G∑N0ClDE Is Bad: Viral Educator Fact Checks Zl0NlSM

Join Sim Kern, a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, as they share their incredible journey from a climate fiction writer to one of the most influential voices for Palestinian freedom on social media. In this powerful conversation, Sim breaks down the complexities of Zionism, shares their personal journey of unlearning, and offers a vision for a future built on collective liberation. Through stories of the Trans Rights Readathon, their climate fiction novel "The Free People's Village," and their latest book "Genocide Bad: Notes on Palestine, Jewish History, and Collective Liberation," Sim provides a masterclass in how self-work can change the world.

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

The 9 Pillars of Hasbara: How to Spot and Dismantle Israeli Propaganda

From Middle School Teacher to Anti-Zionist Educator: How to Make Liberation Accessible

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Transcript

00:00:00 - 00:00:08

Host (H) 

Welcome to Super Humanizer podcast, where we promote empathy and understanding and polarizing viewpoints through stories told by people living them.

00:00:08 - 00:01:01

Host (H) 

Hey wonderful Super Humanizer friends, this is Dr. Hani Chaabo. Before we dive  into this awesome episode, I wanted to take a moment and be real with you. So much work goes into bringing you these conversations,  the research, the preparation, the production. It's a labour of love and it's a lot of real work. If you found value in these stories, we'd love your support. Join our Patreon for as little as $10 a month. You'll get early access to episodes, extended interviews, and direct access to Katie and I, or you can send a one time or recurring donation through our PayPal link. Both links are in the show notes below. You're helping us to build a team to produce more content and inspire more humanity. Thank you. Now let's get into it. 

00:01:01 - 00:01:016

Host (K) 

Hi y'all. Welcome back to Super Humanizer, the podcast where we dive deep into the stories of people who are working to make our world more fair, more caring, and more human. I’m Katie and as always I'm with my Co-host Dr. Hani Chaabo.

00:01:016 - 00:01:23

Host (K) 

Today we're talking about something that should be simple, but somehow isn't. The idea that genocide is bad.

00:01:23 - 00:01:28

Host (K) 

Our guest has spent the last year breaking down why this basic moral truth

00:01:28 - 00:01:30

Host (K)

has become so hard to talk about in public.

00:01:30 - 00:01:39

Host (H) 

We're so very excited to introduce Sim Kern and New York Times and USA today bestselling author whose latest book, Genocide Bad

00:01:30 - 00:01:42

Host (H) 

Notes on Palestine Jewish History

00:01:42 - 00:01:47

Host (H) 

and Collective Liberation, just came out from Interlink Books. Yay! The only

00:01:42 - 00:01:51

Host (H) 

Palestinian owned publisher in the United States. Incredible.

00:01:51 - 00:01:57

Host (H) 

Sim. As an environmental journalist, speculative fiction writer and activist based in Houston, Texas,

00:01:57 - 00:01:59

Host (H) 

who spent ten years teaching

00:01:57 - 00:02:01

Host (H) 

middle school English before becoming a full time writer,

00:02:01 - 00:02:07

Host (H) 

and that teaching background really shows how they break down complex topics.

00:02:07 - 00:02:14

Host (K) 

What's so amazing about Sim's story is how they went from being known as a climate fiction author to becoming one of the most powerful

00:02:14 - 00:02:27

Host (K) 

and influential voices for Palestinian freedom on social media. Since October 7th, 2023, their videos explaining Palestinian history and Jewish anti-Zionism have reached tens of millions of people,

00:02:27 - 00:02:32

Host (K) 

and they've really used their platform, which now has over half a million followers across

00:02:32 - 00:02:34

Host (K) 

Instagram, TikTok and Twitter

00:02:34 - 00:02:38

Host (K) 

to raise close to half $1 million in direct aid for families in Gaza.

00:02:38 - 00:02:41

Host (K) 

But this isn't just about social media fame or influence.

00:02:41- 00:02:46

Host (K) 

SimSim’s work is really showing us something deeper, which is how

00:02:46 - 00:02:51

Host (K) 

The Self- work changes the world. How really altering the way that you think about something can be

00:02:51 - 00:02:54

Host (K) 

socially contagious and,

00:02:54 - 00:02:56

Host (K) 

impactful for the community.

00:02:56 - 00:03:03

Host (H) 

And such a great impact. SimSim has also created amazing projects that show the power of bringing people together.

00:03:03 - 00:03:07

Host (H) 

In 2022, they started the Trans Rights Readathon,

00:03:07 - 00:03:12

Host (H) 

which has raised over a quarter million dollars for organizations that support trans people.

00:03:12 - 00:03:20

Host (H) 

Their climate fiction novel, The Free People's Village imagines what Houston might look like if Al Gore had wonin 2000.

00:03:20 - 00:03:36

Host (H) 

It's both a love letter to their city and a plan for climate justice. Sim, we're so honored you're here and getting excited to talk to you about how you went from writing about imaginary futures to fighting for real change right now. Thank you so much for being here.

00:03:36 - 00:03:45

Guest (K)

Thank you, and that was a lovely introduction y'all covered like, so you didn't just copy-paste my website. That was like Uniquely crafted. 

00:03:45 - 00:03:48

Host (K) 

We're obsessed with you. 

00:03:48 - 00:04:01

Host (H) 

Yes, yes indeed. We went down the rabbit hole and we loved it. So before we get into all the awesomeness that you are today, would you like to play a game with our guests called What Brings You Joy? Would you play it with us? 

00:04:01 - 00:04:03

Guest (K)

Yes. 

00:04:03 - 00:04:06

Host (H) 

Okay. Sim my dear, What brings you joy?

00:04:06 - 00:04:14

Guest (K) 

Ahh, right now what bring me joy, is my little one and a half year old baby just started to saying “Uh-oh” but she kinda says ”Uh-ooo”

00:04:14 - 00:04:17

Host (H) 

Yeeh! 

00:04:17 - 00:04:55

She's, like, really likes throwing things on the ground so she could say “Uh-ooo”. And Umm, yeah yesterday I was going to a party from one of my friends who's leaving Houston unfortunately.  It was a third person's house. I don't really know this person. And Umm, my baby definitely walked up to a vase that was shaped like a ball on a book shelf, pulled it out and, like, threw it on the ground before I could grab it and she was wondering, like it will bounce like this is a material. So she threw it on the ground, looked at me and goes “Uh-ooo”. Like you're too cute. But so full of mischief

00:04:55 - 00:04:58

Host (H) 

Aww, that's adorable. 

00:04:58 - 00:05:04

Guest (K) 

Then I have to apologize to her.  Rolling up to this person's house and immediately smashing up their stuff

00:05:04 - 00:05:09

Host (H) 

Beautiful, so beautiful

00:05:09 - 00:05:12

Guest (K) 

So, Katie is what brings me joy lately.

00:05:12 - 00:05:20

Host (K) 

Well, first of all, that story just made my uterus scream at me like, extremely getting on me. Oh, my God,

00:05:20 - 00:05:21

Host (H) 

Baby! 

00:05:21 - 00:05:44

Host (K) 

I want a baby. It's fine, it's fine. It's gonna be fine. It's going to happen for me. But something that's bringing me a lot of joy being in the presence of other writers and thinkers and creatives who are so committed to liberation work, even when they receive criticism or feedback, that the work is not for them, because the work of collective liberation, as you describe in your book, is, by definition, collective.

00:05:44 - 00:05:57

Host (K) 

It is for all of us. So something that's bringing me a lot of joy is knowing that that is a shared psychic experience among the three of us. I'm really excited to talk about that today. And Hani my love, what is bringing you joy?

00:05:57 - 00:06:24

Host (H) 

This conversation is already bringing me joy. And seeing these thumbnails together is bringing me a lot of joy being here with you, Sim, specifically is bringing me a lot of joy today because you probably don't know this, but in the very beginning of the horrible time after October 7th, back then when when everything exploded, you pop up, popped up in my feed, just like Katie did.

00:06:24 - 00:06:47

Host (H) 

You know, I think a lot of us suddenly connected with each other around that time. And when I was envisioning this podcast and, like, started interviewing people, I went into one of your videos and I posted a comment and said, Sim, please come on our podcast. We'd love to interview you. Yeah. And of course, like it was like part of the flood of comments you were getting, right?

00:06:47 - 00:07:08

Host (H) 

Thousands of comments. And, you know, I was hoping you'd see it. Of course, like, I completely understand because I don't see a lot of comments under my videos either. And what I loved back then is that there were like 2000 likes to that comment. Like, people just really wanted to see more of you. My podcasts, our podcasts still hadn't been known yet, you know, and people just were so hungry to see more of you.

00:07:08 - 00:07:20

Host (H) 

So you being here, sharing your time with us full circle, it's finally happened. That's bringing me a lot of joy back to you, my dear. What's bringing you joy?

00:07:20 - 00:07:21

Guest (K) 

Oh I go again? 

00:07:21 - 00:07:23

Host (H) 

Yes, yes. Three times

00:07:21 - 00:07:23

Host (K) 

Three times. 

00:07:23 - 00:07:46

Guest (K) 

Oh, God, I only prepared one. Wait. What else? Oh, my God. Okay, this is like a really little thing. It's one of those things I've even, I've been like, cause I've been, um, trying to think about like, what could I like? Cause I'm so careful. I only have one brand partnership. And so sometimes I'll think like, what company would I even feel good about? And like.

00:07:46 - 00:08:29

Guest (K) 

And, like, pickled onions you guys pickled i would be a brand spokesperson for pickled onions listen you make a sandwich put pickled pickled onions with the lime the pickled Sandwich. you put that on a sandwich it takes an extra second it's a next level sandwich now i make a lot of beans because it's like cheap and i try to kind of be plant-based fail at that a lot of the time but um you put some pickled onion brine and and and garnish your beans with some pickled it elevates it there's so many dishes You can just elevate with pickled onions. And I feel like I'm just, I feel like I've been sleeping my whole life on pickled onions and I'm really into them right now.

00:08:29 - 00:08:30

Host (H) 

Wow

00:08:30 - 00:08:32

Host (K)

Love that for you.

00:08:32 - 00:08:34

Guest (K) 

Alright, Katie what brings you joy? 

00:08:30 - 00:08:56

Host (K) 

Congratulations. You know, I was, I was going to do a more serious one, but I'll save the more serious one for my heart share. Because, honestly, I'm in Paris right now, and Prosecco. Every time I go and get a meal, I'm having, like, a glass or two of Prosecco, and I'm sitting at these chic little Parisian tables, like, journaling by myself, like a solo hot girl in Paris, sipping her Prosecco.

00:08:56 - 00:09:10

Host (K) 

And I feel so powerful and like, mighty. I feel like I have the sex appeal of a thousand suns while I'm in Paris. So the Prosecco is helping me bring me a lot of joy. Honey my love. What is bringing you joy?

00:09:10 - 00:09:12

Host (H) 

Cheers to that.

00:09:12 - 00:09:17

Guest (K) 

If I had known we were going to be drinking, I would have brought a mimosa.

00:09:17 - 00:09:20

Host (K) 

This is. This is the juice, I swear. This is clementine juice.

00:09:20 - 00:09:24

Host (H) 

Okay, I have coffee. So we're good

00:09:24 - 00:09:36

Host (H) 

I will also say like pickled onions you're talking to, you know, a Lebanese guy who grew up eating pickled onions and pickled everything with every single meal. So thank you for saying that.

00:09:36 - 00:09:58

Host (H) 

And thank you for highlighting how diverse they are. And, I guess on the note of pickled onions, another animal that loves pickled onions that brings me a lot of joy these days is goats. So recently, I moved to the forest, which in hindsight, if I knew all the things about living in the forest, I may not have done it.

00:09:58 - 00:10:10

Host (H) 

But I'm really enjoying living in the forest. And my neighbors have goats who used to live on the property that I bought, and they went on a sabbatical. So they're like, hey, you have the set up already for goats?

00:10:10 - 00:10:18

Host (H) 

Do you mind babysitting them for us? And there's six goats. And I said, yes, of course. I've always wanted to have farm animals,

00:10:18 - 00:10:23

Host (H) 

so I've been living for the last month with six goats who were just, like, roam around the property

00:10:23 - 00:10:26

Host (H) 

and you can see them from, like, every single window.

00:10:26 - 00:10:29

Host (H) 

And they bring me a lot of joy because they're so silly,

00:10:29 - 00:10:34

Host (H) 

like out of nowhere, like the other day, me and my husband were outside doing things,

00:10:34 - 00:10:41

Host (H) 

and like, every five minutes you hear like (raspberry) Out of nowhere

00:10:41 - 00:10:47

Host (H) 

silliest things, you know, they do that to each other. I don't know if they're doing that to, like, ward off mosquitoes.

00:10:47 - 00:10:55

Host (H) 

They're also like, really loving, like, they'll come up to you and want to be, you know, petted and and fed and

00:10:55 - 00:11:01

Host (H) 

they're just really silly and they're communal and they do a really good job of goat scaping, which is

00:11:01 - 00:11:05

Host (H) 

the bigger reason why we said to us is they'll eat all the weeds around the house and they'll protect us

00:11:05 - 00:11:09

Host (H) 

from fires because they take care of all the weeds that can catch fire.

00:11:09 - 00:11:13

Host (H) 

And so for protection and for silliness, and just for

00:11:13 - 00:11:18

Host (H) 

the darn sake of having farm animals, goats are bringing me joy

00:11:18 - 00:11:21

Host (H) 

back to you, my dear. One more. What brings you joy?

00:11:21 - 00:11:28

Guest (K) 

I don't know how I can follow up on babysitting goats. That's awesome. I would love that.

00:11:28 - 00:11:30

Host (H) 

You're welcome to come here anytime.

00:11:30 - 00:11:36

Guest (K)

I think they're the most alien looking animals.

00:11:36 - 00:11:37

Host (H) 

Yes, there are.

00:11:37 - 00:11:43

Guest (K) 

Okay, I'm just going to go with what I was telling you guys about before the show, which is this

00:11:43 - 00:11:44

Host (H) 

Yes.

00:11:44 - 00:11:45

Guest (K) 

A thrift store find.

00:11:45 - 00:11:49

Guest (K) 

It's a Garfield shirt. This definitely from the 80s, because it came with shoulder pads

00:11:49 - 00:11:58

Guest (K) 

In the same fabric as this shirt. And it's all, like, full Garfield panels, like, four across. Like, you can read them, like,

00:11:58 - 00:12:04

Guest (K) 

And actually, the story of how I got this with my husband and I, because we have all three of our kids home with us.

00:12:04 - 00:12:06

Guest (K) 

Not in school, not in daycare all

00:12:06 - 00:12:14

Guest (K) 

So in order to, like, have a date, like once a month, we pay our eldest daughter to, like, babysit for, like, a good chunk

00:12:14 - 00:12:20

Guest (K) 

We were going to go to, like, an adult pool, like one of these adult pools with the bar and everything.

