SuperHumanizer Podcast

Standing Together: Uniting Divided People For Peace

• Dr. Hani Chaabo & Katie Bogen M.A. • Season 1 • Episode 17

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Join guest host Daniel Maté in a profound dialogue with Alon-Lee Green, the founding National Director of Standing Together, a grassroots movement mobilizing thousands of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel for peace, equality, and social justice. This conversation explores the urgent need for a “sacred pause” in the midst of war, the deceptive nature of social media narratives, and the courageous work of building a shared future based on mutual respect and liberation for all. Alon Lee shares his personal journey from a Tel Aviv bubble to meeting the reality of Palestine, dismantling the concept of a “false utopia” and confronting the dehumanization that fuels the conflict. Together, Daniel and Alon delve into the “uncommonsense” of peace, the necessity of holding onto shared humanity, and the vision for a common ground that transcends political lines and acknowledges the deep, dark harmony of their interconnected struggles.

Like to read? 👉🏼 Check Out these Blog Posts:

Standing Together: How a New Generation Is Rewriting Israeli-Palestinian Solidarity

From Burnout to Liberation: Why Activist Self-Care Is Revolutionary

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Welcome to Super Humanizer Podcast, where we promote empathy and understanding in polarizing viewpoints through stories told by people living them. Hey friends, quick note. We recorded this profound conversation between Daniel and Alon Lee in February of 2024. However, it still felt essential to release as events continue to unfold in Israel and Palestine. If you're able to support our show, you're helping us to build our team so that we can release episodes faster. All right, here it goes. Enjoy the conversation.

Daniel Maté:

Hello everyone and welcome to the Super Humanizer podcast. You might notice that the voice you're hearing is not Hani's, it's not the regular one. My name is Daniel Maté and I'm really excited to be your guest host today on this podcast. I've already been a guest on the podcast, and today it's my honor and pleasure to be in the interviewer sease talking to Alon Lee Green live from Tel Aviv. So hello.

Alon-Lee Green:

Hi.

Daniel Maté:

Hi. Welcome.

Alon-Lee Green:

Nice to meet you. And very nice to be here.

Daniel Maté:

Indeed. It's great to have you. So Alon is the founding National Director of Standing Together. I know the Hebrew name for that Omdim Beyachad right? How do you say it in Arabic?

Alon-Lee Green:

Nakif Ma3an.

Daniel Maté:

Nakif Ma3an.. Okay. Which is a progressive grassroots movement in Israel. I guess we could say Israel Palestine, which mobilizes thousands around peace, equality, and social justice, and has been a monumental force showing the world that solidarity between Jews and Palestinians in that land is possible and crucial. He's an Atlantic fellow for social and economic equity and has been an activist since adolescence organizing Israel's first national Waiters Union. Hey. Yeah. Waiters of the world unite. You have nothing to lose, but your

Alon-Lee Green:

chains.

Daniel Maté:

He has also worked in the Israeli parliament known as the Knesset for five years in legislation and building citizens campaigns, that have advanced laws benefiting workers, students, and the L-G-B-T-Q community. Alon Lee's brave, outspoken support for both Palestinian and Israeli liberation with equal rights for all from the river to the sea, has inspired thousands across Israel, Palestine, and the world to stand up for humanity, over taking sides and Alon lee, we can, I think, very confidently say that you are an indeed a heroic super humanizer at the front line of peace. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

Alon-Lee Green:

Wow. That's an introduction and thank you very much. I'm really happy to be here.

Daniel Maté:

Yeah, you're welcome. I wish I'd written it. I've got great research team behind me, but I can confirm it's all true. I mean, really After October 7th happened, when I was looking to see what's happening in Israeli society and I was looking cringing'cause I knew it was gonna be ugly. What I didn't expect to see was just the just how vocal and prominent and courageous and bold you and Sally and the whole movement have been. And you've been such an important voice for exposing the world to a different picture of Israel that, we don't wanna exaggerate it and say that it's the mainstream, but we don't wanna minimize it either because it's a very important and I certainly hope growing segment of the of the society. So I'll be asking you about that. But before we do, there's a game we'd like to play on this podcast called What Brings You Joy. Would you be willing to play it with me?

Alon-Lee Green:

Yes, please.

Daniel Maté:

All right, great. So we're gonna do three rounds and it's a skill testing question. Uh, Alon-Lee, my friend. What brings you joy?

Alon-Lee Green:

Home. I feel in so many ways that home is a place where I can recharge and regain and prepare to the outside, the outside world, the outside challenges. I feel that in many ways the. Level of noise and attacks and challenges that exist in the last, months and even years for me and some of my colleagues is so high that I guess I get a peace of mind and a peace of quiet when I come home and it brings me joy.

Daniel Maté:

Do you feel like that's underrated in activism, the importance of taking care of the inner side of things so that you can then show up for the outer?

Alon-Lee Green:

Definitely. I think I'm learning that in, only of recently and I'm not that good in taking care of myself and protecting myself. I think the level of, the amount of trauma and things that just happened to you or happened around you and you. You pick them, you, you see them, you pick them, you're exposed to them that you just say okay, I will move on. And you think that's another thing, but actually it stays with you and you're you're really picking it with you. And then you don't give enough attention or enough space to understand even what happened. It's so easy to just go on my Instagram or my TikTok or my Telegram or whatever and turn it on and without expecting, see a dead body oh and sorry for being so direct or seeing immense pain,

Daniel Maté:

directness, direct directness is the order of the day, I think.

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah. Or seeing so much pain and then you just move on. You just turn it off. Or you write something about it. I sometimes, talk about it in my platforms, but I don't give myself the moment or space to ask what does it do to me? Or how does it affect me and others? And I think that I'm finding that at home at least I have the time to choose, not first of all, which is very important to choose, not to pick things up, not to be exposed and to have the quiet moment. I really love the two hours. I, I wake up quite early in the morning. I love the two hours of quiet. No one calls you, no one writes anything because it's too early in the morning. My partner is still asleep. So I get to sit with my coffee. I choose what to read, what to do or just be quiet and not to read anything, or not to go online and see the news. And I think it's a moment to cherish. And I felt how much I needed that in all these few months.

Daniel Maté:

Yeah, I was talking to a Palestinian activist recently, a very prominent one who had been inside of a mindset where she was like, I can't stop. My people need me right now. We're being destroyed and it would be in bad taste for me to stop. But what she came to realize for herself was ultimately she can't be of the kind of service she wants to be to her people. If she's working herself into a coma or into numbness or into jadedness and that there were other parts of her life that needed attention. And to be an effective activist, you have to have a foundation around you and your relationships have to be healthy. So I'm glad that you have a source of joy called home for you. And I'm sure home has a physical dimension and an emotional dimension and a psychological dimension and all that. Okay, great. That was round one. That was pretty rich. Second round Alon-Lee. What brings you joy?

Alon-Lee Green:

The movement. I would say the movement um, in so many ways, seeing that maybe reality is not very joyful, but you can see something real developing in front of your eyes and around you and with you that he can. Touch and feel and be part of that stands, stands in the middle of this reality. Develops sometimes, the most amazing thing a feeling that I don't know even if it will be understood to others, but I will try and say to be coming to an event, a big event that was organized by people in the movement that I had nothing to do with organizing it. I had nothing in, you know, any, bits of work I did not put, but I come and it's amazing and people did it and it tense and feeling that a lot can happen from the general view. That it's not necessarily that you have to put it's a source of power. It's a source of, feeling that sometimes reading an amazing text someone wrote in the movement, seeing Sally or Rula or Adil giving amazing speech feeling that it's not me, but it's me, it's us. It's a big us feeling that I'm part of it. And I think it's a joy and pride and a feeling that something exists in all this craziness and, yeah.

