Vegans for Palestine Podcast - Episode 17 - Returning to Nazareth

This episode features Said, a Palestinian vegan from Nazareth now based in Jordan, who shares his journey into veganism, beginning with health reasons and evolving into a commitment to animal rights and human liberation.Said discusses co-founding Jordanian Vegans and Vegans for Palestine, veganizing traditional dishes like Mansaf, and the need to challenge “vegan-washing,” especially when Israel markets itself as 'vegan-friendly' while committing atrocities against Palestinians. Alongside activism, Said reflects on his family’s experiences during the Nakba, and the resilience of the people of Nazareth. The conversation with Rayan weaves together food, memory, resistance, and vision for a free, secular, democratic Palestine where returning home is a necessity.

This episode features edited auto captions for Deaf and Hard of Hearing viewers here.

Read Letter from Nazareth: The forgotten Palestinians here

Read Why Israel has silenced the 1948 story of Nazareth’s survival here

The music in this episode is credited to Wlad el-Hara (We7 - "Boys of the Hood") - a Palestinian group from Nazareth. Follow here 

Transcript

NARRATOR: Off the beaten road of travel, the ancient town of Nazareth الناصرة lies secluded on the slopes of Galilee. It has changed but little since he, who is called the Nazarene, dwelt here in his childhood. Mary's well, one of the most popular shrines of Palestine, is now guarded by British soldiers, for it is the only spring in Nazareth الناصرة. The young women of the village still draw the water and transport it in the fashion of 2,000 years ago.

DALAL: Hello, it is Dalal, and this is the Vegans for Palestine podcast. Meet Said, a Palestinian from Nazareth الناصرة who currently lives in Jordan. For most Christians around the world, Nazareth الناصرة is the place where Jesus grew up. For Said, it is also his hometown. Said talks to Rayan about his veganism, his love for his homeland, and his family's connection to the holy city. Enjoy this one.

SAID: My name is Said. I'm an engineer. I'm a renewable energy engineer. Worked in that for a few years. And I'm the co-founder of Jordanian Vegans. And we also started vegans for Palestine with our comrades in Vegans for Palestine. That was in November 2023. So I'm passionate about animal rights. I'm an animal rights activist. Now I'm a human rights activist as long as an animal rights activist. I work in different communities in the vegan, or not only in the vegan world but also in the Palestinian liberation world. I went vegan on January 4th, 2020. So that's more than — that's five and a half years now, or something. I went vegan overnight, believe it or not. I went vegan for health reasons in the beginning, plant based. Then there was like this blindfold that was lifted off my eyes, and I started — in the first week I watched seven different documentaries about veganism and the effects on the environment and the effects on human health and effects on animals and the animal cruelty — and it took me around two, three months until I had the courage to watch a documentary of animal rights activists planting hidden cameras in slaughter houses and in animal agriculture farms or prisons. That documentary was 1 hour long, and I cried for about two hours. So every five minutes I would pause and cry for 10 minutes and then resume watching, and then I knew that I was vegan, and I needed to speak up about the voices. The first week it was — I watched documentaries about the environment, a documentary called Conspiracy, and another documentary. I watched all the vegan documentaries that you can find them on YouTube. They're called vegan 2019, 2020, 2020 — there every year they have a documentary released — and I watched Forks Over Knives for health reasons. I — the first one that I watched that made me instantly change was Game Changers. So I watched Game Changers on a Saturday morning. I still remember that. I still didn't have breakfast, and I had a homos sandwich or something for breakfast that day and was plant-based from that, from that moment. Then, after a couple of months, I watched this documentary called Land of Hope and Glory. I don't know if you've seen it. Um, one of my ex-icons in veganism, the animal rights activism, his name is Earthling Ed, or Ed Winters. He created that documentary. Basically they plant hidden cameras in slaughter houses and in, and in farms, and they explain what is going on at that moment. So I watched that. I was like, we have to talk about it in Jordan. So what happened first is that, before watching that documentary, I have started an Instagram page called Vegan Foodie, where I wanted to show my family and friends that eating vegan is still delicious and I still eat the same things that you do but in a vegan, cruelty-free way. Anything you think of can be veganized. We even veganize mansaf, which is basically the national dish of Jordan. Mansaf is basically like yogurt, or dried fermented yogurt, with some dead flesh on top, and you eat it over rice, and it's a cultural thing. So we veganize that. This lady, she has a homebased business now. Now I think that she has a small factory. It's called what she does — she veganized jameed. Jameed is the main component is the yogurt. jameed is made from fermented yogurt, and she made it from fermented almonds where she adds the spices of the ghee inside. So it has that. It also has that tangy taste from the apple cider vinegar she uses. It has the spice flavours of the — where they put ghee on top of the mansaf usually. So she made it in liquid form. You can buy it from there. It gets delivered to you. You just pour the jar in a, in a pot, add some water, cook it up, and you have jam. And the other components are rice, the meat, which we replace with seitan, basically. You can also buy ready seitan, and you just cook it with the jameed and you have a beautiful man of dish. If you pay me, I don't know, $10 billion, I'm going to be like Trump now, talking about billions. I wouldn't replace it for regular cruel men, to be honest.