00:12:20 - 00:12:23

Guest (K) 

But then it was like raining on

00:12:23 - 00:12:27

Guest (K) 

Didn't have a backup plan, so we just we like, went out to eat and we went thrift store

00:12:27 - 00:12:32

Host (H) 

Yay! I love that.

00:12:32 - 00:12:33

Guest (K) 

So

00:12:33 - 00:12:37

Host (H) 

Yeah. Great. And then to that story.

00:12:37 - 00:12:39

Guest (K) 

Is that are we doing we're doing one more.

00:12:39 - 00:12:40

Host (H) 

Yeah. Last one.

00:12:40 - 00:12:40

Guest (K) 

Katie again.

00:12:40 - 00:12:50

Host (K) 

Okay. Something that is bringing me my joy. Oh, I have a writing retreat coming up in October with Hannah of Intergroup. 

00:12:50 - 00:12:52

Guest (K) 

I wanna go, I wanna go

00:12:52 - 00:12:52

Host (H) 

Me too

00:12:52 - 00:13:03

Host (K) 

Come with us. Come with us. I cannot wait. And so Hannah's right. Well that's true. Yeah. You have the whole three trio of kiddos to to consider, but

00:13:03 - 00:13:08

Host (K) 

Hannah is going to give craft workshops and we're doing a Q&A, and Hannah's the writer in residence.

00:13:08 - 00:13:10

Host (K) 

So we get to talk about their work, and I'm just I'm

00:13:10 - 00:13:23

Host (K) 

I'm so excited. And we already have, I think 8 or 9 people registered. So we still have like 15 or 16 spots and are trying to sell because the proceeds from this

00:13:23 - 00:13:27

Host (K) 

retreat are going to a fund for emerging, like Palestinian writers and

00:13:27 - 00:13:28

Host (K) 

I'm, I'm just really, really, really.

00:13:28 - 00:13:30

Guest (K) 

Is this an interlinked fund? Is it like

00:13:30 - 00:13:45

Host (K) 

I think I'm not allowed to announce that yet. So we'll probably have to edit this piece now, but I unless they if they've dropped that it exists, then great. If they've dropped that it exists by the time this episode is out.

00:13:45 - 00:13:46

Host (H) 

By the time, yeah, yeah

00:13:46 - 00:13:49

Host (K) 

Perfect. Yes. If if I'll. 

00:13:49 - 00:13:51

Guest (K) 

Great cause, I'm sure

00:13:51 - 00:13:58

Host (K) 

Yes. It's a fantastic cause that I won't name right now but. Yeah 100%.

00:13:58 - 00:14:02

Guest (K) 

So its still paperwork, like everything is not filed quiet yet

00:14:02 - 00:14:23

Host (K) 

Exactly, exactly. And so trying to figure out how to make this process sustainable. So in the future as I do these trips to tour hero too I can continue having writers in residence who are Palestinian. And so I'll pay their airfare and get them there. And then they'll be sort of sharing their craft and, and insight and this will be hopefully an ongoing partnership

00:14:23 - 00:14:26

Host (K) 

With the funds coming out, going to support the Interlink fund. So

00:14:26 - 00:14:40

Host (K) 

Assuming they are public by the time this happens, cool. But for now it's just Hannah and I experimenting and seeing how it goes. Yeah. All right. Honey darling all you what's your last joy?

00:14:40 - 00:14:50

Host (H) 

Amazing. I'm really hoping that it comes out before, like, when we post this, it would have already come out the news because what's happened right now 

00:14:50 - 00:14:54

Host (H)

was so endearing and so hilarious between both of you.

00:14:54 - 00:15:01

Host (H)

But my last joy, I would say, is I'm going to, like, piggyback on your first joy Sim, which is

00:15:01 - 00:15:04

Host (H)

children and kids.I don't have kids of my own.

00:15:04 - 00:15:11

Host (H)

But I definitely have a theoretical uterus that screams sometimes that I want kids.

00:15:11 - 00:15:18

Host (H)

And recently, I've gone into seeing more kids and my mental health practice, and I'm in a fellowship,

00:15:18 - 00:15:23

Host (H)

for a child and adolescent psychiatry to deepen that skill, in my toolbox. And

00:15:23 - 00:15:26

Host (H)

I've recently started seeing some kids who really needed help.

00:15:26 - 00:15:30

Host (H)

And it's bringing me a lot of not just joy, but hope

00:15:30 - 00:15:36

Host (H)

that we are in an era today that's paying attention to kids not getting what they need

00:15:36 - 00:15:38

Host (H)

when they are children,

00:15:38 - 00:15:44

Host (H)

and being with both of you, like your inner child's, are just so apparent, like you're both profound.

00:15:44 - 00:15:55

Host (H)

You know, scholars and the author, and you're just like amazing human beings who your inner children is so alive and I know you, you are doing that for your kids.

00:15:55 - 00:16:06

Host (H)

Look at that, sure. Exactly. And, Katie, I'm so excited for you. When you have kids. And for me, what's bringing me joy is that if I never have kids of my own, that I could pour some of that

00:16:06 - 00:16:08

Host (H)

my inner child and what was given to me, and

00:16:08 - 00:16:12

Host (H)

to give that back to the children I see in my practice. So that brings me joy.

00:16:12 - 00:16:17

Host (K) 

I love that so much, Babe. Oh,

00:16:17 - 00:16:17

Host (H)

Thank you.

00:16:17 - 00:16:19

Host (K)

the children. Are everything

00:16:19 - 00:16:27

Host (K)

Okay, I am going to dive us on into our interview questions about the making of an activist. So, Sim, in your book,

00:16:27 - 00:16:32

Host (K)

you write about how your journey as an activist began when you realized as a teenager that and I'm quoting here,

00:16:32 - 00:16:35

Host (K)

“Gloobal warming would blow up our planet one day”.

00:16:35 - 00:16:44

Host (K)

And this realization happened back in 1999, when climate change wasn't as much of a mainstream activist conversation.

00:16:44 - 00:16:53

Host (K)

You said that understanding the climate crisis became an entry point for understanding that our global system was catastrophically racist, colonial and capitalist.

00:16:53 - 00:16:59

Host (K)

Can you take us back to the moment when you were first able to connect these dots? What was it like being a teenager

00:16:59 - 00:17:04

Host (K) 

Who saw the connections that most of the adults around you weren't making yet?

00:17:04 - 00:17:09

Guest (K) 

It was very, very lonely and isolating. And I didn't, there was, 

00:17:09 - 00:17:20

Guest (K)

I didn't have the internet, you know? I mean, I think I had an aim. Well, instant messenger for you younglings, you know, I can go in a chat room, but it wasn't like this.

00:17:20 - 00:17:27

Guest (K) 

You couldn't, like, find people who were concerned about the things that you, that you were concerned about in 1999.

00:17:27 - 00:17:31

Guest (K) 

I didn't know how to. So I was just. Yeah, I just felt really alone with this. I,

00:17:31 - 00:17:44

Guest (K) 

I just absorbed enough media to have realized that like everywhere you look, the environment was in decline and nothing was being done about it.

00:17:44 - 00:17:53

Guest (K) 

it. And this global warming thing was a really serious problem and I wanted to do things like be vegetarian, be more ethical in my consumption,

00:17:53 - 00:18:03

Guest (K) 

just like get the people in my house to like, turn the lights off more, you know, like make those small lifestyle changes which as, like a child was like the only things I felt like I could do, but

00:18:03 - 00:18:28

Guest (K) 

but like no one was on board with it. Everyone made fun of me. You know, I grew up in the era of like, um, like saved by the bell. It was like very much of my generation. And there was this character Jesse who was like an environmentalist and she was such a joke, you know, it was just, um, and you know, the same thing with like Hermione and Harry Potter with trying to end slavery and she got so much shit for it, you know? 

00:18:28 - 00:18:28

Host (H) 

Wow. Wow.

00:18:28 - 00:18:31

Guest (K) 

J.K. Rowling, what a joke, trying to be anti-slavery.

00:18:28 - 00:18:36

Guest (K) 

That was kind of the vibe in the 90s of, you know, the era of grunge.

00:18:36 - 00:18:44

Guest (K) 

Apathy was cool and showing any earnestness, being offended by things, being.

00:18:44 - 00:18:49

Guest (K) 

you know, an engaged citizen, all these things were viewed as like very uncool

00:18:49 - 00:18:50

Guest (K) 

In popular media.

00:18:50 - 00:18:57

Guest (K) 

And there was no social media yet to, like, push back on that. And, um, yeah, so it was just very,very isolating.

00:18:57 - 00:19:02

Host (K)

Yeah. I mean I think that loneliness too is something that

00:19:02 - 00:19:15

Host (K)

the internet has both exacerbated and tried to solve simultaneously. And so I talked to people whose online work has made them feel, you know, much, much more isolated in terms of being viewed as a, as a real person rather than just

00:19:15 - 00:19:20

Host (K)

a mouthpiece or a talking head and also feeling like they're able to network.

00:19:20 - 00:19:26

Host (K)

So I am hearing your pre-internet isolation and wondering how much

00:19:26 - 00:19:37

Host (K)

that has really changed. But it is fascinating, like your environmental awakening really led you to question so much about how the world works. I mean, you speak in your work over and over again about

00:19:37 - 00:19:41

Host (K)

the systems that contribute to these types of harm and violence.

00:19:41 - 00:19:50

Host (K)

And that system oriented thinking has really shown up in the way that you approach conversations about Palestine now. So you don't just talk about

00:19:50 - 00:19:54

Host (K) 

individual events, but about the bigger structures that have made these events possible.

00:19:54 - 00:20:01

Guest (K) 

I have to tell you about like a story, again, another like pre-internet story of how I started actually connecting those dots.

00:20:01 - 00:20:12

Guest (K)

because I, Because I was this like budding environmentalist and didn't have like a political analysis, like an anti-capitalist analysis until I was in high school.

00:20:12 - 00:20:21

Guest (K)

and,my friend and I were like, sitting at a table in borders books, just like giggling and being teen girls and being silly.

00:20:21 - 00:20:27

Guest (K)

And this like older boy who was, like, slightly older than us, like college age, I thought he was really cute.

00:20:27 - 00:20:30

Guest (K)

And he tossed a copy of Adbusters magazine on the table.

00:20:30 - 00:20:44

Guest (K)

I'm not shitting you. And he goes,”Read this. It'll blow your mind”. Like we were like silly teen girls. And he's like, “Read this. It'll blow your mind”. And what I did, I bought it. I was like. And

00:20:44 - 00:20:50

Guest (K)

because I was like, who is this found? What is this Adbusters magazine? But it was like an anti-capitalist. If you don't know, Adbusters was like a very

00:20:50 - 00:21:00

Guest (K) 

old anti-capitalist magazine, and I... I didn't. blow my mind i was like oh my god capitalism is the reason for everything

00:21:00 - 00:21:04

Host (K)

Well, a leftist man tried to educate someone and it worked.

00:21:00 - 00:21:08

Host (H)

Wow amazing.

00:21:08 - 00:21:16

Guest (K) 

retrospect but it's like also a parable of like you could be that one voice that gets through

00:21:16 - 00:21:22

Guest (K) 

you never know what your share is going to do. And also the power of like, print media.

00:21:22 - 00:21:28

Unknown

I’m not sure, like a story share has the same impact as, like, handing someone a magazine. Um

00:21:28 - 00:21:32

Host (H) 

Oh my God.

00:21:28 - 00:21:34

Guest (K) 

Genuinely how I became an advocate.

00:21:34 - 00:21:35

Host (H) 

Wow, wow

00:21:35 - 00:21:43

Guest (K) 

I would have found my way there, but I made it there in freshman year of high school because of some random guy at Borders.

00:21:43 - 00:21:49

Host (K) 

Thank you. Cute boy at borders. Thank you so much. You contributed to the world like.

00:21:49 - 00:21:52

Guest (K) 

And to his credit, he didn’t try to pick us up or anything he was just like

00:21:52 - 00:21:56

Host (H) 

He just wanted to enlighten the world. Wow. 

00:21:56 - 00:21:59

Host (K) 

So maybe a real leftist boy. Yeah. Ideal.

00:21:59 - 00:22:20

Host (H) 

Wow. I love that story. Thank you for sharing that. I was hoping you would say more and I'm really glad you did because that was an epic story. And so powerful to say like really, if you are somebody who believes in something and you put it out there, you don't know what kind of response you might get.

00:22:20 - 00:22:34

Host (H) 

I mean, I hope that maybe this boy is listening and knows that he did that for you and sees what an awesome accomplishment you've made in your life towards all the missions, especially that one that he was trying to like, enlighten you on. So really grateful for that story.

00:22:34 - 00:22:48

Guest (K) 

Well, and something I haven't thought about until now is what I talk about in the book about how it was just picking up a copy of Joe Sacco's Palestine in a half-priced books that led me down the path of becoming an anti-Zionist Jewish activist.

00:22:48 - 00:23:16

Guest (K) 

So really, like, encounters with – that's what I hope this book will do. I get so excited. I went to my local bookstore the other day and I was just chatting because I know them there and I was like, are people like buying it? And they're like, yeah, people are like picking it up off the shelf. People who don't know you from social media. And that's what I want so much is for people to just, when you encounter. a book or a magazine or something in the wild, it can really change your mind in a way that I think in our.

00:23:16 - 00:23:22

Guest (K) 

that is really special in that in our like social media digital world, of course, you can run across like a TikTok or a reel.

00:23:22 - 00:23:30

Unknown

But I think it'd be really powerful when that happens with a printed piece of writing.

00:23:30 - 00:23:44

Host (K) 

I love the return to tangibles. There's something intellectually nostalgic about it of, like, we need to hold knowledge in our hands sometimes. And what you have done with this book is really given people the ability to hold knowledge in their hands.

00:23:44 - 00:23:49

Host (K)

And I know this is not where you started doing this, because you were an educator for a really long time.

00:23:49 - 00:23:55

Host (H) 

Yes. You spent ten years teaching middle school English in Houston.

00:23:55 - 00:24:00

Host (H)

And you've said that experience taught you that communication is most effective

00:24:00 - 00:24:07

Host (H)

when you're concise, clear and at least occasionally funny, even when the topic is bleak.

00:24:07 - 00:24:14

Host (H)

Your videos about Palestine have this incredible ability to make complex historical concepts accessible without dumbing them down.

00:24:14 - 00:24:19

Host (H)

How did those years in the classroom shaped the way you talk about genocide and colonialism?

00:24:19 - 00:24:24

Host (H)

And what would you tell other educators who want to teach these topics but feel scared or unprepared?

00:24:24 - 00:24:34

Guest (K)

Yeah. Being in the classroom, I mean, the population of students I was working with, it was a largely like 99% Latina community.