Daniel Maté:

That's the true definition of a successful venture, right? You set something in motion or you collaborate in setting, in motion. You have some role in setting in motion, but if it falls apart, if you're not there, that's not what you want for it. You wanna

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah.

Daniel Maté:

Create something that doesn't require you anymore. It's not about you.

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah.

Daniel Maté:

You get to contribute to it and yeah, I can relate to that. That's a beautiful thing. I've never done it on the scale that you have. It's quite inspiring. Okay, great. And lastly, Alon-Lee, what brings you joy?

Alon-Lee Green:

Okay. So that's the most disconnected thing that I can do in my life. And really the runaway, but watching horror movies that brings me joy. Yeah, I'm a big fan of horror movies. Unfortunately there aren't that many good horror movies that come all the time. So every few months you will get to watch a horror movie that will surprise you and you will feel like that's a good horror movie, that, that really pushes the right buttons. It's not too cheap or it's cheap in a very fun way. And that brings me joy like really good joy to be disconnecting and watching a very good horror movie.

Daniel Maté:

I think that would surprise some people to hear from a peace activist that watching, you know, blood and guts and horror and fear. But believe me,

Alon-Lee Green:

it can be nuanced. You have different kinds of horror movies. Um,

Daniel Maté:

well, sure, sure, Sure. And there can be very socially conscious horror movies too. I grew up in the 1980s, which I think in some ways was the golden era of

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah.

Daniel Maté:

Hollywood horror movies and the franchises. And I dressed up as Freddie Krueger once for Halloween. But I can also relate that almost it's homeopathic, that at a certain point I'd been a peace loving kid. And at age 12 I discovered Metallica.

Alon-Lee Green:

Mm-hmm.

Daniel Maté:

And it was the most soothing music I'd ever heard. I would listen to their injustice for all album to fall asleep.

Alon-Lee Green:

Wow.

Daniel Maté:

It was like enya for me. It just regulated something in me. Anyway. Thank you for playing that game with me. Would you be willing to reverse roles?

Alon-Lee Green:

Yes. I'm gonna ask you then, Yalla.

Daniel Maté:

Yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

All right. So Daniel, what brings you joy?.

Daniel Maté:

One thing that brings me joy is being back in this conversation with Israelis and Palestinians. I've been estranged from it for several decades since my days in the labor Zionist left wing Zionist, which these days is starting to sound more and more like an oxymoron. But back in the eighties and nineties, we had this vision that we could be both Jewish nationalists and good hippies and going to summer camp which was a really utopian place, and living on a kibbutz for 10 months. We were oblivious about many things, but one of the things it did is it allowed us to be connected to Israeli society, not nearly connected enough to Palestinian society. And that was a huge chauvinist blind spot. But I still, without any shame, have fond memories of being connected to that part of the Jewish world. Which, whatever you think about it is an important part of the Jewish world. And there's a lot that I love about Israelis. And then I just got over it. I got jaded about it, and I tuned out. And every few years when Israel would quote, unquote mow the lawn in Gaza or something, I would, post about it angrily on Facebook. And Israelis became more and more to me like the cousins I don't speak to. And since October 7th, my world has really opened back up and reminded me how much I care about this part of my world. And that necessarily involves speaking to way more Palestinians than I have in my life. I've been like a sympathetic. Cheerleader, but they've remained an abstraction for me in a lot of ways that as they can for us privileged North American Jews and North Americans, period. And I'm sure for Israelis too, you know, so the, the joy of, of reconnecting with the human side of this quote unquote conflict and the human beings in it, those who have woken up to the nature of it, and those who dare to dream of a better future, brings me a deep sense of I'm very moved by it. It's not just, it's not joy in the sense of, oh, this is so much fun. It is. But more than that it's very meaningful to me.

Alon-Lee Green:

Sounds like, um, like coming back to an old territory, an old land that you used to know, but what do you feel you meet today when you are exposed or can interact with the Israeli society, knowing the Israeli society of, back then?

Daniel Maté:

Yeah. The battle lines have been drawn so much more clearly than they ever were before. There used to be. I remember had, when I was in Israel in 1993 or 94, I proudly wore a Meretz t-shirt, right? The political party of Yoa Reed and Shomi Lon and

Alon-Lee Green:

mm-hmm.

Daniel Maté:

these good left wing, socialist oriented Jews who wanted land for peace. They wanted a two-state solution. They were against the occupation and all that. And then the second intifada happened in the late nineties, early two thousands, and it seemed like the Israeli peace movement gave up, shrugged its shoulders and said there's no one to talk to. Which was its destiny all along, because that's been the Israeli attitude, the Abba Aban attitude of the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity and all that bullshit. So on the one hand I've noticed that the Israelis who are still clinging to the dream of a Jewish supremacist state that. Can be secure and can can somehow secure itself and not commit Massive crimes are more and more hysterical, although maybe I shouldn't use that word 'cause it's got misogynist history, but what's the word? What histrionic? Insane lunatic. Like they, they're just, they're going get, they're getting more and more crazy. They, as they would have to,'cause they're clinging to a sinking ship, you know? and they're desperate and they're scared. So the amount of fear and the trauma that's on the surface in Israeli society, and you can see it on the TikTok and on Twitter and all that kind of stuff. But as far as the Israelis that I still have something in common with, in terms of a worldview, they have radicalized radically. There's just open talk about how this project called Israel, as it currently stands, is not tenable. Something fundamentally is gonna have to shift. And hearing Israelis talk about from the river to the Sea, Palestine and Israel will be free. I wasn't hearing that before. That was very fringe. It's still fringe, but that now is the peace position, and also this generation, your generation, the younger generations, Israelis and Palestinians, social media has made it so that it's so much easier. It's ironic, you're living there right next to each other, but it's never been easier to actually connect and people are doing that work and dealing with their own. And also we're living in a trauma aware era. I'm not sure if you know, but I co-wrote a book about trauma called The Myth of Normal with my dad. And, And we're living at a time where trauma is mainstream so everyone knows they're carrying pain. So people are more responsible for their own stuff and they're so they're able to meet other people on a more equal playing field. So those are some of the things I see in those are also grounds for joy, or at least optimism

Alon-Lee Green:

Wow, that's very interesting. Um, Also the, the part of the trauma it does feel, that seeing a war in front of your eyes and seeing how it's all, developed online all the time, it is very true that we are aware, of the trauma and talk about the trauma in real time.

Daniel Maté:

Yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

Also, the soldiers in a very dichotomy world, you can look at all the soldiers, the Israeli soldiers in, in, in Gaza and say, those are the oppressors. But you can also look at them and see how they are also victims victims of the system, victims of the conception in the Israeli government and politics that, we can maintain military control over millions of people and somehow. Expect violence not to come. And, then the soldiers are paying the price from the Israeli side. Of course, it's a very different one from the Palestinians. That's right. But yeah, that's right.

Daniel Maté:

I've been saying recently that we talk about hostages. Hostages, free the hostages. Yeah. Let's release all 7 million hostages that, that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu have the cognitive capture of the entire Israeli public, keeping them in the trauma state, keeping them scared, keeping them isolated from the world, keeping them in a bunker of paranoia and psychosis. Let's free everybody and then all and first and foremost, free the Palestinians who are under material and military occupation. Not a metaphorical one, you know?

Alon-Lee Green:

exactly. Yeah. uh, But coming back to Joy

Daniel Maté:

Yes, please.

Alon-Lee Green:

From these things. So what, what, what brings you joy?