RAYAN: Before you told me that Earthling Ed was a former icon, did you want to explain that?

SAID: Yeah, sure. I went off a tangent. Earthling Ed, honestly, when 7th of October happened, the Palestinian people have been struggling with the occupation for over 75 years. 7th of October started, they started bombing children and women and men without any hesitation, without anyone stopping them, the occupation, and it turned into a genocide pretty quickly. So, November 2023, we started noticing that animal rights activists around the world are being silent about what's going on in Gaza and Palestine. So, as a vegan and understanding vegan morals and values, I understand that we stand up for all kinds of aggression against humans and non-human animals. What happened is that I saw a lot of — call them influencers if you want — but from the animal rights activism world, of course, as a vegan, I'm against killing, but all vegans around the world should be against killing as well. What I'm seeing being done in the West Bank, and what we have been seeing for the past 75 years, 77 years now, in the West Bank, Palestine, in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Gaza — we've tried Oslo, we've tried the peace treaty as Palestinians with the Israelis, and we've tried to go for a two-state solution, but it doesn't work. So, basically, Earthling Ed was — I was going off a tangent as well. I loved his type of activism, going to the street and talking to people and having debates with meat eaters and all that, and I thought he was aggressive. Then I went and I saw Joey Carbstrong, and I also liked his method. There are different methods, but they're both — like, I believe as an activist that we need all kinds of activism. Like, you can be gentle at times, you can talk about the environment, you could talk about health, you can talk about all that. Sometimes you have to be blunt and face the oppressor bluntly, basically like what Joey Carbstrong is doing. So, everything didn't mention anything about what was going on. And even if you are vegan and you only care for animals, let's say a year and a half ago, it was 80% of animals in Gaza were killed either by starvation or by direct bombing and killing of these animals. There was a video that went viral recently about these IF soldiers killing a donkey and shooting it and laughing about it. If you don't care about humans, care about the animals at least. So, I see that not talking about the genocide is hypocrisy. And you can't call yourself vegan if you don't speak up on what is going on in Palestine. And so that's why he's a former — Joey Carbstrong talked about it, but I don't think he talked enough. I think his message was a bit too late, a little too late. But also, I’ve unfollowed a lot of doctors that I was following and a lot of influencers and vegan activists and all that because they simply were siding with the oppressor, and you can't be vegan — that's called vegan washing. Israel calls itself, or the occupation force calls itself, the most moral army in the world, where they have the highest percentage of vegan soldiers in the army. They wear the vegan boots, and they go kill children and bomb children and bomb mosques and churches and schools and hospitals. It's contradictory to me — I can't understand it as a human. Okay, I might be — or I am — biased as a Palestinian, for sure, but any human should understand that it is not right. And eating animals is not right. We are in a place in the world, or we are in a time in the world, that — okay, I agree that as a human species, we needed to hunt for animals at some points in our lives to survive, but we are not living in a survival mode. The people of Gaza are, but now we, in countries that have supermarkets — stocked supermarkets near you or near each one of us — we are not in a survival situation. You can easily go buy hummus, or you can buy chickpeas, or food, or fresh vegetables, or canned food, or whatever, and much cheaper than the meat alternative or the cruel alternative, and you can easily be vegan. And health-wise, I think that was one of the important things. It might be better for you actually because I went vegan for health reasons at first, because I have — I've been diagnosed with this disease back in 2017–18 called MS, multiple sclerosis, if you've heard of it. So, it's basically the immune system in your body attacks its own nerve endings, or the nerve endings of other nerves. It's random in the body. So, what that does is inflammation all across the body, and the medication I'm taking basically increases inflammation because it's fighting all these attacks that are happening and preventing all the attacks from happening. So, I went plant-based in the beginning to reduce the inflammation, and it worked really well. I used to take painkillers in the morning just to get out of bed if it was the day after I took the medication. After going plant-based, I stopped using pain medications in the morning. My life started becoming much easier. So, that's what kept me determined to keep going plant-based. And then it just lifted the blindfold. As I told you, it sounds like you saw quite a few examples of vegan washing though when the current genocide began.