00:24:34 - 00:24:43

Guest (K)

And so a lot of my students, maybe 30% were English as a second language learners. So, you know,

00:24:43 - 00:24:50

Guest (K)

you have to really decide what is the important, what is the important concept I'm trying to get across right now

00:24:50 - 00:24:57

Guest (K)

that may be difficult text, difficult language. Maybe what we're working on is like we're working on vocabulary. So

00:24:57 - 00:25:02

Guest (K)

So I’m not gonna dumb down the vocabulary of the words I'm trying to teach you,

00:25:02 - 00:25:09

Guest (K)

but I'm going to use words that are going to be as familiar as possible to you whenever I can,

00:25:09 - 00:25:23

Guest (K)

To teach you whatever the concept,and I think all of this has, and even just, like, learning, there's something I learned, like, there's English language dictionaries are constructed differently than,

00:25:23 - 00:25:36

Guest (K)

traditional dictionaries, when you read a definition of a word, right, it's like a weird grammatical construction. It's in a passive voice. The word isn't being used in the sentence itself.

00:25:36 - 00:25:40

Guest (K)

And English language learners dictionaries, It does the opposite

00:25:40 - 00:25:41

Host (H) 

Ooh.

00:25:41 - 00:26:12

Guest (K)

You also learn techniques like fast mapping, where you like, say, like, say if as you're talking, you use a big word and you catch yourself and you're like, my students might not know that word. You just research. And then you state the phrase again, simply. So if I was like, So if I was... um, talking about, you know, uh, you know, um, so, and so like, uh, even, even just, let's say I was trying to define Zionism in a sentence. And I was like, you know, as I've been talking to 

00:26:12 - 00:26:54

Guest (K)

Zionists online, people who defend the state of Israel, you know, like you can just sort of automatically define things. So I think doing that for 10 years in those conditions, I just learned to communicate really clearly. Um, and a lot of, you know, a lot of people who have written books about Palestine in the past are academics and they study this stuff for a long time and they learn to be so precise in their language. And they are, you know, they've spent much, much, much more time with the primary source documents, researching it than I have, you know, um, but what I can do, but, but, but, but spending all that time in academia, you start to talk in academia. 

00:26:54 - 00:26:57

Host (H) 

Yes.

00:26:57 - 00:27:04

Guest (K) 

ease, which is its own jargon and the more time you spend in academia, the worse you get at communicating

00:27:04 - 00:27:07

Host (H) 

Yeah. So true. Yeah.

00:27:07 - 00:27:17

Guest (K)

You kind of get brain worms. So I, yeah, I think that's what I did with this book. I mean, I there's none of the, like philosophical or historical concepts in it are particularly

00:27:17 - 00:27:56

Guest (K)

novel but i'm drawing from a lot of literature that's been written on anti-zionism and jewish history and just making it like like you said like really as accessible as i can to a wide audience people who aren't academics and like injecting that little bit of humor yeah um you know a punching up humor uh a pointing out the absurdity humor you know uh that that i think can kind of is a necessary pressure release When you are tackling the most horrifying topic on the face of the earth, which is genocide.

00:27:56 - 00:27:56

Host (K) 

Yeah.

00:27:56 - 00:27:56

Host (H) 

Yeah.

00:27:56 - 00:28:05

Host (K)

I think this is one of the differences that you're bringing out is the difference in like a scientific orientation and a humanities orientation, where for some reason,

00:28:05 - 00:28:17

Host (K)

scientists and social scientists are like, no, no, you have to have every single fact. And the full foundation of an immense history first before you can make any claims,

00:28:17 - 00:28:25

Host (K)

which makes it really hard for any new thinker to break into that foundation or learn, because

00:28:25 - 00:28:29

Host (K)

they're consuming material from people that are trying to, as you said, like lay out with precision

00:28:29 - 00:28:34

Host (K)

everything that happened in a chronology. And I think what you've done with genocide bad

00:28:34 - 00:28:40

Host (K)

is flip that temporal order, like you have flipped the ordering of things where someone can come in

00:28:40 - 00:28:58

Host (K)

and start addressing the moral questions first of like, what the fuck are we doing here? Like, how are we seeing this human evil in front of our faces? And, and allowing it to persist and not intervening so vehemently and so furiously like this doesn't make any sense.

00:28:58 - 00:29:04

Host (K)

And you're you bring in the foundational literature such that people can get curious about it.

00:29:04 - 00:29:08

Host (K)

So they're they're interacting with a text that isn't,

00:29:08 - 00:29:16

Host (K)

above their heads, that isn't, you know, assuming, oh, I know everything and you all know nothing. It's like, no, no, we all know that this is bad.

00:29:16 - 00:29:21

Host (K)

And then as their curiosity sparked about some of the other scholars that you cite in your work,

00:29:21 - 00:29:25

Host (K)

they can go and dig deeper, but they don't need the depth.

00:29:25 - 00:29:32

Host (K)

First they get, they get the moral message, which is so crucial first and then can dig as they're able.

00:29:32 - 00:29:43

Host (H) 

I love that Katie. Before people can actually do anything actionable that they feel motivated towards that they have like a personal investment and

00:29:43 - 00:29:55

Host (H)

they have to understand that. And you're right, like the Academic Academies makes things so complicated to understand. And I think about that as you were both reflecting on the I thought about

00:29:55 - 00:30:02

Host (H)

like medical ease, you know, like in the clinic when I'm speaking to a patient, I have to really learn to how do I communicate this?

00:30:02 - 00:30:10

Host (H)

From the medical jargon? I learned to like actual language that the patient can understand, because that's what's going to make the patient

00:30:10 - 00:30:20

Host (H)

do the things that we're agreeing our health promoting for them versus the patients that are like, this, you know, fancy word or this fancy medicine name or whatever it is.

00:30:20 - 00:30:32

Host (H)

And you, them, you have such a gift, for this specific thing is making things much more digestible and which is just so remarkable that you did that in this book because

00:30:32 - 00:30:45

Host (H)

you really are tackling some very heavily academic concepts rooted in very important history. But you take them and you make them more accessible, and you have this gift of meeting people where they're intellectually at

00:30:45 - 00:30:55

Host (H)

while still telling, challenging them to think deeper. And I can't help but think about how your own understanding of things actually made you unlearn things, because

00:30:55 - 00:31:02

Host (H)

Understanding is also what makes us unlearn. And so it makes me think about how you've had to unlearn things like Zionist indoctrination.

00:31:02 - 00:31:12

Host (K) 

And in genocide Bad, you've been so honest about your own journey of unlearning this Zionist indoctrination, and you've written about how

00:31:12 - 00:31:18

Host (K)

it was tough to unlearn Zionist indoctrination about settler colonialism, apartheid and occupation in Palestine.

00:31:18 - 00:31:21

Host (K)

That was part and parcel of growing up Jewish in the US.

00:31:21 - 00:31:30

Host (K)

And you also mentioned that you never felt that mystical connection to the Holy Land that Zionists have wanted you to feel or tried to get you to feel.

00:31:30 - 00:31:38

Host (K)

What was the unlearning process like for you personally, and how do you balance honoring your Jewish identity, which you absolutely do

00:31:38 - 00:31:45

Host (K) 

while rejecting Zionism, knowing what Zionism means for your community and really our community?

00:31:45 - 00:32:10

Guest (K) 

I, you know, I, I give a lot of reasons why I think I like leaving Zionist. Thinking behind was a lot easier for me than many Jews, because I was always an outsider within my own Jewish community and my own Jewish family. We were like the least Jew, you know, my mom's not Jewish. So our other relatives would think, are they Jewish? 

00:32:10 - 00:32:31

Guest (K) 

and it was really I didn't, like, I share in the book. I didn't really think of myself as Jewish until my very Christian neighbors and community and peers started informing me that I'm Jewish.  Um and they start bullying me for being Jewish then I decided well I guess I'm Jewish and I'm gonna own that Um.

00:32:31 - 00:33:26

Guest (K) 

And, you know, I wasn't I wasn't raised religious. I wasn't, my dad is very my dad is very anti-religious. And actually, we're like, three generations Atheist kinda Jews. My grand parents, my great grand parents were Anarchist. My great grand parents learned English for Ama Goldman in Brooklyn. Jewish anarchists used to teach English classes to newly arrived Jewish women. And that's how my great-grandmother Anna learned. learned uh english so we have like so like i was raised with all this family history like we were jewish you know but um but in this like tradition of like these radical anarchist atheist jews um 

00:33:26 - 00:33:27

Guest (K) 

And so

00:33:27 - 00:33:28

Host (H) 

makes total sense.

00:33:28 - 00:34:00

Guest (K) 

that was kind of an interesting place to be, you know, and I, I, my nuclear family definitely always my dad is a critical thing. He's an academic, he's a critical thinker. You know, he encouraged that in me, but he saw what was, you know, and this has changed now, but when we would talk about Israel, because we, I didn't know the word Palestine until I went to college. When we would talk about Israel, it was like, Oh yes, it's religious hate. You know, and again, my dad likes very anti-religious, like they just hate each other because of religion.

00:34:00 - 00:36:17

Guest (K) 

And truly, that was like ignorance on all of our parts. My grandfather, who was a communist, like a card carrying communist, loved Israel because he believed in the propaganda of the kibbutzes. And he went there and he stayed on a kibbutz and he was like, this is it. This is like the Jewish communism. And he never met a Palestinian. He never heard the story his whole life. He never heard the Palestinian narrative. It's just before social media, that Israeli capture of Western media was so complete that many people, especially many people in Jewish U.S. communities, just would go their entire lives without.ever hearing. about the people and they truly believed that um israel was a you know that palestine was a land uh of a people on the first try People out of people. People out of people. Um, you know, they just didn't know. So now my dad, of course, he knows and he's on the level and he's, you know, heard the Palestinian narrative, but so that was really, um, yeah, I had an unusual Jewish childhood. And once I started, uh, hearing about the Palestinian perspective, it was very easy for me comparatively to walk away from Zionism because it wasn't so enmeshed in my identity. And I did have. people in my Jewish community who were deeply associated on an ego level with Israel. and who were urging me, you have to go to Israel, you know, you're in the land, you're going to love the land. And, um, you know, I knew people who had gone there and kissed the ground and it just gave me the it always, it gave me the, I just felt that there was something false behind it. You know, I've always had a good sense for this. I hated, um, Santa Claus and mascots as a kid. Like anytime someone was in a costume, I hated people in costumes, you know, like I was a gift to the egg. And so, yeah, that's just what I felt. And it felt like the same as like when, you know, Christians would try to, you know, test them, testify to me. It was just like, this isn't for me. 

00:36:17 - 00:36:38

Host (K) 

I can't imagine how you felt about the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem based on what you just said. Yeah. All of this resonates quite, quite deeply in terms of the messaging fed to us about Palestine or the lack thereof and not really knowing. I had never heard the word Palestine until I got to college either.

00:36:38 - 00:36:53

Host (K)

I'm also a patrilineal Jew. Like your your narrative feels very close to home for me. My family's unfortunately not as like radical tycoon, Islam, anarchist, atheist, Jewish background. You know, that's not so much,

00:36:53 - 00:37:04

Host (K)

ours, but I so appreciate learning more about the familial threads that are also woven into your justice orientation. Like, clearly these people who you come from

00:37:04 - 00:37:10

Host (K)

contributed to the genetic material that made you give a shit about other people.

00:37:10 - 00:37:17

Host (K)

And you really, you borrow from their scholarship too. So you have this whole research background,

00:37:17 - 00:37:24

Host (K)

and when you were writing your book genocide bad, that this ability to engage with scholarship really positioned you because you've been

00:37:24 - 00:37:34

Host (K)

researching Jewish history for a novel set in 17th century Europe, which unveiled a lot of historical parallels for you between Jewish and Palestinian experiences.

00:37:34 - 00:37:42

Host (K)

And you've mentioned before that most ash or many Ashkenazi Jews in the US know little about our history in Europe prior to the Holocaust,

00:37:42 - 00:37:52

Host (K)

that ignorance is intentionally cultivated by Zionist historical institutions because a deeper appreciation of our European roots would disrupt Zionist propaganda.

00:37:52 - 00:38:00

Host (K) 

How would a deeper appreciation of our European roots as Ashkenazi Jews disrupt Hezbollah propaganda?

00:38:00 - 00:38:10

Unknown

Yeah, well, because we were, Europe was our home, babes, for over a thousand years, you know? 

00:38:10 - 00:38:11

Host (H)

Wow.

00:38:11 - 00:38:22

Guest (K) 

And we... For at least, like, 1,500. If you're an Ashkenazi Jew, you were in Europe for at least 1,500 years. And before that, who knows, okay?

00:38:22 - 00:38:23

Host (H) 

Yeah.

00:38:23 - 00:38:23

Guest (K) 

I, I'm, I'm not at all convinced by either genetic or archeological science that I ever, my ancestors ever were in the Levant.

00:38:23 - 00:38:24

Host (K) 

Yep yep

00:38:24 - 00:39:17

Guest (K)

Probably maybe one great great great great great great great great great great great grandpa. But the vast majority of this… is European the indigenous Right? And I think these are over most Ashkenazi Jews.But now people get upset about that. It seems pretty obvious to me. And, you know, as Jews, we're just raised to think of Europe as it was this miserable stopping off point in which we were just constantly persecuted and, and massacred and murdered, you know, and there's, there's so little curiosity about, you know, it's like, okay,

00:39:17 - 00:39:46

Guest (K)

Second term destruction of the Second Temple kicked out. As the story goes, as the myth goes, there is no archaeological evidence of this but the story is that there has been a mass migration of Jews into Europe. (Mocking) the Holocaust, you know what i mean? 

What happened there? You know what I mean? 

that's like a lot of that's like 1800

00:39:46 - 00:39:47

Host (H) 

Right.

00:39:47 - 00:40:09

Guest (K)

you know, that's a long time, almost 2000 years ago. We're not curious. We don't care. We don't think that those were our homes when we, when we lived there for like tens of generations. Um, so I just think that that is, uh, intentionally cultivated by Zionism. And also the story of us in Europe is very much, you very much growing

00:40:09 - 00:40:16

Guest (K)

up Jewish in America. You get up in the US, you get tons of Holocaust propaganda.

00:40:16 - 00:40:34

Guest (K) 

So mostly what you learn about your relatives in Europe is that we died horribly. We were massacred and tortured, Exiled and killed horribly. Um, there's just

so many I talk about in my book. There's like 180 books for children in print right now, over 180 books about the Holocaust for children.

00:40:34 - 00:40:35

Host (H) 

Wow.

00:40:35 - 00:40:43

Guest (K) 

Do you know how many books there are about Jews, like not being persecuted, but like the Jews who just like, live their lives in Europe? And so when I, I got curious

00:40:43 - 00:40:44

Host (H) 

Wow.

00:40:44 - 00:41:21

Guest (K) 

let's look at a time when, like, things were like, okay, for Jews and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth before the Russians invaded Poland and took it over. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was this very interesting place where, like the monarchy was very sort of egalitarian, and they had bent the knee to the Christian church, but kind of like just for political like it was a, a strangely egalitarian place for early modern Europe. You had like, Romani people who ascended to the rank of nobles and advisors to the king. You had Jews who are also upper class and lower class.