Daniel Maté:

Humor brings me joy. Humor brings me joy and being able to find ways to laugh in this moment, whether it's laughing at the madness or just laughing in spite of the madness and about something else. And I've been really relieved that my sense of humor is, seems to be allowed in this moment by the people who are seeking solidarity and, like even Palestinians.'cause I make light of a lot of shit on you know, and I, I dunno if you saw, but I took part in a parody video. Like this is the ultimate. In fact, the ironic thing is, I used to do this all the time at Habonim summer camp. I used to write parody songs based on uh, pop songs about this or that issue, or making fun of someone, one of the counselors or just all that changing the lyrics. So on YouTube recently, I I collaborated with the podcaster, Katie Halper and some other friends of ours to create a song. For Bebe and Biden to be singing to each other based on that 1980s movie theme song from mannequin. Nothing's gonna stop us now. And we made a music video and I played the voice of Bebe and Mike McCrae, who's one of America's best impersonating comedians, played Biden and I co-wrote the lyrics and I was really worried that Palestinians were gonna be offended.' cause it's like, how can you laugh at this? And there were lines like. And when the strip runs out of Gazans, we'll go kill their cousins. Nothing's gonna stop us now. I mean, Just like ri rhymes that were like a little too sharp or like, and if our rep gets any loa we'll invoke the showa.

Alon-Lee Green:

Okay. Things like that,

Daniel Maté:

And if South Africa accuses, they just hate the Jews um, you know,

Alon-Lee Green:

Sounds fun. I must say. It sounds so fun.

Daniel Maté:

It's tons of fun. And it's meant to be cathartic.'cause if you can't say something, you can't see it. If you can't name something, you can't really deal with it. And I was hoping that it would have that effect. And I was worried that people would be so serious in this moment. And I would totally understand if they were like, what are you North American Jew doing, making light of this? But in fact, it seems to be medicine and I'm really just grateful to uh, also, you know, I have a friend, Matt Lieb who has a podcast called Bad Hasbara, where he just takes apart Israeli Hasbara and I've co-hosted the show with him. And, um. I'm just grateful for anyone who can keep their sense of humor and critical thinking alive in this moment. brings me joy that human beings can still generate a sense of lightness and playfulness. In the face of unimaginably cruel realities. because it means we haven't lost our humanity. And one of my favorite things about Jewish tradition in fact, is satirical humor. Ashkenazi Jews basically invented American standup comedy and uh, contributed a lot to musical theater and vaudeville and all that. And that's all about being an outsider, being able to take the piss um, when it comes to hypocrisy and, and illegitimate power. So that brings me a lot of joy.

Alon-Lee Green:

It actually I, I didn't know that Jews had something to do with developing the comedy scene in, in the US

Daniel Maté:

basically that us two oppressed peoples created American comedy

Alon-Lee Green:

amazing. And I do feel sometimes, wow, I wish any, no one will actually hear what's, what jokes we can tell each other in the office and like. I will say something about Palestinians, someone else will say something about the Jews. It's all very funny, but then you're like, so afraid someone will hear it. But yeah, maybe it does help us a lot to deal with with what's happening and just to get to a moment of letting go.

Daniel Maté:

That is what comedy is. The laughter is a letting go of a certain kind of attachment to something. And yeah, I mean it, people say laughter is the best medicine. It's one of the best medicines. Crying is also good. And you don't wanna escape into Ha ha ha isn't everything so cute or funny? Because then you're just avoiding things. Comedy should humanize you and not, put you to sleep. And bad comedy unfortunately does that. So it's a fine line with any art form.

Alon-Lee Green:

Very interesting. So lastly, what brings you Joy Daniel?

Daniel Maté:

I would say song lyrics bring me joy. I mean, I i'm a musical theater songwriter. That's my training and um, whether I'm listening to the Wutang Clan or Joni Mitchell, or Bjork or Tom Waits, or Bob Dylan, or. Mega death or Stephen Sondheim. I went and saw a musical in London recently and just, marveling at a master craftsman. Just putting words together very specifically and rhyming. And it's just my favorite form of arts and letters really, you know, words that are meant to go with music. I love doing it. I love consuming it. The fact that human beings can write with that high level of intentionality and express things that are both highly collective and relatable, but also highly specific and individual whether it's in the pop world or in the theater world. It's the joy of my life.

Alon-Lee Green:

It sounds like you can be very diverse also with um, with this writing. You can do something super serious and then something super light and, yeah. Play with genres also.

Daniel Maté:

The same guy who wrote the Times, they're a change and wrote, everybody must get stoned within two years of each other. So, you know,

Alon-Lee Green:

That's good. That's good.

Daniel Maté:

!Everything's possible.

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Daniel Maté:

All right, great. Thank you for playing that game with me. That was a lot of fun.

Alon-Lee Green:

Thank you.

Daniel Maté:

Let's get to know a bit more about you. Can you just tell us about you, where you're from and and your background. What would you say about your upbringing would be worth knowing in terms of understanding how you got to be where you're at today?

Alon-Lee Green:

So I'm originally from Tel Aviv. And I still live now in Tel Aviv, but I grew up in the center of Tel Aviv in the nineties and the beginning of the two thousands and. That was to a very small family. It was only my twin brother and, and me. Um, I have an identical twin. Um,

Daniel Maté:

Does he have identical politics?

Alon-Lee Green:

No. And at times he's very angry with me being so involved in politics because he gets some of the shit that is thrown at me. yeah, actually the, the time of, of the war was,

Daniel Maté:

that's a play that, that is a, that is a piece of theater in itself. Two twin brothers on the different sides of this issue.

Alon-Lee Green:

Not different sides No, he is not a fascist or something, but sure, not at all. He is in the center left, I would say.

Daniel Maté:

Sure.

Alon-Lee Green:

But we, we co-own together a secondhand bookshop in Tel Av uh, named the Green Brothers. And because, it's out there in Tel Aviv, in really the center of Tel Aviv. People know it for already 12 years, and it's kind of a, institution already in the city. A lot of, of angry, more fascist people or right wing people came to the store to try and, attack me or curse me or throw something at me during the months of the war and finding him there looking exactly like me. And yeah I'm not working there to whomever listens. I'm not spending my days there. I'm not working there. If you come and see a person that looks like Alon Lee In this shop. It's not Alon Lee it's Eli and he looks exactly the same. Don't curse him. Don't throw anything at him. Please. Yeah. Leave Eli alone.

Daniel Maté:

In fact, leave Eli Alon. He's not Alon

Alon-Lee Green:

Exactly.

Daniel Maté:

So it was just the two of us my, my mother and my grandmother. And I guess being a single parent family in the city of Tel Aviv, which is a very, you know, it's the elitist center of Israel. And also the center of Tel Aviv. You get a lot of families that are, doing well. And my mom wasn't doing well having to raise two kids alone. And she insisted on,

Alon-Lee Green:

you know,

Daniel Maté:

staying in Tel Aviv, sending us to the schools of Tel Aviv living next to her mother, our grandmother. But you could feel the gaps. I could feel the gaps growing up. The gaps um, you know, of us versus the other kids. What they were and what we were coming to their houses and then coming to our houses. It was very obvious. And I guess we, I felt it quite strongly as a feeling of unfairness that just went with me for many years. Um, Shaped me in many ways. I think that probably the memories that today, I can call them, the first political memories I have in my life were of my school teacher calling my name in front of the entire class before the yearly trip. Saying that if my mom is not going to pay the school before tomorrow morning, I'm not gonna get on the bus with the rest of the class. And I remember being ashamed. I remember feeling. That I have no control over this reality that I didn't choose it. Like why is it happening to me?

Alon-Lee Green:

Um,

Daniel Maté:

Yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

And, And later on I discovered I understood I'm gay. Which also, pushed some feelings of unfairness and feelings that I need to hide something from the world. I, I'm not going to be like the rest of the world, something I'm not getting like everyone else. And I guess there was this,

Daniel Maté:

you mean mean Israel isn't the gay welcoming utopia for LGBT people that the Israel's official Twitter account keeps telling us?