RAYAN: Yeah, because like you, I went through a process of unfollowing lots and lots of people. 

SAID: Yeah, it was hard. Like, I put my trust and I idolize these people, where you shouldn't idolize any man. This is what I learned through these past hard two years. Vegan washing is everywhere. What the occupation is trying to do is trying to say that they are the most vegan country in the world. They have the most vegan restaurants in the world, and Tel Aviv is the capital of vegan food, and they're trying to steal our hummus. They're trying to steal our inherently vegan recipes that were passed on from our great-grandparents. That's vegan washing. If you've heard about greenwashing, if you've heard about pinkwashing, it's the same, but they are using it — because it's a trend now being vegan, and it's a trend now wanting to be cruelty-free, which I believe isn't true, because being vegan is not a trend. It's just awakening to the fact, or just asking questions, where your food is coming from, or where a product is coming from. What is going into the production of my makeup, or my shampoo, or my toothpaste, or even my damn burger or something? I don't know. Being vegan is just asking, okay, where does this come from? Do I want a cemetery in my body, or do I want a garden in my stomach, or on my face, or on my teeth, or whatever?

RAYAN: I really liked what you said before. Do I want a cemetery in my body or a garden? And it's phenomenal that we live in an age whereby people call themselves vegan and then carry a gun and murder Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza. participate in an army that uproots olive trees, murders both human and non-human animals, takes human hostages whilst making fun of non-human animals that belong to Palestinians, or murders them or cuts up their bodies to taunt Palestinians in some of the most obscene displays of terror. And I think the term vegan washing is only the starting point. It doesn't capture the obscenities going on here, if that makes sense. 

[Music]

TIKTOKER 1: The most ridiculous group of people on Earth has to be vegan Zionists. My wife recently made me aware of their existence. Like, imagine being a vegan Zionist. You know what? I wouldn't harm a hair on the body of an animal. They how dare you harm animals? But I can think of a group of people that are less than human that I have no problem genociding in order to steal their country. I started poking around looking for vegan restaurants in Israel. Found this article, vegan in Israel, the most vegan friendly country in the world with a vegan population of over 5% and a huge amount of dishes that are naturally vegan. This is an herbivore paradise. I feel like the reason there's so many vegan Israelis is it's part of the mental gymnastics they have to do to like feel like they're humanitarians while also simultaneously like unaliving entire families committing genocide because like they're living on the land they're trying to steal. But like I care about the animals. I'm a humanitarian. [ __ ] those olive trees though. And [ __ ] those subhuman animals. But the cows. Think of the cows. [Music] 

RAYAN: Can you tell me about where your family is from in Palestine, and how did they leave Palestine?

SAID: Yeah. My family is from Nazareth الناصرة, in the north of Palestine, like you.

RAYAN: I'm from Ramallah.

SAID: Oh, you're not from Nazareth الناصرة? I thought Nazareth الناصرة?