00:41:21 - 00:41:50

Guest (K)

And, and I think looking at the Ottoman Empire was also really interesting at the time, because it was another place where Jews and Romanians could and Christians and Muslims could all be at different levels of social stratification, rather your class being attached to your race and religion as it was in like the Holy Roman Empire. So I found that really interesting. And then as I was, I wanted to write about this time when things were a comparatively kill for Jews. 

00:41:50 - 00:43:09

Guest (K) 

But then as I was looking at it, what I saw was, in places where Jews had more access to wealth, they became complicit in the oppression of others. um in ways that i was like it seems silly to me now but i was like shocked by at the time like i was shocked to learn about how jews in the ottoman empire would run schools for slaves to teach slave girls who were mostly teenage girls kidnapped from um like russia what you know what is now Russia like slavic blonde-haired blue-eyed teenage girls were preferred by jewish families as like a status symbol to have blonde hair and blue eyes um a slave who was blonde hair and blue eyes these slaves had to be like sexually available to the Jewish head of the household at all times. And they would run schools to, like, teach them to keep a kosher house. And then there was this whole like branch of like Rabbinical writings and Talmudic commentary about how to treat your slaves among the Jews in the Ottoman Empire where slave ownership was common among Jews. Right. And to me, this was just. And to me, it's like, I don't know, it's like, I don't know. And this isn't in the medieval period. This is in the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries. 

00:43:09 - 00:43:10

Host(H) 

Yeah

00:43:10 - 00:43:36

Guest (K)

So that was just shocking to me that like in a place where Jews could own slaves, they were definitely owning slaves and just doing what the other wealthy people were doing. So it really deepened my analysis as an anarchist that like power is truly what corrupts people and leads to evil. And that there's no identity group that's, like, exempt from that.

00:43:36 - 00:43:37

Host (H) 

Yes

00:43:37 - 00:43:57

Guest (K) 

And so when you look at these different parts of Europe and you see how much access did Jews have to wealth kind of correlates to how much evil were we up to? Because it's the wealth, not your religion or your ethnicity or something else that leads people to do evil things and oppress other people. 

00:43:57 - 00:44:20

Host (K)

And what you're saying speaks it precisely against the chronic victim narrative, which I find really violent. And degrading and upsetting about Jewish people of like no, no, no we, we've never done harm a single day in our lives. We're just the group that harm happens to. And it's like it's frightening because it does ingrain this sense of

00:44:20 - 00:44:28

Host (K)

chronic perceived victimhood of like, I'm at risk all the time.And it also stops any kind of critical analysis against our own capacity

00:44:28 - 00:44:35

Host (K)

for violence, particularly identity based violence, particularly identity based violence, to another marginalized group or an outgroup.

00:44:35 - 00:44:41

Host (K)

I'm so appreciative that you just shared that context and that history.

00:44:41 - 00:45:16

Host (H) 

Yeah. You blew my mind to be honest. Like I knew I didn't know 90% of what you just shared about the history of, of Jews and Europe. And I always think about how even as Arabs and you know, being on the other side of the border with Israel, growing up there and, and seeing like the demonization of people according to ethnicity, when it goes back to this power piece, you know, Israel is a powerful country and it's backed by powerful countries, and that power is what corrupts people.

00:45:16 - 00:45:23

Host (H)

And regardless of that facade, at the end of the day, it's that power. And I think of the same way about like, extremism,

00:45:23 - 00:45:41

Host (H)

know, extremism hijacks religion and where the face of religion and then we vilify the religion or we vilify that the ethnicity and and really, what we should be looking at is these like bigger structures that are causing the evil to come out in these groups, no matter what group it is or what religion it is.

00:45:41 - 00:45:54

Host (H)

And it really like what you said about just them being in a position of power, which helped them in a way, almost like connect to the systems of oppression and evil that were happening in Europe, which then made them

00:45:54 - 00:46:25

Host (H)

vilified. Like, I just I had no idea. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. The way that you educate, this is why we asked you that question, and the way that you educate is just so unique to you. You made us laugh while you were explaining that to us, for sure, so uniquely you. And October 7th, 2023 was a turning point for you. That's when you started making educational videos about Palestine and anti-Zionism. It's also when you started writing about it. And Hannah Mushabek from Interlink Publishing specifically mentioned your video about how

00:46:25 - 00:46:32

Host (H)

no one deserves an ethno state as a foundational idea that has propelled this movement for Palestinian liberation,

00:46:32 - 00:46:43

Host (H)

That video and others like it have reached millions of people. Can you tell us more about making that first video? Did you have any idea that would have the impact that that,

00:46:43 - 00:46:47

Host (H) 

and how did it feel to suddenly become what you call a reluctant influencer for Palestine?

00:46:47 - 00:47:04

Guest (K) 

I did not that video was also off the cuff in a hotel room. I had just so I was in the middle of a shoot something because the, the biggest video, the video I did that got like 20 million views. I had posted like 2 or 3 days Before

00:47:04 - 00:47:15

Guest (K)

And that was about just saying, like, if you see Israelis as people, but you don't see Palestinians as people, that is because of white supremacy.

00:47:15 - 00:47:28

Guest (K)

So that days before and I just it got 20 million views. It was blowing up. It was being stitched in all kinds of places. I was being an internet main character,

00:47:28 - 00:47:45

Guest (K)

And i was making quick off the cuff follow up videos to like, clarify certain things. And I actually made that video I had just landed for my book tour for the Free People's Village.I was in Boston. I was supposed to meet my editor in like half an hour to go

00:47:45 - 00:47:53

Guest (K)

grab a meal, and I just had like a little bit of time. So I just, shut my phone down on the little hotel room table and filmed that real quick.

00:47:53 - 00:47:53

Guest (K)

And I did it after

00:47:53 - 00:47:54

Host (K)

Well.

00:47:54 - 00:48:10

Guest (K)

On the, plane, I was, or like while I was, I had reception, so I must have been in the car or something. On the way there, I had seen a video by a Jewish leftist that I had been following for a long time, who, by the way, has since gotten on board. I don't know if was my video that did it, 

00:48:10 - 00:48:43

Guest (K)

but this Jewish leftist was saying, I get it. You know, there's so much to criticize about Israel, but Jews deserve a homeland. He was trying to do the both sides thing and be like, you know, I feel for the Palestinians. I'm critical of Netanyahu, but Jews deserve a homeland. And I was just like, no, they don't. Like, no, who gets a homeland? Who gets an ethno, like a theocratic ethno state, which is what Israel is, right? It's both 

00:48:43 - 00:48:51

Guest (K)

because Jewishness to Israel is both a race, ethnicity and religion, depending on when it's convenient

00:48:51 - 00:49:03

Guest (K)

For their narrative,right? so this is an a racial apartheid, theocratic because of the religion, even though it's kind of bullshit that they don't really follow the religion, ethno state.

00:49:03 - 00:49:15

Guest (K)

And yeah, when you put it in those terms, I think it sounds much when you say like apartheid theocratic ethno state, it sounds a lot harsher than when you say Jews deserve a homeland, which was

00:49:15 - 00:49:24

Guest (K)

something a lot of people were saying back then. So I think it was just rephrasing it in a way and being like, think about this for a second, like

00:49:24 - 00:49:39

Guest (K)

a homeland for Jews? No! We don't do that. And the response for that video was really bad. I still got that response like do Muslims have a homeland? Do Arabs have a homeland? They have 27 

00:49:39 - 00:49:47

Guest (K)

countries or whatever it is. But our, you know, Muslims country. But, you know, I don't, I'm an anarchist. I'm, I'm against all States, like, I'm.

00:49:47 - 00:49:52

Host (K) 

No nation, no borders.

00:49:52 - 00:49:54

Host (H) 

Yeah. Love that.

00:49:54 - 00:50:00

Guest (K)

that's where the disconnect comes in. Like, there are some people though who can't imagine that kind of,

00:50:00 - 00:50:02

Host (H) 

Yeah.

00:50:02 - 00:50:15

Guest (K)

Libration and so they, they think, well, if there's not a Jewish ethno state there, then the only other option is a Sharia law, Muslim ethnostate there

00:50:15 - 00:50:26

Guest (K) 

there, which is like, that's, that's the that binary is all they can imagine. So one of my great question, life is like breaking down false binary thinking.

00:50:26 - 00:50:36

Host (K)

Yes, yes. I love this statement to of. If you cannot imagine a better world, you will not be one of the people to create it like

00:50:36 - 00:50:49

Host (K)

Gray thinking and more creative imagining is so necessary for movements like this. So yeah, thank you for, bringing in the binary just to break it apart. I appreciate that.

00:50:49 - 00:50:59

Host (H)

So powerful. Really. Again like quintessentially I remember and the video also like you're talking about the Romani people which blew my mind.

00:50:59 - 00:51:05

Host (H)

I'd never really thought of the Romani people as a good example of know, as similar a parallel there of,

00:51:05 - 00:51:12

Host (H)

you know, these people have been prosecuted and discriminated against for centuries still. Still.

00:51:12 - 00:51:21

Host (H)

And even, you know, there was a Romani holocaust by the Nazis even. So do we go in and say like, okay, yeah, all there are many people now deserve a state and then go and like,

00:51:21 - 00:51:37

Host (H)

take that away from an already established land with an already established people. And, you know, as an Arab who comes from Lebanon, you know, who also has Palestinian roots, none of these countries that are called, you know, Muslim countries are actually fully Muslim

00:51:37 - 00:51:55

Host (H)

or really have like, You know, Sharia law functions through them. Except if you think of like Saudi Arabia and Iran and of course, like for me, I feel like I'm just like you. That's also wrong. Like, I would never want

a fundamentalist, extremist or religious group

00:51:55 - 00:52:04

Host (H)

to come and run a country. You know, I, I think that all countries should be ran by democracy and equal rights and all the things that we believe in.

00:52:04 - 00:52:09

Host (H)

And I, like you, believe in zero borders. And for a long time the Middle East was zero borders.

00:52:09 - 00:52:17

Host (H)

And people just, you know, didn't even recognize that there was a Lebanese and a Syrian and a Palestinian and all these kind of things that exist right now.

00:52:17 - 00:52:25

Host (H)

And so why don't we just, you know, go back to that. And your phrase, no one deserves an ethno state is so simple and so powerful, which

00:52:25 - 00:52:34

Host (H)

is really what you do. It cuts through the complexity. It gets to the heart of the matter. And that's exactly the kind of clarity that your teaching and background brings to your book, Genocide Bad.

00:52:34 - 00:52:50

Host (K)

And we have so many questions, too, about the creation of this book. So genocide. That is a New York Times bestseller. Congratulations. And also has this incredible subtitle. So Notes on Palestine, Jewish History and Collective Liberation.

00:52:50 - 00:52:56

Host (K)

And you've written that the entire book can be boiled down to just two words genocide bad.

00:52:56 - 00:53:03

Host (K)

But then you say genocide very fucking bad, obviously all caps, and point out that in a logical world,

00:53:03 - 00:53:06

Host (K)

this book would not need to exist. You would not have had to write it.

00:53:06 - 00:53:15

Host (K)

What was it like writing a book like, penning this manifesto that argues for something that should be so obvious?

00:53:15 - 00:53:21

Host (K)

And how did you decide to structure it? As part memoir, part rant and part manifesto?

00:53:21 - 00:53:45

Guest (K)

So I got to be honest, answering these questions are so difficult because I almost like blacked for three months, when i was writing this book like i had a six month old baby okay so like Hannah Mushabek asked me it was her idea to write this book my editor I would never have been like i can write a book about genocide if she hadn't asked me to but she asked me to write it for interlink

00:53:45 - 00:53:59

Guest (K)

The only palestinian-owned press in the U.S and I was like very intimidated by this idea i was like just had a baby they were like we can't really pay you much but i was like but i was also like immediately like of course i have to do this of course i have to i have to at least try to do this

00:53:59 - 00:54:07

Guest (K)

she asked me in May. I was like, my kids are out of school for the summer, or like, I can't, I can't during the summer. But as soon as like

00:54:07 - 00:54:18

Guest (K)

they go back to school, the day they go back to school, I'm gonna, like, hit this running. And Hannah wanted a manuscript in six weeks.

00:54:18 - 00:54:19

Host (H) 

Wow. Wow.

00:54:19 - 00:54:20

Host (H)

Wow. Wow.

00:54:20 - 00:54:45

Guest (K)

Um, and I, and I, you know, I was like, well, I'm just going to take the transcripts of my video essays and I'll just ,like, zhuzh them up and it'll just be those essays. But I ended up ,like, rewriting almost everything. And like the book is way deeper than anything I was ever able to put on TikTok because it turns out when you can talk for more than like 10 minutes, you can really expand on your ideas. Um, you know, and it has over like 300 end notes. Like I did all this research and 

00:54:45 - 00:54:49

Guest (K)

somehow so my kid would go to school, my six month old, I like the whole living room.

00:54:49 - 00:55:04

Guest (K)

I baby proofed and I got those like some use those soft play cushions to make it like the children's museums. They were like little soft, cushy ramps everywhere. She could crawl over. And I just like, wrote the book. In between diaper changes.

00:55:04 - 00:55:08

Guest (K)

And then my spouse would come home from work and, like, we would be, like, shifts in the night.

00:55:08 - 00:55:26

Guest (K)

I would be like, okay, here's the baby. And I would, like, go to the coffee shop and work on it tomorrow, because then I could get some, like, really focused work done. And I really like I was, recently like trying to put together like the photo for our family 

00:55:26 - 00:55:26

Host (H) 

Wow.

00:55:26 - 00:55:30

Guest (K)

Not I wrote it in six weeks and I really don't like even remembering the process. But it was really like

00:55:30 - 00:55:44

Guest (K)

I remember feeling it. It felt incredible, because having being talking about genocides for almost a year at that point, everything was at the top of my mind. All of this research was like right in.Here

00:55:44 - 00:55:54

Guest (K)

And being able to put it out on a page instead of like doing it in these short snippets online, where then you're like immediately getting all this feedback from people,

00:55:54 - 00:55:58

Guest (K)

bad faith, you know, misinterpretations of you

00:55:58 - 00:56:09

Guest (K)

Getting their comments, like watching three seconds of your video and then making all these assumptions and just being able to write without people. Getting there. Commenting was just amazing. It was just amazing.

00:56:09 - 00:56:10

Host (H) 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:56:10 - 00:56:13

Guest (K)

very and it gave me a real sense of purpose. I had a feeling like I'm doing something important.

00:56:10 - 00:56:27

Guest (K)

I've been asked to do this by someone I really respect, who's Palestinian I, you know, it felt good to like, have work. That was very, like felt, like, really important and purposeful. So I wrote the book in six weeks.