Alon-Lee Green:

Yes. And you might even be surprised that we don't even have the right to marry, here in Israel. Oh surprise, surprise. We do have an amazing huge LGBT parade in Tel Aviv,

Daniel Maté:

yeah, that's'cause corporations can make a lot of money off it.

Alon-Lee Green:

Yes, exactly. And the government and other companies, they really like. To wave um, to wave it, but then rights, it's not really their thing.

Daniel Maté:

So I'll ask you about pink washing later,

Alon-Lee Green:

please. One of my favorite topics, but, um,

Daniel Maté:

so you realized you were gay and you, you felt the unfairness of that all these different

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah, and I felt unfairness and I think A lot of the feelings that I carried with me and still in a deep way is that things are not right. Things are not right for me. Things are not equal, things are not fair. And in my last year of high school I started working in a coffee place, which was part of a very big American chain. If the coffee bean and tea leaf, it's a yeah, sure. California based coffee shop chain. They came to Israel and they became quickly one of the two largest coffee chains in, in Israel. And I worked in one of their branches and, 18 years old, young person in his 12th grade. Coming to work there, let's just say the law of workers' is just a recommendation um, in those kinds of places. So we didn't get a salary. We didn't get, paid for extra hours working on Shabbat, you know, the rest day we didn't get paid. And I remember coming to my, my boss there after the second paycheck telling him, listen, like I, I know I need to get paid if I work more than eight hours. Like, I need, the law says that I need to get paid for X hours, and if I come here, like I come every Saturday to work on my rest day, I need to get paid 150% for it, and you need to pay me for buses and so on. And he said like, listen, this is how we do things here. And if you don't like it, just cross the street and work in a different cafe. But I didn't, I stayed and I unionized the workers instead.

Daniel Maté:

Um, What year was this? How long ago was this?

Alon-Lee Green:

It was 2007.

Daniel Maté:

Okay. You were ahead of the curve then. I always think of Israel as catching up to, to, to US trends, but I feel like the unionization movement across retail and service industry stuff in the United States has really been a 2000 tens phenomenon, with the Amazon strike even in the last five years.

Alon-Lee Green:

So in general it's a post it's a post social protest international wave. So there was

Daniel Maté:

post Ducati,

Alon-Lee Green:

post Ducati post in, in the US it was um, occupy Wall Street in Israel. We had even a bigger protest. It was the social protest of 2011. My struggle with another two or three struggle where before the big wave, and it actually started the wave of unionizing in, in, in Israel. A big wave of building new unions in commercial companies and other places. But when I unionized the workers and I, we had 400 workers in this chain. We need to get two thirds of the workers unionized in order to be considered a legal union. But the management found out before we were recognized um, legally, and it got me fired. It got me fired because nowhere before in Israel, there was a union in the private sector. Especially of young people that came and said, we are building a union here. Not in, the electricity company or in, the telecommunication or whatever, like public sector. But it was the private sector and they told me this is the private sector, it's not legal to unionize. And I said, it is legal, but they fired me anyway.

Daniel Maté:

Mm-hmm.

Alon-Lee Green:

Um, And we took them to court. We took them to court. Uh, That within two or three weeks brought me back to work with a court order. It's a

Daniel Maté:

hell yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah. I would say

Daniel Maté:

I bet your cappuccinos were the were, you could charge double for those cappuccinos you're getting Yeah. You're getting your barista. Was court mandated to make you that drink?

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah. Yeah. I had some, some protection. It was, it was historic by ruling of the, it was the first. Even now, if a person will be um, fired because of trying to build a union in Israel, they can take them to court based on this decision that brought me back.

Daniel Maté:

How cool.

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah, but it's not the most pleasant thing, honestly. Come back in a place that just fired you and telling them you don't want me here, but the court says I should be here.

Daniel Maté:

Yeah. But that, so that started you off. It seems like that must have habituated you to not being so popular or standing up against forces that are larger than you, that are unfair that, that want to keep things going the way they are. But you see a different possibility. There's your first taste of raging against the machine. Or at least reasoning against the machine.

Alon-Lee Green:

Mm-hmm.

Daniel Maté:

Trying to change, you know, an immovable object and having some success, making a difference, you know, not overthrowing the whole system, but moving society forward in a positive direction. What you're most known for, of course, is your work with standing together, which is trying to take on an even bigger and more destructive set of oppressions and inequalities. So how did you first become aware of the the Palestinian plight? I was gonna say the Palestinian question, but I hate that phrase that always. That's exactly what the Europeans said about the Jews, right? The Jewish question. And when people become a question, you gotta find a solution, and we know how that goes.

Alon-Lee Green:

Do you know how many books are titled The Jewish Question?

Daniel Maté:

Yeah. Absolutely

Alon-Lee Green:

countless books from the same years of imperialism thinking how do we solve the Jewish problem? Do we throw them there or there? Where do we put them?

Daniel Maté:

And Z And Zionism swallowed that premise. Whole hog, right? Yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

It's the mirror image of that.

Daniel Maté:

It's the mirror image, right? Yeah. Jews are a question. We're gonna solve it over here at these people's expense, and then they become the question. So when just, can you just walk us through the sort of the birth and blooming of your awareness around this issue and what, was there a moment where you decided I have to be active on this. I can't just let it be the way it is.

Alon-Lee Green:

So I guess when, when I really became, like on my final stage of really becoming political around the workers struggling in the coffee place I understood two things. One is not really related to Palestinians, but I understood that maybe I can assume some control over my reality if I organize with other people that are in the same reality that me, the workers and it's, it was an eye-opening moment for me. And that maybe has some roots of what we're doing in standing together that the attempt to build power and to organize. But another thing that was really interesting is that we were a union of five representatives in the union representing 400, almost 400 workers. In it among the five union members union representatives. One was one person named Nazeer um, Nazeer Taha, and he was a Palestinian citizen of Israel. In the days after the second Lebanese war where the Israeli society was flooded with racism, with pointing fingers on, on Palestinian citizens of Israel, a lot

Daniel Maté:

which is what happens when Israel has any challenge whatsoever to its military might, which is what happened in 2006. Right,

Alon-Lee Green:

actually since, since that war, whenever we, like, Since 2006 almost two decades now, we had, I guess 16 rounds of military operations and war with Palestinians mainly um, in Gaza mainly. And whenever there's a big war. Racism inside Israel becomes worse. And incitement levels and violence levels towards Palestinians citizens of Israel that is just like becoming more and more worse. But that was the first moment where social media started to exist. And then people started like organizing boycotts against businesses of Arabs because they support the Lebanese in the war or they call for ceasefire and so on. And one of the union members was a Palestinian citizen of Israel and he got to get the trust of almost 99% of workers that are Jews actually, that are Jewish citizens of Israel, but still trusted him to lead them in a struggle and lead them in a six weeks. Strike that we led in the business, in the chain. Um, And together with him, I started also going to demonstrations that are not related to unions. It was the village of Bil'In in the West Bank.

Daniel Maté:

Yes, I remember, remember that being in, being in the news, or at least in the news of democracy Now. I mean, I dunno,

Alon-Lee Green:

it didn't hear the mainstream news also.

Daniel Maté:

And my brother was at democracy now then, and they were reporting on it regularly.