RAYAN: No, no, I'm from Ramallah.

SAID: Oh yes. Interesting story. I would like to even know more about the details of my grandfather's life, which unfortunately I can't—he passed away. But my grandparents are from Nazareth الناصرة. My grandma is also from Nazareth الناصرة, but she was born in Salt. That's on my father's side. And my grandma was born in Nazareth الناصرة, and all her sisters and brothers still live there. But she came to Jordan, and she got married before they gave the passports. So, when she used to go a lot to visit her mom and her sisters and brothers, she used to get an authorization, or they used to get her an authorization from the occupation. She used to go there a lot. Usually, she would take a lot of food and gifts and stuff from here. She used to live in Amman and take them to her family, and the soldiers on the bridge would usually try to confiscate everything that she used to take, and she would fight with them all the time. She knew Hebrew. She learned Hebrew and she used to fight with them all the time. She would say, “If you want, okay, if you want to confiscate it, throw it, dump it in the bin right in front of me right now,” because they used to take it for themselves. She would spend hours making these pastries and all that, and they would just confiscate it for themselves. So, she would point to them all the time, and she would be held for several hours at a time. Her travel, which should usually take maybe 3 hours, would take maybe 15–16 hours to get to Nazareth الناصرة. So, that's my grandma. My grandfather, on my dad's side, he was in Nazareth الناصرة, and he used to work in Yafa. He left Palestine in 1947, when all the Zionist gangs started making problems for them. Because he was young—maybe 16 years old—and he used to take care of his brothers and sisters, because his father died when he was young. He was the provider for his family. So, in 1947, they couldn't stand it, and they left. And then the Nakba happened in 1948. But if he had stayed, yes, I would have been born there for sure. All the people from Nazareth الناصرة, as you know, a lot of people stayed there, and now they have citizenship of the occupation.

RAYAN: And it's my understanding that the Zionists created a city above Nazareth الناصرة, and they called it Upper Nazareth الناصرة. The purpose of that city was to make sure that the number of Palestinians in Nazareth الناصرة was outnumbered. So Upper Nazareth الناصرة was strategically placed there because there were concerns that Palestinians would be a majority.

SAID: Yeah, I've been to Nazareth الناصرة once or twice actually. When Jordan signed the peace treaty with the occupation, we thought it was serious. As my father works in industry, he went there to see if there were any opportunities with the Palestinians in the West Bank and in the occupied territories. So he took us with him. We went to Nazareth الناصرة. Nazareth الناصرة, as I remember, has very narrow streets and houses that are built very close together. One of my dad's cousins saw our car in the parking lot because in Nazareth الناصرة you can't drive your car—you have to walk. You have to park outside and walk around the old city. So he saw a car that had a Jordanian license plate in the parking lot. He asked around and was told that we were at my mom's family's house. He called us at the hotel. He called and said, “Who is this?” Long story short, he said, “You come to Nazareth الناصرة and you don't call your own cousin? How dare you?” He was fighting with him on the phone. My dad said, “No, no, I'll come over for sure. Tell me just where you live, and we'll be there.” It's a very close-knit community. That's what I'm trying to say. Nazareth الناصرة is, I think, on a lower hill, and there's a higher hill next to it. That's where they built New Nazareth الناصرة. So where all the Palestinians live is Old Nazareth الناصرة, or the original Nazareth الناصرة, and they built a very huge city in the so-called New Nazareth الناصرة. In 1948, what happened was—I asked my mom's relatives what happened, like, how did you not leave Palestine when the Nakba happened? They said that in 1948, Nazareth الناصرة had predominantly Christian families living there. What happened was, they talked to the mayor of Nazareth الناصرة, and because it was inside the territory that they were occupying, and they had this huge land ground, Nazareth الناصرة was included. They talked to the mayor and made him say yes to the occupation or just surrender. Basically, they said, “Okay, you are mostly a Christian city, and all your residents will be saved, but you just have to surrender.” And he did. What happened was that people from the villages around Nazareth الناصرة came inside the city because they were being deported. They were being thrown into trucks, either to Lebanon, Syria, or Jordan. They came and put them in the trucks in Nazareth الناصرة. All the people of Nazareth الناصرة laid down. One of them was my great-grandmother. She laid down in front of a truck. They told them, “These are people from here, and they will not leave. Over our dead bodies. If you want to get them out, you have to run us over.” So they managed to keep them in Nazareth الناصرة. That's a story he told me about the resistance, because my mom's family was one of the families that started the Palestinian Communist Party in Palestine. They were very into resistance and all that.