00:56:27 - 00:56:41

Guest (K)

God, you know, got it to Hannah for feedback. She came back. The whole editing process took until about, like, the very beginning of December. So we went through, you know, a couple revisions,

00:56:41 - 00:56:49

Guest (K)

and then we were about to send it off to press, and I was just like, we'd already done copy edits even, and I was just like, I gotta get this fact checked.

00:56:49 - 00:57:10

Guest (K) 

Like, I'm not, like, I'm not affiliated with the university. Like, it was copy edited. And Hannah and Michelle, who Michelle is Hannah's dad, the dad of the Three sisters of interlink books and he's published a zillion books about Palestine he has you know a ton of expertise and it knows a ton of this history so he had done some

00:57:10 - 00:57:11

Host (H) 

Wow.

00:57:11 - 00:57:16

Guest (K) 

fact checking, but I was like, I really want, particularly Rashid Khalidi to look at it, And. the chapters on this book,

00:57:16 - 00:57:32

Guest (K) 

I have really heavily used Rashid Khalid's research. He wrote the 100 Years War on Palestine. So I emailed him. We'd done an event together before, so we communicated and I was like, or can you just look at these two chapters, please? Like,

00:57:32 - 00:57:40

Guest (K) 

I just don't want to have missed. I don't want to have misrepresented you.And so he was so gracious.

00:57:40 - 00:57:46

Guest (K) 

He was actually, like, going on vacation with his family and like, while on, like, his Christmas vacation with his family.

00:57:46 - 00:57:55

Guest (K) 

Sent me some notes. And 

then he was like. And he read, like, half the book. Like I had just asked him. Look at least two chapters. We read like half the book he sent me when I was like,and there was no praise.

00:57:55 - 00:58:18

Guest (K) 

Also, I had like a total spiral about this because he just felt like, this page, this is wrong. This page. Check this, this page, think about this Um, and I was like, Urgh. And Hannah was like, no, no, no, that's Arab dad. That's like, if he thought it was shit, he would not have done it. He's like, she was like, don't expect any praise. So and he was like. And he was like,

00:58:18 - 00:58:19

Host (H) 

Wow

00:58:19 - 00:58:31

Guest (K) 

I am on vacation with my family. Like, I have a feeling his wife was like, you gotta start worrying. Like, Like I have to stop, but I'm gonna give you over to Nadeem. So then we paid Nadeem, who's associate

00:58:31 - 00:58:32

Host (H)

Wow.

00:58:32 - 00:58:43

Guest (K) 

editor of the journal Palestine Studies. Fact check. The whole thing. So even though it was, like, about to go to press, we, like, did this process, we were like, pause. Let's get this right. Let's get this fact checked. Let's make sure it's airtight. And

00:58:43 - 00:58:44

Host (H) 

Wow.

00:58:44 - 00:58:53

Guest (K) 

And it's like. It seemed like December 24th. And the test number 27th was when Nadeem was fact checking it.

00:58:53 - 00:59:03

Guest (K) 

And I was very honored that these two scholars felt like this book was worth their precise time off

00:59:03 - 00:59:29

Guest (K) 

over the holidays, you know, to, to look at, and, yeah. And it was like, okay, we'll send our first. And then, after my like spiral about received, he he ended up emailing me like a week or two later being like, how's it going with Nadeem? Like, I'm very eager for this book to it out quickly

00:59:29 - 00:59:38

Host (K) 

My God, I, I feel like I'm listening to you speak about this with hearts and stars in my eyes, because the idea of writing a book of this quality in six weeks and just

00:59:38 - 00:59:44

Host (K)

That's such incredible work. And I mean, in addition to the support that you've gotten in this sort of external,

00:59:44 - 00:59:53

Host (K)

validation of affirmation of, like, none of this is valuable.

It has to be out there. You've still talked about having imposter syndrome while you wrote the book.

00:59:53 - 00:59:54

Guest (K)

yeah.

00:59:54 - 01:00:00

Host (K)

Curious why that was. What helped you to overcome it? Because truly, thank God you did. And thank God you put it out there.

01:00:00 - 01:00:09

Guest (K)

You know, well, I, and then again, it's like I was like, there's a presumption here, right? Like I'm doing scholarship. This is a work of serious scholarship,

01:00:09 - 01:00:09

Host(H) 

Yes.

01:00:09 - 01:00:24

Guest (K)

I am not a university affiliated scholar.

You know, I have a master's degree in public school education, right? Like I know how to research something and cite it and, like, do the footnotes and everything.

01:00:24 - 01:00:28

Guest (K) 

And I did it 300 times on this book

01:00:28 - 01:00:29

Host

Yes.

01:00:29 - 01:00:40

Guest (K) 

I'm outside academia and I think there's a great power. And so in my moments of confidence, I think there's a great, important and a power in that. And I actually think

01:00:40 - 01:00:52

Guest (K) 

And. great and wonderful that we're starting to see more freelance scholars, especially as we've year and a half, how much these institutions are invested in the status quo,

01:00:52 - 01:01:15

Guest (K) 

That and invested in, like the weapons manufacturing industry that so,so academics are really held hostage, their livelihoods

I make my living off crowd funding and brand deal on social media that is not associated with Raytheon and Lockheed Martin,

01:01:15 - 01:01:46

Guest (K) 

frees me up to be a more radical thinker,I think we need that.So, yeah, I think on the one hand, like, being, a free I was always a freelance journalist. You know, I've never been a staff writer for a newspaper either. That's been a freelance journalist. Being a freelance scholar.I think these are legitimate and important roles that we need in society. And at the same time, though, it's like

01:01:46 - 01:02:06

Guest (K) 

I don't have institutional backing. I can't be like, I'm affiliated with Harvard, you know, it's a lot of people will question you and question your credentials. That's the main thing.Like, sometimes I go look for funsies at the, like, one star reviews of my book. And genuinely, genuinely. It's like people who don't get past the first, the second

01:02:06 - 01:02:13

Guest (K) 

paragraph where I admit that I'm not a trained historian and they're like, how dare you write a history book? You're not a university professor of history.

01:02:13 - 01:02:22

Guest (K) 

You're not allowed to do that. You know, and I think that, that's something we need to increasingly question.So, yeah, I feel to two ways about it, but it's definitely like you feel

01:02:22 - 01:02:34

Guest (K) 

feel very out there on your own. And again, like, that's why it was so important to me to get the fact checking done by these more institutional scholars just to make sure, like,

01:02:34 - 01:02:43

Host (K) 

Yeah. The, the layers of, of safety and I, I love that you went and did that even as y'all were going to press. I think it's so

01:02:43 - 01:02:49

Host (K)

intellectually responsible. And that's something that I admire about every video you post, everything you share, it's

01:02:49 - 01:02:59

Host (K)

rigorously researched. If there's any correction, you're making the corrections publicly. We say we talk about this a lot like no activist robots, right? Like there's no such thing

01:02:59 - 01:03:11

Host (K)

as being a perfect activist. And really, there's so much competing science and scholarship out there. It's very hard to be the perfect scholar to, even as people, you know, delve and mine and excavate the most reliable work.

01:03:11 - 01:03:19

Host (K)

So serious kudos for being willing to go that extra mile and bringing on the voices and the expertise that you did.

01:03:19 - 01:03:37

Host (K)

And also, there's something both heartbreaking and I think empowering about having to argue that genocide is bad. And then making the choice to argue anyway, even as you're like, this is an absurd exercise. Clearly, it's an absurd exercise that we're all still

01:03:37 - 01:03:50

Host (K)

engaging with and grappling in. And it, it's pulling the veil back like it's showing how far we've fallen as a society, also how much power there is in restating these simple truths as clearly as possible.

01:03:50 - 01:03:53

Host (K)

For as many readers and listeners as you can.

01:03:53 - 01:04:02

Host (H)

Yeah. And that's what sets your work apart as you make these complex historical and political concepts accessible without losing their depth.

01:04:02 - 01:04:08

Host (H)

You break down things like apartheid, settler colonialism and Hesburgh in ways that people can understand and share.

01:04:08 - 01:04:23

Host (H)

You've said that if more academics took a tour in sixth grade English classrooms, they'd be far more successful in spreading their ideas, which is truly one of your many gifts to the movement and the causes you believe and the world you exist.

01:04:23 - 01:04:34

Host (H)

And, and so I thought it would be interesting to get a little bit of taste of that, and also to get a little bit more of what's in your book, Genocide Bad, if you can, in a few minutes,

01:04:34 - 01:04:39

Host (H)

break down the nine pillars of Hesbarah or Israeli propaganda

01:04:39 - 01:04:42

Host (H)

that you so well outlined in your book. And if it makes.

01:04:42 - 01:04:44

Guest (K)

Then I'll prefer to the content table 

01:04:44 - 01:04:45

Host (H)

Yes.

01:04:45 - 01:04:59

Guest  (K) 

So, uh, what I did was and I say like Zionists like, train me to write this book because for the first few months after October 7th, I was just getting thousands of Zionist, you know, and I slowly, over time, blocked them.

01:04:59 - 01:05:05

Guest  (K)

But it used to be just every day I would wake up and just like, like I have to scan through hundreds of

01:05:05 - 01:05:13

Guest  (K)

Zionist talking points every day, and it feels like a lot until you start to see the patterns and then you start to realize, oh, they actually only have a few rhetorical moves. 

01:05:13 - 01:05:14

Host (H) 

Yes.

01:05:14 - 01:05:22

Guest  (K)

So the first of those moves is going to be who are you to speak on Israel, which is they're going to try to get you to shut up.

01:05:22 - 01:05:36

Guest  (K)

And just so you don't get to talk, and in doing this, they're going to deploy deference politics, which says we have to defer to certain marginalized groups to tell us what to think. I'm certain topics and the problem with that, as I argue in this chapter,

01:05:36 - 01:05:50

Guest  (K)

is that, then the elites can always give you someone to defer to who's going to tell you to go along with the status quo. design it. You need to defer to Jews. Oh, you're a Jew.

01:05:50 - 01:06:01

Guest (K)

You need to defer to an Israeli Jew. So elegant. Elan, who are two Israeli anti-Zionist Jews who have a podcast called Yalla. And they were saying on their podcast that within Israel, they're told,

01:06:01 - 01:06:12

Guest (K)

oh no, you don't. You're not allowed to speak about Israel because you've never lived outside Israel. So you don't know what antisemitism is like in the real world. So no matter where you are, no matter how

01:06:12 - 01:06:13

Host (H) 

Wow.

01:06:13 - 01:06:17

Guest (K)

Jewish you are, not like someone's going to gaslight you into saying you are not enough. You are not qualified

01:06:17 - 01:06:30

Guest (K)

to speak about Israel. And we just have to reject that politics altogether. The second chapter and the third chapter kind of are different flavors of, ways that,

01:06:30 - 01:06:36

Guest (K)

Israel deploys this sort of, this deference. Politics is weaponized identity politics.

01:06:36 - 01:06:52

Guest (K)

So the second chapter is called Marginalized Human Shield, which talks about how Israel, and it goes into deep about, pink washing. But Israel will also tout, you know, look at we have the gayest military in the world. Look at these black soldiers who are

01:06:52 - 01:07:07

Guest (K)

committing war crimes. Look at these female bomber pilots who are blowing up apartment buildings. Hashtag girlbombs. And so that strategy is sort of what I address in that chapter and going particularly deep on on pink washing.

01:07:07 - 01:07:21

Guest (K)

And the third chapter is but Israel is so particularly addressing the charge that Israel can't be an apartheid state because Israel is so f,

01:07:21 - 01:07:33

Guest (K)

racially and ethnically diverse, supposedly.And it's really just pulling that apart. I talk about the difference between colourism and racism, how both come to play

within Israeli society and government

01:07:33 - 01:07:34

Host (K) 

Wow.

01:07:34 - 01:07:41

Guest (K)

I expose just because Israel has diversity and These diversity and Israel does have a white ethnic minority, but they are

01:07:41 - 01:07:54

Guest (K)

overwhelmingly in power. The white Ashkenazi minority in Israel is economically and politically, far overrepresented compared to these other ethnic group. So thats

01:07:54 - 01:08:10

Guest (K)

a pretty flimsy piece of Hasbarah that falls apart when you, you just really look into what is the, the how the apartheid state The fourth chapter is called The Holocaust, and it's all about the specific

01:08:53:17 - 01:09:05:16

Guest (K)

cynical weaponization of our collective trauma in the Holocaust. Or not even I don't even like saying our anymore. Our ancestors collective trauma in the Holocaust is weaponized 

01:09:06:00 - 01:09:06:01

Guest (K)

the

01:09:06:05 - 01:09:08:01

Host (H) 

Wow.

01:09:08:03 - 01:09:09:16

Guest (K)

against Palestinians.

01:09:10:00 - 01:09:18:05

Guest (K)

And the really shocking thing that one of the most shocking things that I learned over the past year and a half, which is just how much our Holocaust

01:09:18:07 - 01:09:20:02

Guest (K)

memory keeping

01:09:20:04 - 01:09:23:14

Guest (K)

is a cynical Zionist exercise and this became really

01:09:23:16 - 01:09:24:16

Guest (K)

apparent

01:09:25:00 - 01:09:38:08

Guest (K)

as just in lockstep across the entire globe, every Holocaust museum, I think, has refused to name what is happening in Gaza a genocide,

01:09:38:10 - 01:09:48:17

Guest (K)

have disinvited show us survivors who wanted to mention the genocide in Gaza, who wanted to speak out in solidarity with Palestinians.

01:09:49:00 - 01:09:56:11

Guest (K)

It's been really appalling to realize just how much that historiography that history making

01:09:56:13 - 01:10:03:17

Guest (K)

is rooted in, very cynical, imperialist, you know,

01:10:04:01 - 01:10:05:04

Guest (K)

goals,

01:10:05:06 - 01:10:13:04

Host (K) 

Industry.

01:10:13:06 - 01:10:13:13

Guest (K)

Industry. You know, which, of course, Norman Finkelstein has done so much. Excellent stuff. Um

01:10:13:15 - 01:10:17:16

Guest (K)

The fifth chapter is on bogus history, which is how so much how so much of the

01:10:17:17 - 01:10:18:05

Host (H) 

Yeah.

01:10:18:09 - 01:10:19:07

Guest (K)

narrative

01:10:19:09 - 01:10:24:17

Guest (K)

that Israel tells about its founding and its history is just lies and distortions.

01:10:25:00 - 01:10:28:03

Guest (K)

And so I focus in particularly on the Six Days War, because

01:10:28:05 - 01:10:36:06

Guest (K)

the version that I was told about that growing up is so disconnected from the reality

01:10:36:08 - 01:10:50:09

Host (K) 

Yeah. One of the biggest fights I've ever had with my father is about literally that. Yes. Yeah. Literally that thanks him.

01:10:50:11 - 01:11:02:16

Host (K)

Oh. You know, I'll, I'll add that to my to do list. I love my mother. I don't know how optimistic I am about capacity that but.