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah. It was a very defining struggle of the post second intifada days and the post, you know, peace attempts that really collapsed since then. Never came back. Yeah. Um, uh, The separation wall that Israel was building, of course it wasn't built around the border. The, The future may be border of Israel and Palestine. It was built not on the 67 line, but actually on the Palestinian Territories. Sometimes splitting villages to two preventing. Farmers reaching their land, preventing families to go to other homes and so on. Yeah, of course, in Jerusalem it's splitting Palestinian neighborhoods like, like in a terrible way. And the village of Bil'In organized against it and started having weekly Friday demonstrations against it. i'm at high school and luckily my high school decides this year not to have Fridays as school days. And every Friday I go to Bil'In week after week. Of course it's not legal in the West Bank to demonstrate, 'cause the army, which is a foreign army for them, because they all, those are Palestinians that are not citizens of Israel. For them, they,

Daniel Maté:

there's an occupation force.

Alon-Lee Green:

There's an occupation force that decides that not only do they occupy you, you're not allowed to demonstrate peacefully against the occupiers or against the OCC occupation. So you, you join the people of the village and,

Daniel Maté:

and of course, And of course then. Zionists and Israeli Propagandas will say, where's the Palestinian Gandhi? Where's the Palestinian Martin Luther King? When will they demonstrate

Alon-Lee Green:

he would be shot dead

Daniel Maté:

peacefully. Exactly.

Alon-Lee Green:

He would be shot dead. Actually, a lot of people that are trying to peacefully demonstrate against occupation are just met with live ammunition. And, and back then it was teargas and shock grenades and rubber bullets. And I have a friend that lost an eye there. Jewish Israeli one lost an eye in this one of the Fridays because of the rubber bullet. Um,

Daniel Maté:

Before you go on this, in going to Bilin at this time, was this your first time entering the m the territories?

Alon-Lee Green:

Yes. So my school never took us to Hebron or something like this, even though now it became very trendy for the Ministry of education demands schools to take, high schoolers to a heritage trip to meet the our forefathers like Abraham and stuff in Hebron. So you go to the occupied territories, you visit the Jewish small occupied part of Hebron. You completely ignore the fact that Hebron is actually a prototype of the occupation of apartheid. Actually, it's a city of 100,000 Palestinians and 1000 Jewish settlers, but the 100,000 Palestinians are controlled, occupied by the 1000 Jewish settlers. They have rights, the Jews, Palestinians don't have rights. And then of course you need a lot of thousands of soldiers to maintain this kind of apartheid system and control over Palestinians. Yeah I didn't go there, but that was the first time I came to even meet, Palestinians that are not the citizens of Israel. And we were, sitting there after the demonstration with families eating together, hearing stories together. And it was a very defining moment for me.

Daniel Maté:

Did was some part of you noticing, Hey, I was educated that these people hated me because I'm Jewish and here they are showing me hospitality. What was it like for you to confront the cognitive dissonance of the disconnect between what you had been told than what you were seeing in front of your eyes?

Alon-Lee Green:

I guess it was a moment of a really quick radicalization. Um, Not in the moment that, yeah, you have to be radical, blah, blah, blah. No, in the moment of shattering a lot of what. Is your common sense. That is, you know, you know, common sense is a very interesting, concept, but a common sense is something that the entire surrounding the society around you believes in a deep rooted way that that's how things are. That's the common sense. And so many times you can look at something that is completely opposite and you feel, wow, that's nonsense, that's not the common sense. Someone that will shout at you, for example, in the late 19th century that a, a woman will come to you and you said women should have the right to vote. Women should have the right to be, get elected. They should have the right to open their own businesses or to do same thing as men do. She will be shouting nonsense at you. Right.''Cause the common sense is that women are not equal to men and they shouldn't have the right to vote to work to get elected. But they had the feminist, or let's say the suffragist or whatever movement that fought for their rights. They had a different common sense. Their common sense.

Daniel Maté:

They had the uncommon sense

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah. Which is amazing. And I think that in so many ways, politics is about building a new common sense is about building enough power for enough people to have the critical mass or the historic block of creating a different common sense. And I think these moments in Bil'In shattered my common sense that was, nurtured by the state, by the education system from all around. And I, started building a different common sense that yeah, those people, the Palestinians are normal people.

Daniel Maté:

Yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

They're just there. They didn't choose that someone will come and, terrorize them in their own land or will, you know, they, they also faced extreme settlers that came and, tried to grab their land or to build

Daniel Maté:

mm-hmm.

Alon-Lee Green:

things or not allow them to work on their, like farming territories. And I think I started understanding that reality is not as it was told to me.

Daniel Maté:

Yeah. Well, and probably your, your lifelong, you know, Leonard Cohen said there's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. And you already had cracks in your view of the common sense because it didn't include you, it didn't see you, whether it was your sexuality or your class position. And speaking of class, just before we move on, I think it's really interesting and instructive to note that your way into this topic was through a Palestinian Israeli labor organizer named Nasir and here's a case where like organizing along class lines opens people up to seeing things on identity and racial lines that they otherwise wouldn't be able to see. That like in the United States, left leftist world, and maybe I'm getting a little too inside baseball here, but there's always this, there debate between, class reductionism and identity politics and all this kinda stuff. And I was just always been of the belief that like organizing around material reality and material conditions is how you build solidarity. And inside of that, there's all kinds of room for understanding the more nuanced experiences of people, of different backgrounds and stuff. But that the fundamental dividing line in our world is between those who have power and those who don't have power, you know? and so the fact that you found Palestine through unionizing is just a very, um. I don't know. Poetic uh, example of that for me, maybe I'm, maybe it's confirmation bias for me 'cause that's how I see it. But

Alon-Lee Green:

no, actually that's, that is standing together. That is standing together. It is, it is our strategy to understand that the people we're talking to could not care less about moralities if we tell them in a liberal way, oh it's more moral to end occupation. Yeah, of course it's more moral. But maybe they are afraid of a material danger of dying because of the occupation and the reality it creates. Maybe they need food on their table and the salaries they're making is not enough to make that happen. And what we are trying to do is understand that maybe instead of saying no, no, no, racism is bad to people. Or Sally always, Sally Abed, who probably some people know, but she's uh, one of, of the most prominent Palestinian voices in the Israeli society right now.

Daniel Maté:

Yes.

Alon-Lee Green:

And she's one of the leaders of, of sending together. She always has this very interesting sentence. She says, I cannot come to an Ethiopian born woman in Israel that came to Israel and is working as a cleaner, as a contract worker, as a cleaner. I cannot come to her and tell her, liberate me because I'm Palestinian,

Daniel Maté:

or, or, Or tell her to check her privilege

Alon-Lee Green:

or check her privilege. I cannot. She's Jewish, but she's also a black Jewish. She's also earning so little money that she cannot make a living in Israel. She's overlooked. No one sees her. She can be 70 years old and have no pension. So she has to work in the age in advanced age. Sally as a Palestinian cannot come to her and tell her, liberate me, or Don't forget, you're Jewish and I'm Palestinian. Sally says, I need to create a joint struggle with her. Um,

Daniel Maté:

Brilliant.

Alon-Lee Green:

And I think,

Daniel Maté:

oh, Fred Hampton understood this and he got killed for it. Um, Yeah. Yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

And I think that's what we're trying to create in standing together a shared interest a struggle that is based eventually on this question of what is a division line in politics? Is it one group against the other group around the division line of nationality identity race or gender or can we imagine a different division line, a different us and them? Which is basically the basic question in politics where there is a huge majority of an us of people that can gain something out of changing the reality of, out of creating a new reality that works and benefits. All of of society and the them is a small, small minority that actually profits and benefits from reality exactly as it is today. Right. And that's in general a class-based politics. We don't talk about it. We don't say, ah, join the socialist class. No, but we are practicing um, you know, uh, a very socialist uh, strategy actually.