RAYAN: When we talk about Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, what we have to acknowledge—and this is not an excuse—is that for 75 plus years, they have been coerced into a specific curriculum within their education circles that is strictly Zionist. I know the Zionists like to use the term “Arab-Israelis,” which is one way to erase Palestinian identity. They also like to divide Palestinians between Christians, Druze, Orthodox, Catholic, Buddhist—what was the other one?—Bedouin as well. Apart from this disadvantage, and apart from being, you know, beyond fourth-class citizens, they are the most hated within society… like seventh-class?

SAID: I asked them, and they said that they told me the word in Hebrew: it’s “seventh-class citizen,” not fourth. I have no idea why, but he explained something. He said, like, my mom’s cousin was saying, “Yeah, we are seventh-class citizens in the state of occupation.”

RAYAN: I had an interesting Zionist troll who pretended to be Arabic but kept using Google—I think it was Google Translate. I was like, “This is appalling. You have no idea. You really are a mess.” Basically, she was trying to argue that Israel is a harmonious society, that it’s a multicultural society where all different religions live together. Reflecting on that conversation, it was really interesting that that godforsaken fool had the audacity to approach me and say that apparently war was vegan-friendly, and that apparently Israel is a multicultural society. I was actually saying this in an interview today: there are so many forms of washing. We talked before about vegan washing, and we touched on green washing in passing. I know these terms have their limitations in understanding the cruelty of the phenomenon that is colonial apartheid Zionism, but at the same time, they are useful in understanding the contradictions within a supposedly progressive, only democracy in the Middle East.

ANEES: It's very weird to be a Palestinian Christian right now. It's very weird. mainly because nobody knows we exist, right? when we're all talking about Palestine and what's going on in Gaza, there's this like assumption that it's Muslims versus Jews, which is such a ignorant way to look at the genocide because Palestine is a land for Christians, Muslims, and Jews who all lived in peaceful coexistence before the occupation and before the partition of Palestine.  but really what I'm trying to say here is as a Palestinian Christian, one of the things that has [ __ ] with my head a lot is watching Christians worldwide support genocide of the Holy Land, right? Like if you actually believe in the scripture, if you actually believe in Christ and his teachings, I just don't I can't connect with those kind of Christians that I guess Christian Zionists who believe like, yeah, you know what, like the Palestinians got to be slaughtered, the genocide has to happen, like Jesus would be okay with it because once it happens, Jesus is going to come back or some crazy [ __ ] like that. it's just it's mind-blowing. I the Christianity I know is a Christianity of love, of compassion. The Jesus that I worship, the Jesus that I love, the Jesus that I know is a Jesus of forgiveness, of sacrifice, a Jesus who died for our sins and on the cross said, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." That's the Jesus that I know that I was taught about as a as an Orthodox Christian, as a Palestinian Orthodox Christian. Because, you know, Jesus was a Palestinian. You know, Jesus was from Nazareth الناصرة. You know, Christianity started in Palestine.  and it pains me to watch the suffering in in Palestine right now. And most of the Palestinians there are Muslim. And it pains me to watch my Muslim brothers and sisters suffer. It pains me. It wrenches my soul to watch them die day in and day out with the world, including the Christian world, not saying a damn thing. I just think it's a shame on Christians. I think it's a I mean I will say that I don't really associate with Western Christians, but anybody who calls yourself a Christian, if you are supporting this genocide, shame on you. If you are supporting the murdering of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, shame on you. That's not Christianity. You maybe are not a Christian. Maybe you in label in mind, you know, you're a Christian, but in practice, that's that's not what Christians do. I would just say that as as a member of the most ancient denomination of Christianity, the Christianity that started in Palestine, I will say that if you are not absolutely disturbed by this genocide, if you are not calling for an end, an unequivocal end to this to this carnage, an unequivocal demand for ceasefire, then we don't worship the same Jesus. And I think that is what's messing with my head the most. this what's happening right now in Palestine, what Israel is doing to Palestinians. That's not that's not something any real Christian would support. 