01:11:03:00 - 01:11:10:16

Guest (K)

Okay. The sixth chapter is everybody's favorite, everybody's favorite, and it's called Barhamas. And it's about

01:11:11:00 - 01:11:22:06

Guest (K)

probably the most frequent bit of Zionism I encounter, which is someone saying, but Hamas, but Hamas did this or that, you're trying to talk about Israel's crime, and they're going to try to divert your attention

01:11:22:08 - 01:11:29:02

Guest (K)

to whatever Hamas is or is not doing whatever they're claiming.

01:11:29:04 - 01:11:47:06

Guest (K)

And that chapter initially was super short because it was like me just saying, they're going they're trying to divert your attention from Israel's massive and plentiful war crimes towards like one incident that may or may not have happened. Don't get in the weeds. Like stay focused, stay on target.

01:11:47:08 - 01:11:57:11

Guest (K)

But then I ended up thinking, you know, I really need to talk about armed resistance and the legitimacy of armed resistance and the power imbalance between

01:11:57:13 - 01:12:00:11

Guest (K)

violence that comes from Israel and violence that comes

01:12:00:13 - 01:12:08:13

Guest (K)

from an indigenous people whose land has been stolen, who are faced under occupation.

01:12:08:15 - 01:12:11:05

Guest (K)

There's nuance. There's a lot of nuance there.

01:12:11:07 - 01:12:12:02

Guest (K)

Oh yeah.

01:12:12:04 - 01:12:26:10

Guest (K)

So that chapter, yeah, I think, it ended up being one of the taking me the longest and being one of the most sort of transformative writing experiences. A lot of people have really resonated with that chapter.

01:12:26:11 - 01:12:32:03

Host (K) 

Wow.

01:12:32:05 - 01:12:32:16

Guest (K)

Um, chapter seven is won't anyone think of the colonizers?

01:12:33:00 - 01:12:35:14

Guest (K)

This is, again, another distracting tactic.

01:12:35:14 - 01:12:40:04

Guest (K)

So we're worried about an actual genocide happening right now

01:12:40:06 - 01:12:48:07

Guest (K)

and there. And your Zionist debate partner is going to ask you to imagine a future genocide against Israelis.

01:12:48:09 - 01:12:50:05

Guest (K)

That is hypothetical.

01:12:50:06 - 01:12:51:02

Host (K) 

Yeah. Yeah.

01:12:51:04 - 01:12:53:12

Guest (K)

it's about not getting drawn into the weeds there

01:12:53:16 - 01:12:59:09

Guest (K)

and also looking a little bit at the history of other anti-colonial struggles and how this like,

01:12:59:11 - 01:13:04:09

Guest (K)

there's always a fear of this reverse genocide happening.

01:13:04:11 - 01:13:08:05

Guest (K)

But when you look at the history of anti-colonial struggles, it really

01:13:08:07 - 01:13:09:12

Guest (K)

doesn't happen.

01:13:09:14 - 01:13:11:06

Host (K)

Yes.

01:13:11:08 - 01:13:11:14

Guest (K)

Yeah.

01:13:11:14 - 01:13:12:11

Guest (K)

And

01:13:12:14 - 01:13:16:11

Guest (K)

then the eighth chapter is longest chapter,

01:13:16:12 - 01:13:21:04

Guest (K)

memoir(ie), and it's criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic.

01:13:21:06 - 01:13:29:13

Guest (K)

And in that I talk about growing up in a very, in a town where I, you know, I was surrounded by Christians. I was like the only Jewish kid in town.

01:13:29:13 - 01:13:34:08

Guest (K)

And I dealt with a lot of, like, interpersonal anti-Jewish

01:13:34:10 - 01:13:41:17

Guest (K)

which led me to becoming a, like, anti anti-Semitism educator online, which is, I used to be

01:13:42:01 - 01:13:43:07

Guest (K)

paid by, like,

01:13:43:09 - 01:13:53:10

Guest (K)

Jewish organizations to come do talks on,

to come do talks on, like combating anti-Semitism online, um, organizations that would now, like, never seriously anywhere. 

01:13:53:12 - 01:13:58:09

Host (H) 

Seriously? {Laugher}

01:13:58:11 - 01:14:04:04

Guest (K)

Um but, you know, I became an expert on that because it was one thing I faced, but always in an interpersonal way,

01:14:04:08 - 01:14:07:07

Guest (K)

and always from Christians like,

01:14:07:08 - 01:14:09:17

Guest (K)

what's happening in Palestine is very different.

01:14:09:17 - 01:14:14:15

Guest (K)

Anti-Jewish hate in the US is a white supremacist Christian phenomenon

01:14:14:16 - 01:14:16:01

Guest (K)

It's.

01:14:16:03 - 01:14:23:04

Guest (K)

Israel and Palestine is about resistance to settler colonial occupation. And these are not the same things. And

01:14:23:05 - 01:14:28:08

Guest (K)

goes all the way back to like medieval Jewish history and the early Christian church and imperialism and all this stuff.

01:14:28:12 - 01:14:32:00

Guest (K)

And it's making all these parallels and basically arguing that

01:14:32:02 - 01:14:36:13

Guest (K)

if you want to fight anti-Jewish hate, you have to fight Zionism, like Zionism is the  

01:14:36:15 - 01:14:40:03

Guest (K)

biggest threat to Jews worldwide.

01:14:40:05 - 01:14:45:16

Guest (K)

Which I know. Katie, you, you often write about those sorts of things.

01:14:46:00 - 01:14:50:08

Guest (K)

And then chapter nine is the idea that Jews are entitled to Palestine.

01:14:50:11 - 01:14:56:09

Guest (K)

so we look at four different claims. We look at, Jews are entitled to Palestine because of the Bible.

01:14:56:11 - 01:14:59:04

Guest (K)

No, the Bible does not say that

01:14:59:06 - 01:15:01:12

Guest (K)

entitled to Palestine because of international law.

01:15:01:13 - 01:15:05:03

Guest (K)

No, international law does not say that.

01:15:05:04 - 01:15:09:08

Guest (K)

Jews are entitled to Palestine because they are indigenous to Palestine.

01:15:09:10 - 01:15:13:10

Guest (K)

And there we say, you do not know what the word indigenous means. And no they

01:15:13:12 - 01:15:15:04

Guest (K)

are not.

01:15:15:06 - 01:15:24:12

Guest (K)

The fourth argument is Jews are entitled to Palestine, because if they were, like, born there, like if you were born there, and that's where you've lived all your life, what are we going to do with you?

01:15:24:13 - 01:15:28:05

Guest (K)

So that's the last chapter kind of reckoning with that. And it's like,

01:15:28:07 - 01:15:36:02

Guest (K)

talks about misunderstandings about what land back and decolonization and,

01:15:36:04 - 01:15:44:07

Guest (K) 

liberation even means. So those are the nine pillars of Hezbollah that I take on in the book.

Time stamps

Host (H) 

Wow, wow

01:15:44:09 - 01:15:49:00

Host (K) 

Amazing. Yeah.

01:15:49:02 - 01:15:58:05

Host (H)

That was amazing. Absolutely incredible. Oh my goodness. And thank you so much for walking us through each one of those. And the thoughtfulness and obviously the passion and the research that you did for all those things.

01:15:58:07 - 01:16:06:01

Host (H)

And again like just the way that you articulated so many of those concepts, even for me, that has read a lot and knows a lot.

01:16:06:03 - 01:16:10:04

Host (H)

You gave me a new language to communicate some of these things. When I'm faced with this

01:16:10:06 - 01:16:14:06

Host (H)

propaganda, especially that deference piece, you know, for me, like,

01:16:14:08 - 01:16:16:05

Host (H)

that was the one that like

01:16:16:06 - 01:16:18:11

Host (H)

for me, like just hit me the most.

01:16:18:13 - 01:16:24:16

Host (H)

And it's something that I can use, especially in the people around me because I'm surrounded by you know, people that believe

01:16:24:17 - 01:16:27:01

Host (H)

some of these things, if not all of them.

01:16:27:01 - 01:16:29:07

Host (H)

I have friends that believe in all of these things.

01:16:29:09 - 01:16:34:14

Host (H)

And so thank you so much for giving me that to disarm those kind of arguments.

01:16:34:16 - 01:16:40:17

Host (H)

your point about academics needing to learn from sixth grade teachers, so spot on. Also,

01:16:41:01 - 01:16:45:14

Host (H)

there's this assumption that making things accessible means making them less serious.

01:16:45:16 - 01:16:47:11

Host (H)

But you prove that's not true at all.

01:16:47:11 - 01:16:51:04

Host (H)

It's truly about making them accessible, tangible, and easy to absorb

01:16:51:06 - 01:16:54:15

Host (H)

so that they can feel both relatable and actionable.

01:16:54:16 - 01:17:01:11

Host (K)

And you have already established a tradition of doing this on your own. So your novel The Free People's Village

01:17:01:13 - 01:17:08:15

Host (K)

imagined an alternate timeline where Al Gore won in 2000 and Houston became this hub for climate justice.

01:17:08:17 - 01:17:18:17

Host (K)

It's described as solar punk fiction, which is imagining better futures. And now you're fighting for justice in the present moment with your Palestine activism.

01:17:19:01 - 01:17:24:05

Host (K)

How do you see the connection between the capacity to imagine a better world

01:17:24:07 - 01:17:26:01

Host (K)

and the commitment to fight for them?

01:17:26:03 - 01:17:33:13

Host (K)

And do you think your experience writing speculative fiction helps you envision what a free Palestine could actually look like?

01:17:33:15 - 01:17:36:13

Guest (K) 

100%. 100%.

01:17:36:15 - 01:17:40:15

Guest (K)

Yeah. My first three books were all sort of dystopian climate,

01:17:40:17 - 01:17:44:00

Guest (K)

mostly dystopian climate fiction,

01:17:44:02 - 01:17:47:10

Guest (K)

a novella, a novel and a collection of short stories.

01:17:47:12 - 01:17:54:05

Guest (K)

But as I was writing the collection of short stories, which is the third book that I wrote, I was just getting, I was like,

01:17:54:07 - 01:17:58:02

Guest (K)

you know, it's easy to write a sci-fi dystopia.

01:17:58:06 - 01:18:06:00

Guest (K)

It's easy to look at the future and say, yeah, things are bad. And they're continuing to get worse. And it started to feel almost like

01:18:06:02 - 01:18:08:01

Guest (K)

just repetitive and like,

01:18:08:03 - 01:18:11:09

Guest (K)

I got. So I got interested in the idea of solar punk, which is

01:18:11:11 - 01:18:21:08

Guest (K)

What is it like to do the opposite and imagine that things actually got better. And I found that it was so difficult. It was so difficult. And I also around that time really discovered and got 

01:18:21:10 - 01:18:25:06

Guest (K)

into the work of Ursula. Kayla Gwynne, who did a lot of this,

01:18:25:08 - 01:18:28:02

Guest (K)

utopian writing. I read The Dispossessed, which is about

01:18:28:04 - 01:18:29:05

Guest (K)

an anarchist,

01:18:29:07 - 01:18:32:15

Guest (K)

a capitalist planet with an anarchist moon.

01:18:32:17 - 01:18:35:00

Guest (K)

And she

01:18:35:02 - 01:18:37:11

Guest (K)

image of what does a society outside of

01:18:37:13 - 01:18:39:05

Guest (K)

capitalism really look like?

01:18:39:06 - 01:18:41:04

Guest (K)

And.

01:18:41:06 - 01:18:42:03

Guest (K)

wanted to

01:18:42:05 - 01:18:46:11

Guest (K)

find more literature like that and help contribute to that body of literature.

01:18:46:13 - 01:18:52:01

Guest (K)

And The Free People's Village is a novel that's like. It's like,

01:18:52:02 - 01:19:00:10

Guest (K)

it's solar punk, but it's really only like a quarter of the way there. So that line is like Al Gore won the two thousand presidency, 

01:19:00:12 - 01:19:04:04

Guest (K)

but basically not that much has changed.

01:19:04:06 - 01:19:17:14

Guest (K)

Is the is the premise of the book like the only things that have changed are really superficial between the George Bush presidency and Al Gore presidency. And rather than going to war with Iraq, we went to war in Brazil. And, um, there's like, uh,

01:19:17:16 - 01:19:24:15

Guest (K) 

sort of more greenwashing across U.S. society, but there's less, um, there's not a lot of substantial movement away from fossil fuels or any of these things. Um, 

01:19:24:17 - 01:19:30:12

Host (H) 

Wow.

01:19:30:14 - 01:19:44:12

Guest (K)

So that book was part of my ongoing thesis that, like, you know, Democrats will not save us people after the last election, like, rediscovered that book and found that it was very, very relat to the, the to them, it's also about a student encampment

01:19:44:14 - 01:19:47:09

Guest (K)

movement that breaks out, not a student, but a,

01:19:47:11 - 01:19:51:02

Host (H) 

Wow. Wow. Wow.

01:19:51:07 - 01:19:52:08

Guest (K)

people.

01:19:52:10 - 01:20:03:03

Guest (K)

Yeah. So it ended up being sort of very prescient, up to the events of the past year and a half, but only prescient because it was based on the occupy movement,

01:20:03:04 - 01:20:04:01

Host (H) 

Yes.

01:20:04:03 - 01:20:09:11

Guest (K)

the Black Lives Matter movement after 2013 to 2020. Like having been a part of

01:20:09:13 - 01:20:15:08

Guest (K)

see how politics works and you see how the United States works and how a protest movement works, and

01:20:15:10 - 01:20:17:08

Guest (K)

These things come in cycles. Um, so it ended up feeling very relevant again.

01:20:17:10 - 01:20:23:06

Host (H)

Yeah.

01:20:23:08 - 01:20:24:03

Guest (K) 

Um, gosh, I forgot the question.{laughter} What are we talking?.

01:20:24:07 - 01:20:34:09

Host (K) 

So this this I can part of the question is, do you think your experience writing speculative fiction helps to envision what if Palestine could actually look like?

01:20:34:11 - 01:20:43:07

Guest (K)

yeah. And like I say in the book, like, I don't imagine a collective Palestine as much as I sort of imagined collective liberation, because I do feel like I am not

01:20:43:09 - 01:20:48:08

Guest (K) 

Palestinian. I'm not like Palestinians should be the ones to determine what a free Palestine should look like.

01:20:48:10 - 01:20:51:12

Guest (K) 

But I think that when Palestinians are if if

01:20:51:14 - 01:20:55:09

Guest (K) 

the thing I say at the end of the interaction is if we can free Palestine, we can free the world.

01:20:55:09 - 01:21:01:01

Guest (K) 

If we can't free Palestine, we're all fucked. I surely believe that

01:21:01:03 - 01:21:04:07

Guest (K) 

and for me, like, and I spent the last part of the book

01:21:04:09 - 01:21:13:03

Guest (K) 

meditating on like, what is my vision of collective liberation? And it, is

01:21:13:04 - 01:21:18:16

Guest (K) 

definitely that have been aided by my, my work writing speculative fiction in this field and sort of

01:21:19:00 - 01:21:21:17

Guest (K) 

working through, you know, like, I'm an abolitionist.