Daniel Maté:

Well, That's, that strikes me as very intelligent and understandably controversial. When you have such a huge, when you have an ethnocracy, I mean, it's bad enough in the United States, which has a legacy of slavery and white supremacy and all that. And the system still bears the imprints of that. Israel is an active ethnocratic jim Crow at its very worst times a hundred. Um, Ethnostate with a brutal military occupation. So I can understand how some people would, would look at a group like yours and now we're getting into some of the controversy we're talking about and say well, you're both siding it, you're saying let's just live together. They could caricature you as saying well, let's just live together in peace. You know, we're all the same, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now I know that's not what you're saying

Alon-Lee Green:

mm-hmm.

Daniel Maté:

But do you have any sympathy for, um, people's misgivings about your approach as to, as opposed to say, an anti-racist approach or an approach that goes at Israelis and, and calls them out for being settlers? I actually wanted to ask you about the term settler and the term Zionist. Maybe we could start there with some basic definitions.'cause if we're gonna talk about this, we have to know what these words mean. What is Zionism to you and to what extent, if at all, do you consider yourself a settler?

Alon-Lee Green:

Oh wow. Starting with some heavy guns here. Um,

Daniel Maté:

Yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

I guess those are questions. It's very interesting. But those are questions that will only be asked by people that don't live in inside our society.

Daniel Maté:

Hmm.

Alon-Lee Green:

Because whether you are Palestinian citizen of Israel or a Jewish citizen of Israel, you will never ask if someone is a Zionist or not a Zionist because it's kind of such a dominant idea that it is not, not even a topic of conversation because it's such a granted thing for everyone. And in our language, in our spoken quotes and understanding in our cultural politics, a settler will be a person that lives in the West Bank um, that is practicing a life in a Jewish settlement outside of the borders of Israel in the occupied territories of Palestine.

Daniel Maté:

Right.

Alon-Lee Green:

So I guess whenever I speak to someone abroad. Whenever I you know, we are not, you know, exclusively working only in Hebrew or Arabic inside the, 67 borders of, of the Israeli state. Whenever we do work outside of these borders and we talk with someone else in English, we have one basic rule and it is that our work on the land, in the land is more important than, entertaining people outside and entertaining their thoughts, questions.

Daniel Maté:

How dare you? How, how dare you, How dare you minimize you entertaining us.

Alon-Lee Green:

This is, I'm sorry to let you go, but, But I'm sorry. It's more important for us to create change in our society.

Daniel Maté:

That is really, that's great. I love that.

Alon-Lee Green:

And yes, we are completely aware of the fact that people expect to hear some, code and words and some hot um, uh, words from us. And they really like to use some words that we don't use. But I need to convince my society, I need to build power in my society. I need to change the reality of this land. And in order to do that, we have a strategy that fits what we are trying to do, fits the responsibility we chose to take upon ourselves. It is okay that other people in other places will take different, you know, strategies. But our strategy,

Daniel Maté:

for instance, the Palestinians in the territories. Right. Who have no access to Israeli society and have no voice. Yeah. For

Alon-Lee Green:

I, for example,

Daniel Maté:

their recourse is to resistance, whether violent or non-violent. And I don't hear you guys telling them how to conduct their business. You're doing what you're doing. Right.

Alon-Lee Green:

I, I will say that in general, yes, but the question of a violent resistant um, of course. I'm against, hurting innocent civilians. Sure. It's there's a red line there. And I think that it needs to be understood that even in the 7th of October, some people would say that was, a justified resistance. I think that killing children, women, men, innocent people is not justified. And you cannot justify it. Even if it's on for the sake of freedom of, of someone. I think it needs to be said. But coming back to the questions of the definitions, we operate in a society that is a challenging society. We are not only saying, and I'm not only saying allow me to deceive, I'm not saying it at all. Allow me to deceive the people so I will use the words that they wanna hear. No, I love my society. I am part of my society. My struggle and our struggle in our society is a patriotic struggle and the only patriotic way, actually for this society to achieve good life as well. My struggle is not only to stand in solidarity with Palestinians. It is also that, but it's also the self-interest of the Jews living in this land to really come to a place where we end violence, where we achieve a good life for our communities and our families. And I think that maybe another thing that is important to try and understand about standing together is that we care about justice and we care about historic justice and we care about what happened in this land, but we also work towards a solution. So we will never stop in the place of saying, okay, because of things that happened in history, we cannot. Cooperate with anyone because their families came from what they did and what, no, there's a basic reality. And this basic reality is that there are 7 million Palestinians living on this land that are going nowhere, that are calling this land their homelands. And next to them there are 7 million Jews that are living on this land, that are going nowhere, even though some people have fantasies about it. And they also call this place their homeland. And that's the reality. You can argue about the story.

Daniel Maté:

You don't make a distinction. You don't make a distinction between people like you. Who were born there and Shmuley who moved from, uh, from Brooklyn two months ago. You think he has an equal right to, I think to remain there?

Alon-Lee Green:

I think that Israel should, I really think that Israel should cease to have any racist and discriminative law. And yes the their law of return and the law of citizenship in Israel are two racist laws that discriminate Palestinian citizens of Israel over or, you know, Jews get, gets more rights there. And I think that Israel should have a modern uh, immigrate law that of course will give any Jewish person that is being chased because, or persecuted because of j udaism the right to come and have a life in Israel. But no, it does not mean that he, I

Daniel Maté:

including Columbia students who are, who are uncomfortable'cause they saw a keffiye on the way to class.

Alon-Lee Green:

Poor them. I'm, I'm, I really feel sorry for them. Um, Tough life, really. Um,

Daniel Maté:

Yeah, it's real, it's really tough.

Alon-Lee Green:

But what, But what I'm trying to say is that I, I think that if Jews have the right, for example, to live here in Israel, even though they're like American citizens. So I think that also Palestinians that, are originated from here, they should also have the, should get the right to immigrate and to become citizens of this country. But the definitions cannot stop us from creating change. And our strategy is a change that is based on people. If we talked about materialism, we talked about material life. There are interests here. Israel and Israelis is not the same thing. The people that live here, that can be Jews or Palestinians have conflicts with our government, have needs, have aspirations. Hopes and fears and problems. And we need to understand that Israel is also having a society. And a lot of what we hear in the world is saying, I'm taking the side of Palestinians, which is amazing and good and important. I'm also taking the side of Palestinians. But that means for some people that they're against all Israelis. They say to boycott all Israelis, they say that all Israelis are somehow benefiting from their occupation and the war. And, what we are saying is no, being supporting of Israelis necessarily means you need to be supportive of the Palestinians and their rights for freedom and independence and equality, but also being supportive of Palestinians needs to come with being supportive of the Israelis that live here, because both of those people are not going anywhere.

Daniel Maté:

Absolutely. So, So in this moment, you're not you're, you're talking to me, right? You're not talking to Israelis. So can we talk a little more candidly than you would if you're on the streets of Tel Aviv trying to convince someone?

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah, sure. Ask. It's not that I have anything,

Daniel Maté:

so just between you and me. No, No, I know. I just wanna know what you think about this.' cause there's a point of view one could make, and I think I'm sympathetic to it instinctively, although i'm, i'm persuadable I, I love everything you're saying.

Alon-Lee Green:

Mm-hmm.

