the end of the day, I want to 

stay in power. Why is there a base that would celebrate that want that and vote for that? Like why is there a base like that?

It doesn't make any sense. It comes down to people thinking that they are Better than and more important than. 

It's always at the root of any kind of hate is extremism and supremacy. We see that across the board from the Middle East, whether it's on the Israeli side or on the Iran side, or, it's just a never ending cycle.

 I'm hoping that many of us, people like you and me and Americans. Especially Americans, white Americans, black Americans, Hispanic Americans, any American who's not Arab starts to advocate for us, vote against these kinds of things so that we can see that change in 

the government. I think that part is starting.

I don't think that there has been a bigger moment in time where the masses are mobilizing. Jewish Voice for Peace is a tremendous organization that has been on the front lines of the protests and the movement for a long time, but especially since October 7th. There have been, at the protests here in the Bay Area, allies putting their bodies on the line, willing to be arrested and sacrificed for the cause on behalf of Palestinians.

I think that the world is turning, and the sentiment of folks is turning, and that this is, I'll be very hopeful and optimistic again, that this might be the tipping point for the masses around the world to utilize their voice and their vote to get the People in power who are the only ones supporting Israel out and put instead people who represent their perspective 

and their passionate people, I always think , where are the Nelson Mandela's of this, where are the Martin Luther King's, where are these people in all of this, we can put those people in the government and some of those people already exist and they're being censored.

It's really horrible to see that the only Palestinian member And Congress is censored and silenced, but at the same time, we see autoworkers union doing 100 hunger strike right outside the White House and Jewish force for peace and so many allies, our Asian American allies as well. I've seen so many Japanese Americans call this out, 

because they experienced The camps and that, that what happened with that experience is, anybody who experiences trauma, atrocity, even our native American allies, for here in Canada, indigenous populations have experienced atrocities. So you're right. The tide is changing.

Thankfully, but at the same time, we see, it's like 888, right? To where it's like any kind of criticism can be conflated with anti Semitism. Of course, there are points in there that I agree with. Israel is not going to go anywhere, we're not going to ship everybody in Israel out of Israel.

That's never going to happen. And that's just a hateful way of thinking. But also we shouldn't be found guilty if we criticize. Israeli practices, especially apartheid, that should be on the table anytime to talk about and never fear tactics used to silence us. So what would you ask of other immigration lawyers listening to us right now?

I 

would ask that the ideas and the principles that you hold And that you advocate for on your day to day basis in your career should be applied equally to people struggling, even when they are not your clients, even when they are not your people or people you identify with. What kind of irks me is when there are advocates for justice and humanity in all topics and all peoples, except for Palestinians.

Being an immigration lawyer by default is fighting for. the humanity of your client and change their lives for the better. I just hope that those principles are upheld for the Palestinians 

as well. Are you seeing that some attorneys tend to be partial to the populations that they have connection to?

And are you encouraging them to widen their creed? It sounds like immigration attorney 

is. Yes. What I'm noticing, and it ties back to something you said earlier, is there are bar associations, groups of lawyers. There's Middle Eastern Bar Association, Arab American Bar Association. They themselves are fearful to make a statement stating their position and support of it because of the retribution that they would face from their bosses, from their coworkers, from whatever it may be.

It's a delicate balance because you don't want to push somebody to. Jeopardize their entire livelihood, but you also want to remind people that standing up for justice and fairness is not easy. It doesn't come cheap, both from a human toll, from a personal toll, and from a financial toll. I think just reminding people of their identity, what they stand for, and that those principles should be carried forth regardless.

 You're a great example of that. You put yourself in the line of fire and you are now a model for everybody that can stand up for Arabs in general, especially Palestinians. It's so sad, when we know about Harvard Law students who were attacked by a previous president who said that they're going to, they're going to do everything possible so that they don't find jobs.

You know that says a lot when you're already threatening new law students before they come out law students are supposed to be the people that are fighting for justice And fighting for justice as you said is a messy ordeal and it's not easy as it is and then you Add this on top of, their experience, and it's definitely scary to stand up for the law.

I think also about Native, how we are tackling now the righting of the wrong of what the Native Americans experience in America, like now in universities we say, this land used to be this reservation or this tribe's land, and we honor that. It's mind boggling to me to see that people don't see that same issue It's the same issue of the Palestinian plight.

 One day we will say Tantoura, was Der Yassin. That's going to be the future of that. So yeah, thank you so much for saying all that. One more question for you. Would you share with us a notable post, poem, or piece of writing that helped you navigate this conflict or a stress management practice that's been helpful to you to navigate all your stress during this time?

Stress management practice besides eating? I don't know if this post helped me navigate the conflict, but it, there was a post by a Christian Zionist young woman, and she's filming herself and she is just bursting into tears. She's talking about the video of the man who is cleaning the eyes of his dead daughter and her little poof hair, the man who called his daughter the soul of his soul.

She is breaking down crying, never wanted to put her face on her social media, but she is now. Because of how sad what she's seeing is and I've been doing a good job of holding in my tears but when I saw that video, I couldn't help but break down a little bit because even though I had seen videos of their children and I'd seen the fact that us Palestinians were being humanized by this person who was once a Zionist and a white woman.

Young, youthful struck me in a way that I don't think I expected of all the thousands of posts of amazing people out there. That is the one post that kind of sits with me in the back of my mind. That since I saw it two weeks ago, I watch it every so often because that's how much of a profound impact it had on me.

So it didn't necessarily help me navigate the conflict, but it reassured me that people are waking up, even people who were once Christian Zionists. Are now turning to the other side because they're human and they are seeing the atrocities and that to me was a good post.

 I will definitely put a link to it under this podcast because people need to see that. I love what you said, she saw, she witnessed and in that witnessing. She was changed. And for those of us with, skin in this, we are witnessing, I'm watching those videos.

I watch every single video of people in pieces, buildings being burst, people suffering, people without limbs and amputations, like Sean King's profile is like a nightmare. I watch every single video. And I really encourage everybody listening to us to watch those videos. When you witness you, your humanity is going to come out no matter what you believe in.

If you do 

one thing after this podcast, if you, even if you skipped everything, I said all the way to this point, just watch that 

video. And Christian Zionism, what a concept, right? That's all, that's a different podcast topic. Yeah, I know. I'm gonna share a post with you just as an ending. And then after that, I'm going to share a little prayer with you, and that will be the end of our time together, which passed so quickly.

Thank you so much for being on this. This post is from Oscar Handlin. Who is a harvard professor i can see you already recognize him He's considered the father of the field of immigration history and he won a pulitzer prize for his book the uprooted And he says once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in america, then I discovered that immigrants We're American history.

Beautiful. What does that mean to 

you? It's that America was built on the back of immigrants and without immigrants, we would not be where we are today. I think that's a really profound way to put it. I love it. I love 

it. Thank you. Like a million times. I know I have said it a million times more for being here with me and sharing all your experience and wisdom with us.

I've learned so much and I know everybody listening to us will also leave from this change somehow. And maybe we'll add another drop. Splash together. So one last prayer. May all beings everywhere thrive in peace and dignity and share in all our joys and may we see true peace in the Middle East for all in our lifetime.

Doctor. Thank 

you very much. Thank you very much.