01:21:21:17 - 01:21:37:01

Guest (K) 

And so one of my short stories and my short story collection is about, like the community responding to a potentially, like, scary, violent person in their midst without resorting to some kind of police, you know? What does that look like? So when you have worked through some of those

01:21:39:13 - 01:21:43:11

Guest (K) 

problems in fiction, you can more easily imagine these systems. But

01:21:43:13 - 01:21:50:06

Guest (K) 

in order to get good at writing that kind of fiction, I actually had to read a lot of like, leftist praxis and like, like,

01:21:50:08 - 01:22:00:02

Guest (K) 

leftist theory. Also reading a lot of like indigenous history and indigenous theory and indigenous,

01:22:00:03 - 01:22:06:14

Guest (K) 

voices, things like the Red nation podcast and things because,

01:22:06:16 - 01:22:09:02

Guest (K) 

we don't have to reinvent the wheel

01:22:09:04 - 01:22:11:07

Guest (K) 

and how to organize ourselves outside of capitalism.

01:22:11:07 - 01:22:14:14

Guest (K) 

There have been many, many societies, including very complex

01:22:14:16 - 01:22:23:13

Guest (K) 

societies that, organize themselves socially and economically and continue to to this day

01:22:23:15 - 01:22:30:10

Guest (K) 

in different ways that do not, you know, rely upon mass exploitation and

01:22:30:12 - 01:22:32:08

Guest (K) 

overconsumption and oppression.

01:22:32:10 - 01:22:32:15

Guest (K) 

Yeah.

01:22:32:15 - 01:22:33:15

Guest (K) 

So,

01:22:35:01 - 01:22:38:13

Guest (K) 

Um,if you if you want to get good at building a better world,

01:22:38:15 - 01:22:42:04

Guest (K) 

start there. Look at what's been done.

01:22:42:06 - 01:22:43:16

Guest (K) 

Look at what's been tried. Um

01:22:46:12 - 01:22:57:10

Guest (K) 

Read the leftist theory, read the history, read the fiction. The the authors that have, like, tried to paint pictures of better worlds. Look in the solar punk,

01:22:57:12 - 01:23:21:06

Guest (K) 

and the solar punk. And there's also Afrofuturism and indigenous futurism,um, which are all similarly utopian genres of writing. And, um, yeah, just it's like a practice, uh, you know, there's a common saying it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, which I think for 99.9% of people. That is very, very, very true. Um,

01:23:21:08 - 01:23:23:01

Host (H) 

Yeah.

01:23:23:03 - 01:23:27:14

Guest (K) 

But you have to, like, practice your

01:23:27:16 - 01:23:29:03

Guest (K) 

imagination. You have to practice, um,

01:23:29:05 - 01:23:32:04

Guest (K) 

liberating your mind from these systems.

01:23:32:06 - 01:23:40:10

Guest (K) 

And I think, for the viewers of this podcast, it'll be very healing because what I found reading leftist Praxis, like,

01:23:40:12 - 01:23:50:00

Guest (K) 

there's like one essay I can think of by Francoise Bergé about abolition now is Ruth Wilson Gilmore, who's a black radical scholar

01:23:50:02 - 01:24:31:00

Guest (K) 

who writes about abolition, no, no, no, it's Ruth Wilson Gilmore, who's a black radical scholar who

writes about abolition geography. And she says, don't spend your life waiting until you can draw a line around your entire country or the entire world and say, here we are, free. She says we have to become more precise geographers. So you need to start by drawing a circle around your own head and being able to say, here I am, free. And then maybe you can draw a circle around you and your family, your nuclear family. Can you draw a circle around you and your children and say, here we are free. Here we are not cops, you know. And then when you can do your family, can you draw a circle around your community and say, here we are free and become more precise geographers? And if all 

01:24:31:02 - 01:24:32:11

Host (H) 

Wow.

01:24:32:13 - 01:24:34:11

Guest (K) 

of us are working on liberating

01:24:34:15 - 01:24:38:13

Guest (K) 

our families and our communities and our friends

01:24:38:15 - 01:24:42:17

Guest (K) 

from these coercive, oppressive capitalist systems,

01:24:43:01 - 01:24:56:06

Guest (K) 

building mutual aid networks, building solidarity and collective power, then eventually all those little blobs will start to

01:24:56:08 - 01:25:09:07

Host (K) 

It's giving tikkun olam. It's giving anti and it's giving post carceral systems, which is just so gorgeous. And the threads of praxis that you're able to pull through your work and of

01:25:09:11 - 01:25:17:15

Host (K)

the generations of liberatory thinkers that came before and really set these foundations, like you do such great work in, in honoring them and acknowledging them

01:25:17:17 - 01:25:20:12

Host (K)

and pushing to what is next like that is

01:25:20:14 - 01:25:24:12

Host (K)

this thread in genocide that it has pulled through your other works as well.

01:25:24:14 - 01:25:29:04

Host (K)

And there's something so stunning and beautiful about

01:25:29:06 - 01:25:35:02

Host (K)

how you've moved from imagining liberated futures to really actively working on liberation in the present.

01:25:35:06 - 01:25:39:04

Host (K)

Both require this visionary thinking and a refusal

01:25:39:06 - 01:25:45:04

Host (K)

to accept things as they are, a refusal to look at what is in front of you and say, oh, this is what I've been given. And so this is it.

01:25:45:04 - 01:25:47:10

Host (K)

And so I'm going to stop the labor here like

01:25:47:12 - 01:25:49:07

Host (K)

you're so clearly,

01:25:49:09 - 01:25:55:08

Host (K)

in a gorgeous way, unable to do that. Like you are. You are so able to do

01:25:55:10 - 01:26:02:09

Host (K)

whatever is next and so unable to sit in while this is just what I have. And I think that's what's

01:26:02:10 - 01:26:03:10

Host (K)

really

01:26:03:12 - 01:26:06:06

Host (K)

part of what's contributed to your capacity for

01:26:06:08 - 01:26:08:17

Host (K)

not only movement building, but, movement leading.

01:26:08:17 - 01:26:12:15

Host (K)

Though I know you've talked about sort of your reluctance to, to engage with that space. So

01:26:12:17 - 01:26:19:01

Host (K)

it is also one of the reasons why Hannah and I were so excited to to start super humanize her is because of our

01:26:19:03 - 01:26:21:12

Host (K)

dissatisfaction with the way

01:26:21:14 - 01:26:24:02

Host (K)

things are and an incapacity

01:26:24:06 - 01:26:34:05

Host (K)

to just sit with that and do nothing. So we we really wanted to highlight remarkable people like you who are doing this work on the ground and who inspire all of us to

01:26:34:07 - 01:26:38:01

Host (K)

imagine this better world and to actually contribute toward it.

01:26:38:03 - 01:26:43:17

Host (K)

And so along those lines, we end all of our interviews with what we call a heart share,

01:26:44:01 - 01:26:48:03

Host (K)

where we invite our guests to share something that keeps them grounded or motivated.

01:26:48:05 - 01:26:52:07

Host (K)

It can be a quote, a poem, a practice, or just a simple truth

01:26:52:09 - 01:26:57:11

Host (K)

that helps you stay connected to your purpose. When the work does get really hard and the work does get really hard.

01:26:57:15 - 01:27:06:00

Host (K)

So do you have a heart share that you would like to bring to this space?

01:27:06:02 - 01:27:14:04

Guest (K) 

Yeah, I was thinking about this and it's, um, it's a psychological strategy that I think it's a very bad rap, which is compartmentalization.

01:27:14:05 - 01:27:20:06

Guest (K)

Um, but truly it's so stigmatized. And obviously compartmentalization can be a 

01:27:20:08 - 01:27:21:12

Guest (K)

problem,

01:27:21:14 - 01:27:24:15

Guest (K)

but it is a survival

01:27:24:17 - 01:27:26:02

Host (H) 

Yeah.

01:27:26:04 - 01:27:27:01

Guest (K)

mechanism, and

01:27:27:01 - 01:27:27:12

Host (H) 

Yeah.

01:27:27:14 - 01:27:28:10

Guest (K)

We need it right now because

01:27:28:12 - 01:27:29:03

Host (H)

Oh yeah.

01:27:29:07 - 01:27:33:04

Guest (K)

constantly barraged by the horrible. And I

01:27:33:04 - 01:27:33:16

Host (H)

Oh, yeah.

01:27:34:00 - 01:27:39:14

Guest (K)

people who tell me in comments like that they can never stop thinking about it and they

01:27:39:16 - 01:27:40:05

Guest (K)

experience.

01:27:40:05 - 01:27:43:11

Guest (K)

Right. And I've had those moments

01:27:43:13 - 01:27:46:09

Guest (K)

over the past year and a half where it's like

01:27:46:10 - 01:27:50:03

Guest (K)

a constant stream and I can't turn it off.

01:27:50:05 - 01:27:51:05

Guest (K)

Um, 

01:27:51:07 - 01:28:00:15

Guest (K)

But I think for me, compartmentalization is it's it's really important, you know, if you're going to be engaging, if you're going to be, as I am trying to do,

01:28:01:00 - 01:28:05:09

Guest (K)

bearing witness to genocide on a daily basis and seeing

01:28:05:11 - 01:28:06:15

Guest (K)

horrors

01:28:06:17 - 01:28:16:17

Guest (K)

and communicating about horrors on a daily basis, you can't have that top of mind all the time, right?

01:28:17:00 - 01:28:21:08

Guest (K)

So when I like, close my Instagram app and when I'm like,

01:28:21:11 - 01:28:23:01

Guest (K)

offline,

01:28:23:03 - 01:28:27:07

Guest (K)

it's in a box, baby, like its out away

01:28:27:08 - 01:28:33:13

Guest (K)

Lock it up. Not to be carceral.

01:28:33:15 - 01:28:39:07

Guest (K)

And like, the best thing is like, I'm with my children, you know you know what I mean? And I'm in the moment. And like when I'm with them,

01:28:39:09 - 01:28:40:04

Guest (K)

I'm not.

01:28:40:04 - 01:28:45:02

Guest (K)

And sometimes it comes up, you know, sometimes it floats up and then I go, I fall back on like,

01:28:45:04 - 01:28:53:14

Guest (K)

you know, my Buddhist, uh, learning that I've done, I've really gotten a lot out of the writings of tick, not Han. Um, if people are wondering for a place to start with their.

01:28:53:16 - 01:28:58:10

Guest (K)

are wondering for a place over there. But just like if I'm, like, with my child, I'm snuggling my child.

01:28:58:10 - 01:29:00:09

Guest (K)

And like an image surfaces

01:29:00:11 - 01:29:09:05

Guest (K)

of a horrible a horribly mutilated, you know, a horrible thing that happened to a child her age that I've seen over the past year and a half. You know, I like

01:29:09:07 - 01:29:22:02

Guest (K)

you, greet you, read it, you acknowledge it, you breathe, and then you let it go, you know, and it's like, I'm here with the the miracle of life and the sweetness and the sweetness of my children.

01:29:22:02 - 01:29:22:15

Guest (K)

Like,

01:29:22:17 - 01:29:28:11

Unknown

I have three girls, 19, eight and one and a half, and they are all

01:29:28:13 - 01:29:33:00

Guest (K) 

My god. Yeah.

01:29:33:02 - 01:29:35:17

Guest (K)

Amazing, and they’re all funny and they love each other. Like there's no Sibling rivalry because of one

01:29:36:01 - 01:29:42:01

Guest (K)

big age gap. I'm a huge proponent of big age gaps. They just adore each other

01:29:42:03 - 01:29:51:02

Guest (K)

being with them and seeing them together. It's just like my life is so full of joy, like I my life is so full of horrors when I like talking and writing about genocide But when I put it down, I really put it down. And then I'm just like with my family, in the moment. Like appreciating this

01:30:00:00 - 01:30:03:15

Guest (K)

brief, miraculous thing of being a sentient,

01:30:03:17 - 01:30:14:01

Guest (K)

carbon based life form. This 1 in 1,000,000,000 billion planets in space. Like you have to take the moments to just

01:30:14:02 - 01:30:15:01

Guest (K) 

be and en, enjoy that And and even though you are fully aware that there's just the most horrific suffering and injustice and evil going on in the world, you know,

01:30:15:02 - 01:30:26:05

Host (H)

Yes.

01:30:26:06 - 01:30:41:14

Host (K) 

Yeah. The dialectics exist,the awe And the horrors.

Time stamp

Guest (K) 

the awe and the horse. So it's okay to compartmentalize. It's okay to put it away. I think some people need to hear that. It's okay to put it away. It's okay to forget about it and put it down. You need to like to be able to keep going long term.

01:30:41:15 - 01:31:00:09

Host (K)

Yeah, yeah. And you'll be able to. It'll still be there. Like you'll be able to come back to it later. It's not like it's going anywhere.

01:31:00:11 - 01:31:18:13

Unknown

Yeah, but I wanted to kind of float this because y'all are like the trained therapy people. So like, what do y'all what is what's your take on that? 

Time stamp

Host (K) 

Um, Love it. Yes, 100% agree, I think. And even it's not like you said. Oh, when it comes to your mind, force it away. It's like, no, no, it comes to your mind and you acknowledge it and you name the fact that it's there. And if you stay with it, it'll make you feel some type of way. And right now you're feeling some other type of way, and you want to be in that experience.

01:31:18:15 - 01:31:20:15

Host (K)

It's just very intentional.

01:31:21:04 - 01:31:38:12

Host (K)

And I appreciate, yeah, that you even as you're sharing this skill with listeners, framing this skill with a particular kind of intentionality. And one of the metaphors that I've heard about movements for liberation or analogies, I guess, is it's like singing in a choir

01:31:38:14 - 01:31:43:13

Host (K)

where everyone has to take a breath and you will not hear

01:31:43:14 - 01:31:45:03

Host (K)

the breath

01:31:45:05 - 01:31:47:09

Host (K)

unless everyone takes at the same time.

01:31:47:09 - 01:32:00:14

Host (K)

And our movement for collective liberation, our collective. So that will not happen. Like if you need to take a step back and breathe while someone else is holding the note that no, it will be held, you can hop back in, you can help hold it for the next person has to step back and breathe.

01:32:00:16 - 01:32:03:02

Host (K)

And as, someone with

01:32:03:04 - 01:32:06:16

Host (K)

both mental health treatment training and,

01:32:07:00 - 01:32:09:06

Host (K)

who has a history as a choral singer and a

01:32:09:08 - 01:32:12:05

Host (K)

theater nerd, that metaphor always just hits for me.

01:32:12:08 - 01:32:13:02

Host (K)

So,

01:32:13:04 - 01:32:18:05

Host (H) 

yes. And. I'd echo that and I would

01:32:18:07 - 01:32:32:12

Host (H)

say we must compartmentalize if we're always in that genocide space then how do we come back to the justice work and the strength to have that work. And the nervous system response to the genocide

01:32:32:16 - 01:32:34:02

Host (H)

witnessing.