Daniel Maté:

And of course, I am sitting outside. I am totally in the, in the cheap seats. You know, watching this, Watching this sports game or theater piece from the balcony and clapping and cheering and booing and all that shit. Like, it's, it is in a fundamental way. I do not have skin in the game the way you do. So I just have to own that. And many of us do not, whether we're anti-Zionist Jews or Palestinians in the diaspora or unaffiliated people I constantly have to be remembered that living on the land, whoever you are. Is necessarily it's that quantum physics thing of the, changes the thing by who's, who's viewing it. That said, from my outside point of view, I wonder about this when you talk about you're patriotically doing it for your own people or for your own country. Well, The, when, the question is what is the nature of that country? do we have to at some point say that the future that you're envisioning will at some point necessarily involve and this is not the, maybe the first step, but the dismantling of the thing now known as Israel, which is to say the state of the Jews, because by that name and that flag and that national anthem are by definition and from the ground up. Created to be a bunker for the Jewish people and fuck anyone else that that's how it was built. Now you could transform that place, that land, and certainly the not, as you say, Israel is not the same as Israelis. The people currently called Israelis are human beings. They're Jews living in that land. But is it not accurate to say that in some fundamental ways, the structures that constitute the country currently called Israel, many of them at least, will have to be dismantled. So radically that it would be unrecognizable and that we have to be preparing ourselves for that future. And that any activism that's predicated on, oh no, we can keep things kind of the way they are, but just more equal is naive. And now we get into the realm of terms like normalization, which I don't, I don't like that term. I think it's one of these conversation ending terms, but you start to see where people might be coming from. Does that resonate with you at all?

Alon-Lee Green:

So I would say that I understand the dreams and I understand the ending points that we should aspire to get to. And I will say that yes, I'm signing. On any form of existence of this land, that all people that live here are equal and free and independent, and there's no form of discrimination. And I will continue to fight even if we end occupation one day, I will continue to fight until this country will be an equal country and there will be no discrimination. And you can understand what it means about a lot of forms of discrimination that grants Jews more rights here than than Palestinians. No question about it for me. But I do wanna say, you know what? I will even say that I'm also like my ending vision is a socialist federation of the Middle East. Okay. I think that's the best way to have our lives organized here. We have amazing people in Lebanon, amazing people in Syria and Jordan. Done, let me just

Daniel Maté:

order, I'm just gonna order it on DoorDash. Okay. I'm just gonna put order that. Okay. Amazing.

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah. That, that's the nice vision.

Daniel Maté:

They're gonna deliver it. There's a delivery fee. They'll have it here within 45 minutes.

Alon-Lee Green:

Thank you very much. Finally, someone is being practical here. Um,

Daniel Maté:

Tachlass(to the point), right?

Alon-Lee Green:

Tachass (to the point), But what our current and urgent role is to stop the bloodshed.

Daniel Maté:

Yes.

Alon-Lee Green:

And it's very interesting to have these discussions about what is the, the characteristic of the future state and where will the struggle continue? But there is a struggle in front of us right now, and the struggle is to win and build enough power to win in order to save people's lives and in order to create. The basic existence where you can leave your home in East Jerusalem or West Jerusalem knowing that you're safe. Or in Gaza, knowing that a bomb will not drop on your head. Or you will be told to evacuate to the city of Rafah just to one month after be told that you need to evacuate to a different place, but your home is destroyed.

Daniel Maté:

So, or that your, Or that your 5-year-old son, 12 years from now isn't gonna be patrolling some neighborhood, shooting at children, throwing rocks or playing soccer. Like, Yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

So, So I think there is a very urgent sense to, yeah. The struggle right now. We need to end the war. We need to end the occupation, and we need to come to a place where both political leaderships, both of the Jewish people here, the Israeli state and of the Palestinians, are able to get into a room together with the intention of ending an occupation. Achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace and really achieving independence for both people. Our role in standing together is to create the political will and the popular demand from the Israeli side to put our government in the room. Okay? So we can talk about what will happen after that. But it's a big enough role right now to really push this this and to really concentrate in, in this. And I understand a lot of people will look from the outside and say they acknowledge the Israeli society, which we are part of. Don't tell them what we are. Part of our, the Israeli society. 20% of the citizens of Israel are Palestinian citizens of Israel. They have no choice, by the way, when you wanna boycott them as well.'cause the BDS. Boycots them sometimes. They have no choice but to participate in the Israeli society. They teach in our schools. They work in our hospitals. In their hospitals because it's a mutual service for both of the citizens, even though it's discriminative. And there are, you know, a lot of, racism and discrimination. It's also their society.

Daniel Maté:

Mm-hmm.

Alon-Lee Green:

Um, And I think that word normalization misses that there is a society here.

Daniel Maté:

Yes.

Alon-Lee Green:

And Palestinians are also part of this society.

Daniel Maté:

Yes.

Alon-Lee Green:

Um, Do we need to storm ahead and change the society? Yes. That's our job. That's our role. Um,

Daniel Maté:

Yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

Does it mean that you need to inhibit, we say spill the baby with the bath water?

Daniel Maté:

Yeah. Throw out the baby with the bath water.

Alon-Lee Green:

Exactly. Do we need to do that while we're trying to end racism, occupation, war, and achieve equality and freedom for everyone? I think you can't do that because those people are going to remain my people. I'm going to remain here, I hope. And yeah, we need to find a solution.

Daniel Maté:

Yeah. Even if you want it to be like just practical about it, and you just wish the Jews would leave someone, show me a programmer that's gonna happen. Like, I can have sympathy for the, the wish for revenge or the view that Jews, I mean also, how are you going, how are you gonna determine between the Jews who have actual lineage there and the Ashkenazim who came and fucked everything up? Like you'd have to have some kind of blood test and like, like you just start to think about any kind of scenario in which you're trying to like extricate Jewish life from that land without booting out the, the people who have been living.

Alon-Lee Green:

Do you know many

Daniel Maté:

forever?

Alon-Lee Green:

Do you know how many times in the last four months I got on my Twitter or Instagram? Um. if you're really for the Palestinians, you should all caps leave. Um,

Daniel Maté:

Yeah,

Alon-Lee Green:

and just go out of our country or our state or land and it's like, where do you want me to live to?

Daniel Maté:

Yeah.

Alon-Lee Green:

It's my home. The only home I have in the world. It's also your home if you're Palestinian. Um, Yes history brought us to a terrible place. And my people did crimes in this uh, process and the things that, that really happened. There was a nakba. I acknowledge that there is a continuous discriminative and racist um, oppression of Palestinians. I acknowledge that as well, but I'm here and, you know, we can pick a lot of moments in history and other places and say, this is the moment where I wish to pause and say, so whomever came after this moment leave and whomever, but everyone migrated and stuff and there is a very fresh and recent history, so I understand. The claim and the anger. But I am half Turkish Bulgarian, like where? Like my, my heritage. I don't, I'm not, I'm not a citizen of Islamic country. I'm not sure. President Erdogan will say, oh, please come, come back to me. Here is the home. You, your family used to live in. The city of Ed.

Daniel Maté:

Not everyone is the king of Morocco.

Alon-Lee Green:

Yeah. So what do you like also, do I split half of my body here and the other half to Exactly different? Yeah,

Daniel Maté:

exactly. All right. So we're talking about practicalities and we're talking about messaging and you have a, politics are about priorities, right? And trying to achieve an achievable goal within a certain amount of time. Which means that you must have a message for different groups, something you're trying to get across to them. So if you could sum up what it is you want Israelis to understand and, and particularly Israelis who are too traumatized or angry right now in the wake of October 7th. And I would say, in my view, their government is keeping them traumatized and angry on purpose. But that aside, for whatever reason, you know, if they're too just activated to see a solidarity path to peace and liberation, how do you get through to them? What do you want them to know?