SAID: I still have one story about how my grandfather—his neighbour in Yafa was Jewish, and he was Palestinian Jewish—and he left Palestine in 1948 as well. My grandfather came to Jordan and started a factory for soap. When he went into food production, he wanted to buy a machine from Italy, so he had to go to Rome. By sheer coincidence, he walks into a restaurant and sees his Jewish neighbour. He greeted him very warmly—they were really good friends—and he invited him for dinner. Because he was not a Zionist, just a Palestinian Jew living in Palestine, he invited him over for dinner. When he went to see the factory that was making the machine, he went with him and, what do you say, bartered on the price of the machine on his behalf. The bonds were amazing. We really do need one democratic Palestinian secular state—or call it whatever you want. Don’t call it Palestine, call it whatever you want. Amar Gaddafi was murdered because he had this idea of “Israteel.” If you’ve ever heard of this clip, he was in the Arab League calling for one democratic state. He said, “Call it Israteel, doesn’t matter, but no Zionism allowed, and it has to be secular,” because it was always secular and Christians, Muslims, and Jews were living in Palestine in peace and harmony. Only after the Balfour Declaration, World War I and II, and the Nakba did we start seeing Zionism grow as a movement, wanting only a Jewish state in the lands of Palestine. That story really shows the camaraderie and neighbourly love they had for each other. It didn’t matter what your religion was. They always said, “We’re not against Jews or Judaism; we are against Zionism.” Israel is the only country in the world, throughout history, that gives you nationality based on your religion. If I’m Christian, I go to Rome, to the Vatican, and say, “I’m a Christian, give me the passport.” They would say, “Piss off,” or another word like, “Get out of here. What are you talking about? We don’t give nationality based on religion.” That’s what Palestine should be. That’s my dream for Palestine: one democratic secular state.

RAYAN: I’m wondering what happened to the people of Nazareth الناصرة, a lot of whom managed to stay put in the city. As you and I both know, not everyone in Nazareth الناصرة got to stay during the Nakba. Many were forced to flee, which means the Zionists took their homes—stole their homes, essentially. This means that a lot of Palestinians suddenly had neighbours who were Zionists, basically living there to depopulate Palestinians. They were living among neighbours who were there to erase them but also saw them as a demographic threat. There’s a really good—I forgot the name of the film—one of the films about the Nakba in Arabic that has a very interesting scene illustrating this predicament. In the scene, you have a Palestinian family that stayed, and next door—or above or below them—you have a colonial family that moved in. The wife from the colonial family is having a conversation with the wife from the Palestinian family. The colonial wife says something like, “God gave us the land, Israel.” The Palestinian wife responds, “Hit your head on a wall.” Actually, why don’t you explain what that means?

SAID: The literal translation is “hit your head on the wall,” but what it means is: whether you like it or not, we’re here. We’re here, whether you like it or not. That’s basically what she meant by telling her.

RAYAN: And honestly, every time I get a troll attacking me about my vegan activism or the Vegans for Palestine account or podcast, that’s exactly how I want to respond.

(SCENE FROM FILM)

SAFIA: Curse the day you came to our land.
COLONISER WIFE: I didn’t come to your land. This land is Israel.
SAFIA: Israel? Since when?
COLONISER WIFE: From a long time ago, Safia. 2,000 years ago.
SAFIA: This is Palestine, regardless of what you think.
COLONISER WIFE: No, Safia, you will upset me!
SAFIA: Then smack your head against a wall.
COLONISER WIFE: That was rude!

SAFIA: Your whole life is rude. Get out of my face. Do not come here again.