01:32:34:04 - 01:32:39:05

Host (H)

With fight or flight. And so if we're always in fighter flight, we're going towards break down.

01:32:39:05 - 01:32:40:06

Host (H)

That's just like a

01:32:40:08 - 01:32:43:00

Host (H)

very basic nervous system concept.

01:32:43:02 - 01:32:47:16

Host (H)

And what I'm seeing a lot of, especially these days at the national level, it's

01:32:48:00 - 01:32:49:17

Host (H)

joy as resistance.

01:32:50:00 - 01:32:54:03

Host (H)

I know, Katie, you love this and you speak to this so well. So I'm going to borrow a page out of 

01:32:54:05 - 01:32:58:12

Host (H)

Your book and say that joy is resistance. Joy is what

01:32:58:14 - 01:33:00:05

Host (H)

fuel is resistance.

01:33:00:05 - 01:33:01:01

Host (H)

And

01:33:01:03 - 01:33:05:03

Host (H)

when I think about like within this, like pro-Palestine space,

01:33:05:05 - 01:33:11:10

Host (H)

when we celebrate Palestinian culture and heritage, when we go to a Palestinian book fair, right, or when we go to

01:33:11:12 - 01:33:14:13

Host (H)

a Palestinian heritage fair or whatever it is

01:33:14:15 - 01:33:22:16

Host (H)

where we know the genocide is happening, but we go there and we eat the food and we celebrate the culture and we celebrate the history, and we read the books and

01:33:23:00 - 01:33:26:14

Host (H)

and that's that celebration is also what keeps our resistance going.

01:33:26:14 - 01:33:27:04

Host (H)

So

01:33:27:06 - 01:33:32:09

Host (H)

it's important for us to not just compartmentalize, but to also experience joy

01:33:32:11 - 01:33:35:08

Host (H)

in our lives so that it keeps fueling

01:33:35:10 - 01:33:39:07

Host (H)

the movement. And especially, you know, also outside of this hall, like

01:33:39:09 - 01:33:45:04

Host (H)

justice oriented work is just being present. You know, I love your focus on Buddhism, Sam, because I also

01:33:45:06 - 01:33:47:09

Host (H)

I'm a meditation practitioner, and

01:33:47:11 - 01:33:51:00

Host (H)

I very much believe in presence as a form of resistance.

01:33:51:02 - 01:33:55:04

Host (H)

And so when you're there with your children and you're absorbing your children in that way,

01:33:55:06 - 01:34:05:14

Host (H)

you know, when I'm here with my gods, when, when, when Kate is there in Paris, enjoying her Prosecco, you know, there is something really powerful and beautiful about that

01:34:05:16 - 01:34:11:06

Host (H)

and keeping us going when we go back into the space of genocide and the work we do with each other.

01:34:11:06 - 01:34:12:08

Host (H)

So thank you so much

01:34:12:10 - 01:34:13:16

Host (H)

for sharing that.

01:34:14:00 - 01:34:14:08

Unknown

Um, 

01:34:14:11 - 01:34:18:01

Host (H)

I wanted to share a heart share about

01:34:18:03 - 01:34:23:01

Host (H)

something that comes from your book, actually, your followers on social media

01:34:23:03 - 01:34:25:11

Host (H)

who you would dearly refer to as your.

01:34:25:13 - 01:34:38:04

Host (H)

I hope I say this right, your Miss Pacha,Did I say that right?

01:34:38:06 - 01:34:38:17

Guest (K) 

Mishpacha Mishpacha

01:34:39:01 - 01:34:44:02

Host (H)

your mishpacha, which means family in Yiddish, helped you raise half a million dollars for pregnant women in Gaza Your book ends with a profound reflection on your experience giving birth compared to theirs,

01:34:44:04 - 01:34:49:16

Host (H)

and how all our babies and their mothers deserve the same gentle, supported welcome to the world.

01:34:50:00 - 01:34:54:01

Host (H)

But that's not how they meet the world in Gaza. These babies are these mothers.

01:34:54:03 - 01:34:58:14

Host (H)

Your book ends with notes from the families of babies born during the genocide in Gaza.

01:34:58:14 - 01:35:07:13

Host (H)

You said I wanted to hand the mic over to some of these parents and close out by letting them speak directly to you, my English speaking audience.

01:35:07:15 - 01:35:14:06

Host (H)

And since our super humanize our community, are also the same audience, I wanted to read one of your notes

01:35:14:08 - 01:35:18:06

Host (H)

from the book with your permission. Is that okay? Okay,

Time stamp

Guest (K) 

Yeah

01:35:18:08 - 01:35:20:17

Host (H)

Okay, so this is, about Elena.

01:35:20:17 - 01:35:31:08

Host (H)

Elena was born on June 8th, 2024, in Gaza to parents Naveen and Waseem. The following was written by her father, Waseem Abdul Ahmad

01:35:31:10 - 01:35:37:06

Host (H)

When any war starts, our children become the weakest point affected by hostilities,

01:35:37:08 - 01:35:43:07

Host (H)

falling within the sights of countless dangers and deprived of the most beautiful years of childhood.

01:35:43:09 - 01:35:46:10

Host (H)

Therefore, the protection of children is important.

01:35:46:13 - 01:35:48:02

Host (H)

Without a doubt,

01:35:48:04 - 01:35:51:05

Host (H)

our children are the present and the future.

01:35:51:07 - 01:35:55:01

Host (H)

They must enjoy a decent life like your children.

01:35:55:03 - 01:35:57:06

Host (H)

They have been deprived of everything.

01:35:57:08 - 01:36:00:01

Host (H)

It's enough that their lives have been robbed.

01:36:00:03 - 01:36:06:13

Host (H)

So all we wish is that we as parents and the whole world can help our children get out into a safe life

01:36:06:15 - 01:36:08:03

Host (H)

and a bright future soon.

01:36:08:03 - 01:36:09:11

Host (H)

And away from any wars.

01:36:09:15 - 01:36:12:16

Host (H)

Please save us before it's too late.

01:36:13:00 - 01:36:16:01

Host (H)

Thank you for giving them a voice, my dear. Sim

01:36:16:03 - 01:36:21:12

Host (H)

Katie, my dear. What about your heart? What wisdom is it going to share with us today?

01:36:21:14 - 01:36:26:11

Host (K)

So. But first of all, that is

01:36:26:13 - 01:36:33:14

Host (K)

gorgeous and guiding. I think I'm really sitting in the dialectics or the the duality of this conversation, which is always,

01:36:33:16 - 01:36:34:07

Host (K)

Um, 

01:36:34:09 - 01:36:39:11

Host (K)

always tense. And I know I do talk a lot about the the importance of joy, work

01:36:39:14 - 01:36:41:06

Host (K)

and pleasure work

01:36:41:10 - 01:36:46:17

Host (K)

and staying in movements for liberation. But I also encourage people to be insightful, like if you're noticing

01:36:47:01 - 01:36:52:04

Host (K)

yourself saying joy, resistance, joy, resistance, joy, resistance, and you've never been to a protest

01:36:52:06 - 01:36:53:15

Host (K)

and you haven't made a phone call

01:36:54:01 - 01:36:58:14

Host (K)

and you aren't contributing to art, and you are educating your community, and you are like showing up

01:36:58:16 - 01:37:01:01

Host (K)

in these tangible or informational ways.

01:37:01:01 - 01:37:05:10

Host (K)

You're not raising consciousness. You're not contributing to mobilization.

01:37:05:11 - 01:37:12:16

Host (K)

Then I don't know that your resistant joy is resistance or means anything. So if you know, using joy or like

01:37:13:00 - 01:37:21:08

Host (K)

the framing of self-care as a buffer against accountability, you owe yourself radical honesty about that. You owe your community radical honesty about that.

01:37:21:10 - 01:37:37:03

Host (K)

And I think that segues into my heart share, which is I've been spending a good amount of time in Paris with a group of anti-Zionist Jews and Israelis who are Israeli Parisians who contribute to two weekly protests in Paris.

01:37:37:05 - 01:37:48:00

Host (K)

And I will say these folks also refer to themselves as like, people from occupied Palestine or people from the state that is called Israel. They are not deeply tied to this label of, you know, Israeli Parisians.

01:37:48:02 - 01:37:48:13

Host (K)

Um, 

01:37:48:13 - 01:37:49:00

Host (H) 

Wow.

01:37:49:00 - 01:37:53:14

Host (K)

There's a weekly march at Republique in Paris every Saturday,

01:37:53:16 - 01:37:59:13

Host (K)

and there's a weekly vigil that I came from right before we recorded this episode.

01:37:59:14 - 01:38:07:07

Host (K)

That's a mile long walk in a loop. We walk in a circle, in front of some shell that square

01:38:07:09 - 01:38:10:11

Host (K)

every Sunday for half an hour and then hold,

01:38:10:13 - 01:38:16:14

Host (K)

informational signage for five, ten minutes. So in a touristy area so that people who are

01:38:16:16 - 01:38:19:15

Host (K)

walking by can get some information,

01:38:20:01 - 01:38:23:11

Host (K)

about the ongoing genocide and the number of people I heard today

01:38:23:15 - 01:38:31:08

Host (K)

speaking in different languages just from seeing this very visible protest of, oh, they're talking about Israel-Palestine, they're talking about

01:38:31:12 - 01:38:34:04

Host (K)

the genocide in Gaza, and also they're talking about wanting,

01:38:34:08 - 01:38:37:05

Host (K)

these arms to stop flowing into Israel.

01:38:37:05 - 01:38:41:00

Host (K)

They're talking about, you know, sanctions against Israel as a state.

01:38:41:02 - 01:38:46:04

Host (K)

It it was clearly such an effective consciousness mobilizing or a consciousness raising

01:38:46:08 - 01:38:51:10

Host (K)

mobilization effort that really touched my heart. And these this group

01:38:51:12 - 01:38:52:15

Host (K)

of,

01:38:53:00 - 01:39:00:17

Host (K)

anti-Zionist Israelis is led by an ex Israeli occupation force officer who I've had the privilege of getting to know

01:39:01:01 - 01:39:03:16

Host (K)

who really came into his

01:39:04:00 - 01:39:12:01

Host (K)

anti-Zionism and Zionist criticality within the last few years, is new to this work and has shown up

01:39:12:03 - 01:39:21:04

Host (K)

every week for weeks and organized other anti-Zionist Israelis to show up publicly in France, where it is very dangerous to be

01:39:21:06 - 01:39:23:15

Host (K)

Zionist, critical in public spaces,

01:39:23:16 - 01:39:26:01

Host (K)

and is doing this work on the ground.

01:39:26:01 - 01:39:30:12

Host (K)

And and we were talking about his service in the IOF earlier today,

01:39:30:14 - 01:39:35:03

Host (K)

and he has such an immediate, like, visceral shame response when he talks about like

01:39:35:07 - 01:39:40:04

Host (K)

he he went from looking me in the eye and really engaging to like not being able to engage in this conversation. I was like,

01:39:40:07 - 01:39:42:12

Host (K)

look at what you're doing now. Like you,

01:39:42:12 - 01:39:43:02

Host (H) 

Wow

01:39:43:06 - 01:39:48:10

Host (K)

you would you understand what was what you were contributing to before

01:39:48:12 - 01:39:51:03

Host (K)

and, and have acknowledged this and are

01:39:51:05 - 01:39:55:03

Host (K)

funneling it into direct action so that and he put it

01:39:55:07 - 01:40:01:11

Host (K)

as, you know, if we're out here speaking as anti-Zionist Israelis and imagining

01:40:01:14 - 01:40:06:14

Host (K)

a different future for this occupied space, even with the dismantling of this, the Israeli state,

01:40:06:16 - 01:40:10:10

Host (K)

it gives French and Parisian politicians

01:40:10:11 - 01:40:22:05

Host (K)

more legitimacy when they say, you know, these policy changes are not antisemitic. Look at the Israelis and Jews that we have out on our streets in Paris demanding these policy changes and these sanctions.

01:40:22:07 - 01:40:42:04

Host (K)

It winds up being a political process, even as these systems are, you know, really broken. And so that is what has been weighing on my on my heart today and also alleviating, frankly, some of the weight on my heart is seeing how engaged people are in Paris, knowing that so many of these people who are very engaged and who are leading

01:40:42:06 - 01:40:44:08

Host (K)

these movements on the ground and contributing

01:40:44:10 - 01:40:47:09

Host (K)

are Israeli, that they themselves are critical of

01:40:47:09 - 01:40:49:10

Host (K)

labels like Israeli, that they are,

01:40:49:12 - 01:41:06:16

Host (K)

you know, really trying to give cover to Parisian politicians so that they can do the work that needs to be done so that Israel no longer has access to these arms. It it's systemic work. And we need every single person to contribute. So, yes, joy is liberation. Rest is liberation. Pleasure is liberation.

01:41:07:00 - 01:41:10:14

Host (K)

And make sure you're part of the systems that are moving the needle as well.

01:41:10:15 - 01:41:11:16

Host (H) 

Yeah.

01:41:12:00 - 01:41:13:04

Guest (K) 

Well, said

01:41:13:06 - 01:41:15:01

Host (K)

Thank you.

01:41:15:03 - 01:41:30:02

Host (K)

So to our heartful community of Super Humanizes. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode. And thank you Sim for allowing us to take up more of your time than anticipated. To our listeners, if this conversation moved you, please share it.

01:41:30:03 - 01:41:31:10

Host (K)

Rate us, leave a review.

01:41:31:14 - 01:41:41:04

Host (K)

And most importantly, find ways to get involved in the movement for justice that you believe will further a better world. And we will end as we end

01:41:41:06 - 01:41:43:13

Host (K)

every pod with our closing prayer.

01:41:43:15 - 01:41:49:17

Host (K)

May all beings everywhere thrive in peace, dignity, and share in all our joys.

01:41:50:01 - 01:41:55:10

Host (H)

And may we see true peace in the Middle East for all in our lifetime.

01:41:55:12 - 01:41:59:15

Host (H) 

Thank you. Thank you Sim. Thank you so much for being here.

01:42:00:01 - 01:42:02:04

Guest (K)

wonderful conversation.

01:42:02:06 - 01:42:03:00

host (H)

Thank you with all the generosity of your time. Yeah, choros for that. 

01:42:03:02 - 01:42:11:09

Host (K)

I was. I appreciate your time. We love you.

Time Stamps

Host (K) 

Hey, Superhumanizer. It's Katie Bogan here. Before you go, I have a quick ask. If today's conversation moved you, would you please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser? Both links are in the show notes. And your reviews really help us to reach more people who need to hear these stories. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with a friend, a loved one, or anyone who you think would benefit from it. Your reviews and sharing help us inspire more humanity in our world. Thank you for being a friend of Superhumanizer. See you next episode.