Alon-Lee Green:

I guess that I want us to see, to really notice and not to just, you know, see, but also to look and to understand that in front of us, there's a reality full of chains. That the Palestinians are in prison at the moment, not very metaphoric a very realistic prison. But in a prison, not only the prisoner is at the prison, also the guard is at the prison. And maybe the prisoner goes to sleep at night and he sleeps in a chain and is locked up, locked in a chamber of a prison. But the guard might go back to home and sleep and he will dream about the prison. And I think that we need to open our eyes and to see the chains, see the prison that we are both in, and understand that we have this reality to lose. And it might be scary to lose a reality. We know and we feel is necessary and we feel we have no choice. Because we are o occupying them or controlling them because otherwise they will, you know, come, come to us and do the 7th of October again and again and again. And before the 7th of October they, they never missed a chance to miss a chance. And it's there to blame. Yes, it might be scary to lose this reality, but we have a full rich, free and beautiful world to win and to progress to that cannot be the last stop in history. That cannot be the last moment of how we exist. We must set ourselves free and get to the place where we are living in a free society.' cause it never stops only with the Palestinians. Palestinians are the first one, but then there are the Palestinian citizens of Israel and then there are the leftists and the gay people. And we are all paying a price. For war and occupation. And so it is our self-interest to be free and no one is free until everyone is free.

Daniel Maté:

And just a brief follow up to that, do you feel that there's some oppor, I mean, looking at Israeli society again from the outside, which is where most of the world is and is very happy to be, you know, they wouldn't trade places with you for a second. Um, It can look as if Israeli society has gone completely nuts and it's hopeless. But I wonder if on the ground you see some opportunity in the fact that the trauma is so activated right now. The situation is so untenable. People are so upset, they don't know where to put the blame. Could this be a moment of unprecedented malleability as opposed to things getting more rigid and inflexible.

Alon-Lee Green:

Yes, definitely. And I would look at two things that can be nice examples to showcase it. One is, think of mothers, mothers fathers. Would you feel, and I think every parent in the world can connect to this question feeling, would you feel solid and safe enough to send your child to be a soldier in Gaza? Or would you be scared to death that they will lose their lives, that they will come back traumatized and with post trauma? That they will see things and do things. Every person, almost every person in Israel thinks about it. And that's a driving force and that's a interest and there's a self-interest that we can recognize and isolate there of parents understanding that they should wish a better reality also for their children at the moment. Even if there are a lot of soldiers that are like happily running to Gaza saying, we're going to defeat them. We're going to kill all terrorists, blah, blah, blah, blah. Even that, think of the feelings of mothers and fathers and you recognize there uh, seed for change

Daniel Maté:

mm-hmm.

Alon-Lee Green:

that we can use, that we can build on. The second thing is I will say that crisis crisises and crisis is really an opportunity for clarity. And I think we have this opportunity, historical opportunity in the Israeli society at the moment. Um, The entire world is also shouting at us. Um, And we need to see that opportunity to seize it also and to present an option. I think that, it's easy to blame Israelis, but the truth is there's no alternative for us if a normal person in Israel will only hear what the right wing have to say. There's no political left in Israel. There's no real alternative. We need to create a competition in our politics in our society to present a solid alternative that people will be feeling that they can choose.

Daniel Maté:

So my question, my next question might be better put to someone like Sally right, who's coming from the Palestinian community, but since you guys are standing together uh, I'll, I'll put it to you. What is your message to Palestinians who don't see a partner for peace in Israelis?

Alon-Lee Green:

Yes, there is no partner in Israel uh, at the moment. There is

Daniel Maté:

uh, you're not, you're not gonna gaslight them and say, oh, no, don't worry, we're coming. The cavalry's coming.

Alon-Lee Green:

No, I think for many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many years there wasn't any partner. It's funny because it's an Israeli slogan to say there's no partner, meaning that there is no partner in Palestinians, but it's just stand in front of a mirror and see, there's no partner in Israel who is the partner Smotrich or Ben Gvir? or maybe it's Netanyahu That's for 14 years is a prime minister saying that I'm the only one that can prevent a Palestinian state. So even if it's forced,

Daniel Maté:

or Benny Gantz that famous, that famous Palestinian lover,

Alon-Lee Green:

and even if Netanyahu is forced to the room with Palestinians like he has been because of, of American presidents, he's coming to the room without an intention to even be a partner. So That's right. No, there isn't a partner in the Israeli side, but there's also a difference between the Israeli society and the Israeli leadership and the Israeli government. Remember, we've been in the streets against our government for 10 straight months before October 7th. You know that one out of eight people in this huge hundreds of thousands of people sometimes rally wore a shirt. It was a a, a de pro democratic rallies against the the judicial overhaul. A lot of us were saying, it's not enough to just talk about the Supreme Court. We need to talk about the occupation. And one out of eight people wore a shirt. It was becoming more and more popular saying there's no democracy with occupation. And it was growing and it was getting more and more popular and people are seeing that the ones that are trying to narrow down our democracy are the ones that are building settlements and want to oppress Palestinians. And then of course there's a huge setback because of October 7th. People are really afraid and you need to understand that people are really afraid. It's not propaganda, it's not unreal. There is fear that is controlling the Israeli society. What we saw on 7th of October is not something you can unsee, is not something you can move on quickly or easily from. And we need to put that as one of the factors of the reality we need to deal with. We can say, ah, no, don't center the, I don't know. People will might say, don't center the experience around yourself. I'm not, but it's a real experience and people experience it and have it. It's a factor. It's there. We need to acknowledge that.

Daniel Maté:

Dammit, you sound like an organizer. You're so practical and, and, and, and non-sectarian. You're just keeping your eye on the prize. You got some, you got a, you got a world to win, like you said. Lastly, how can we, in the international community, better show up and support you and other peace movements in Israel Palestine as opposed to, just doing this for our own validation and or dopamine?

Alon-Lee Green:

I would say first understand that it's not a football game and it's not about picking who do you cheerlead. It's about really pushing forward a solution, a discussion about. A way to change reality. It's also not a competition of who's condemning reality stronger is, is, is a question of who's able to build grounds for creating change. I would say that or urge your governments to not support crimes, to not support the Israeli fascist right-wing government. You have the power to influence your own politics, so it's a very important ability of yours. And I would say that support, support any organization in the Palestinian, you know, in Gaza or in the West Bank or even a Jewish, Palestinian movement in Israel, support us with amplifying our voice with telling a story that there is this thing happening. Donating is always something our kind of, of movements and organization need. Yeah.

Daniel Maté:

You mentioned, the tendency to wanna just boycott all Israelis, and that's, you may have differences with the capital B, capital D, capital S movement, which is a big topic we don't have time to get into. I imagine you're not saying that small B small, D small like that boycotting weapons manufacturers or aspects of Israeli society the benefit from occupation.

Alon-Lee Green:

I'm boycotting, I'm boycotting any product from the settlements and I'm calling my fellow Israeli citizens to do so. I think every person in the world should not pay a dime for something that has been manufactured by land grabbing or by oppressing other uh, people. Boycotting the Israeli society is a complete different thing is identifying the entire society here with the settlements, with the right wing, with the government, which is what the government is trying to do, basically to say Bibi Netanyahu says, "israelis is me and I'm Israel." I don't think it's true,

Daniel Maté:

Okay, great. Thank you so much for this wide reaching and very candid conversation. I'd only seen you previously on quick Instagram hits quick videos and you talking to the camera and urgently trying to raise awareness about this protest or this movement or whatever. And that, that puts you in a certain position of having to speak a certain way. And I'm really glad we had the chance to hear from you in a more, you know, in a room sitting down thoughtfully engaging with tough questions. I haven't given you softball questions, I don't think. And your thoughtfulness about this and the strategy behind what you're doing is clear and, and compelling and thought provoking. So thank you for the time you took today.

Alon-Lee Green:

Thank you very much.

Daniel Maté:

And I'll close as Hani likes to do with every episode with a, a, a little prayer, if that's okay with you. May all beings everywhere thrive in peace and dignity and share in all our joys and freedoms. and may we see true peace in the Middle East for all in our lifetime. Thank you, Alon.

Alon-Lee Green:

thank you very, very much. Daniel, it was really interesting. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.