RAYAN: Before, when you were talking about how in a one-state solution it will be remarkable, because I’ll be able to travel to Ramallah and there will be no apartheid wall prohibiting the people of Nazareth الناصرة from interacting with the people of Ramallah and vice versa. As Palestinians, we will always call it Palestine, no matter what the colonizers say it is.

SAID: For sure.

RAYAN: Like across Turtle Island, the Indigenous people there don’t use the colonial names of places. In Aotearoa, New Zealand, it’s the same thing. Here, it’s the same thing. Why should we as Palestinians adopt the names of our places that the colonizers have imprisoned us with?

SAID: True. I agree 100%. It’s a one democratic free state of Palestine that is secular. That’s what I believe in. But if you want to call it whatever you want, call it—call it whatever. That’s what Muhammad Kaddafi was saying.

RAYAN: Tongue and tongue. But not what's the word? 

SAID: yeah. Yeah. He was like being sarcastic. Yeah. Yeah. He was like, "Call it whatever you want. Call it. Call it whatever. I don't I don't care." But no Zionism. And what do you think? He was calling the Arab world. He was telling them, "What do you think will happen after they take control of historic Palestine? They're coming for you." So it is a real danger for the whole region. And that's what most people understand as citizens in the Arab world. They do understand that. But we live in a world right now where we are very distracted from reality. 

TIKTOKER 2: A lot of people assume that Palestinian cities vanished in 1948. But that's not true. Take Nazareth الناصرة. It didn't simply end in 1948. It adapted and resisted. But let's rewind. For a long time, Nazareth الناصرة was a modest town. It began to flourish in the 18th century when a semi-autonomous Ottoman ruler made it his centre. British colonial rule in the 1920s to 1940s further transformed the city, making it into an administrative centre. Nazareth الناصرة also became a focal point for the Palestinian Labor movement. The local union linked concerns of workers to the national struggle against the colonial rule. They mobilized local communities to demand independence and rallied international support for Palestine. During the 1948 Nakba, hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated. Nazareth الناصرة, however, remained in part due to its importance to Christianity and the city's surrender to the Israeli forces. Not that all was good. The residents of Nazareth الناصرة faced a military regime that restricted their freedoms. But Nazareth الناصرة became a vital centre for Palestinian citizens, and its local leaders advocated for equality and representation while insisting on their identity as Palestinians. 

SAID: What this generation right now is doing for Palestine is amazing, and if we continue like this, Palestine will be free within 10 to 20 years. I’m sceptical about the generation after that, but maybe two or three generations before me were also sceptical about my generation. You never really know what’s going to happen — it’s all speculation.

RAYAN: Tell me, in terms of returning, what do you think that would be like for you? How do you envision being part of a future, free, decolonised Palestine? 

SAID: I would love to return to Nazareth الناصرة someday, to Palestine, but honestly I’m very sceptical about the way humanity is going — maybe even toward total destruction. Einstein once said, “I don’t know what World War III will be fought with, but I know that World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” If a World War III starts, humanity could be gone. That’s why I say: I hope we will see a free Palestine either before the world ends, before a World War III starts, or before we die. If I ever get the opportunity to step inside Palestine and go to Nazareth الناصرة, I would be the happiest man in the universe. I remember when I was young, we went to this village outside of Nazareth الناصرة — it’s called Afoul… or I don’t know if it’s a village or a city, but they’re very famous for their falafel. We went to this falafel shop, and they gave us a sandwich with hummus and falafel. That’s it. And then there was this huge bar of toppings — everything you could think of — and you built your own sandwich. It was fantastic. And the guy would flip the falafel in the air. I think that’s the first place I would go to, because I would be hungry.

RAYAN: What a coincidence, Said! I’m actually going to that place too in a free Palestine. So maybe you and I can go together.

SAID: 100%. 100%.

[Music]

TIKTOKER 3: If anybody was confused. about my political beliefs. [ __ ] Donald Trump. Free Palestine. [ __ ] ICE. Free all oppressed people. [ __ ] capitalism. And eat the rich.