"My Hope for Palestine"

Abe moderates a discussion between Orly and Palestinian political strategist and head of the Jerusalem Development Fund, Samer Sinijlawi, whose article, “My Hope for Palestine: There’s still a path to lasting peace. But we’ll need a new set of leaders,” was published in the November 2024 issue of The Atlantic.

Transcript

0:10

Thank you for joining us for another episode of Peaced Off! Today’s conversation is with Samer Sinijlawi, who is in East Jerusalem currently. And when I got the “okay” that he was able to do this, I said, “who would you prefer to talk to you?” And he said, “An American Israeli.” And who better than Orly Ravid. But, Samir is a Palestinian political strategist and heads the Jerusalem Development Fund and is widely recognized for his efforts to promote dialog, practical solutions for peace. And Orly is an entertainment attorney, founder and co-executive director of the Film Collaborative, and serves as Associate Dean of Southwestern Law School at the Biederman Institute. And I’d like to just start off with saying hello. Thank you Samer for joining us. Thank you so much for inviting me. It’s a pleasure. These are very unique times. And I guess just to kick it off, we’re here together with a shared humanity for a peaceful way forward. And I just thought the two of you would be great to have a conversation about this. Thank you, Abe. I mean, you’ve really done such a wonderful job sourcing incredible guests. And Samir were so honored, and, you know, I mean, I read your piece in the Atlantic, your article, “My Hope for Palestine: There’s still a path to lasting peace. But we’ll need a new set of leaders.” And, I mean, we could spend the whole time talking to us about your article. It was great. I’d love to hear you just talk about how it came to be that you wrote it and just what the piece stands for, and what it means to you. Well, thank you very much. It’s an honor to be your guest today and to have this conversation with all of you. You know, I am a Palestinian who was born 53 years ago in the Old City. And I remember my first years of childhood, where I grew up as a Muslim, went to a Christian school. And in that Christian school, in the morning, I started my mornings doing the Christian prayer,“In the name of the Father, and of the Son…” Although sometimes when I left school in the afternoon, my grandmother, and my grandfather, accompanied me to the Muslim prayer in the Al-Aqsa mosque. So for me, diversity is part of my DNA. Seeing Jews, Christian, Muslim in my old city, everybody is, you know, praying the way they want in the place they want everybody speaking his language…[this] was part of me until the First Intifada came, in 1987, where suddenly I discovered that where there is us, there is them, there is some kind of conflict. And what I wanted to tell you is sometimes my generation and my generation from both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, we were born naturally to coexist, but suddenly we were invaded by political environment that put us as us versus them. And during my long experience of being part of this conflict in a different status, so, sometimes I was a kid throwing stones, sometimes I was a teenager in Israeli prison for five years, and sometimes I was a political activist who believed in coexistence and invested my last 37, 38 years in dialog with the other side. From the first moment I entered the prison, I was talking to my God. And until today, I consider myself maybe the special expert in Israeli affairs because I talk to all Israelis from, all the wars, I talk to far left, left, center, right, far right, and sometimes I joke with my Israeli friends and I tell them, I know you better than you know yourselves because I talk to all of you. You don’t talk to each other. So…and sometimes I joke with my American Jewish friends, and I tell them I am more connected to Israel. I speak fluent Hebrew, you don’t speak Hebrew. So I am more connected. I am more belonging. Anyhow, I’ve learned a few things. I learned, first of all, that, you know, in this conflict there is no good guys and bad guys. We both sides are a mix of everything. Okay, sometimes you find good Palestinians, sometimes there are bad Palestinians. It applies on the Israeli side. So you cannot, paint brush, brush paint everybody with one color. It’s not true. And I learned that we don’t understand this conflict, or a little bit, the political environment [has] manipulated our way of thinking,[and] has drawn us, drawn us into a confusion, mistrust, some stereotypes, where we always see this conflict from our own eyes……never try to see this conflict from the eyes of the other side. And for the Palestinians, as a Palestinian, I started realizing that maybe one of the major mistakes that have been accompanying us in the last hundred years and, you know, these last 100 years are remarkable because, you know, before 100 years, we and the Israelis, the Jewish people. in the Holy Land, we were a group of militias, together fighting the British Mandate and sometimes fighting each other. Today Israel is an OCED country, very developed country, strong arm. You have seen the massive, unpredictable, achievements on intelligence level and on military operation with Iran. And I mean, these last 12 days were a surprise for everybody about the capabilities of Israel, and these capabilities……nobody gifted Israel for free these capabilities. The Israelis built up this kind of abilities, step by step, stone by stone, and very hard work, and they were planning, determined to do things, while we as Palestinians, we were meant to be [a] group of militias, until now. And if you tell me, “What is the reason?” The reason is lack of leadership. We never had the [David] Ben-Gurion. Sometimes people ask me, who is the Palestinian [Nelson] Mandela? And they keep answering, “Who told you we need a Mandela? We need the Ben-Gurion.” That was the only thing that Palestinians did not have. A leadership with a vision, who knows what could be achieved now and does not stay dreaming what should be achieved? Pragmatic……knows to take some steps. When he wanted to establish a Jewish state, the Balfour [Declaration] came and say a Jewish home——there were Jewish people who said,“thank you, give us this piece of paper,” and then there was the dreams of the great Israel. But the partition plan gave them part of it. They said, “Thank you, give us this.” And they continued developing themselves. We didn’t have. We were led by three leaders in the hundred years.

We were led by three leaders: 8:29

Hajj Amin al-Husseini, [Yasser] Arafat and [Mahmoud] Abbas. But trust me, none of them consulted with us when he took decisions. They took decisions and our behalf, whatever were the choices of Hajj Amin al-Husseini and all of, you know, the choices of Hajj Amin al-Husseini, or Arafat, or even Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas). And we……surrendered to the blaming game. We enjoyed……lecturing the others, never assuming responsibility on our mistakes. And from here I said that we should change direction. We Palestinians, we are more responsible into finding a different way to handle the dynamics of relations with the Israelis. Why we should take the first steps? For some people argue with me……my colleagues, my friends, my family. We are the weaker. We are the victims. We are under the occupation. They control us. And you assume responsibility that we should change this? Yes, we should change this… for a simple reason. There is a sense of urgency for us to exit the current situation. For the Israelis, they are paying a heavy price of this conflict, Okay, but they still have a country, an army, startup nation, they have their beaches, they go on surf, they have a passport that connects them to the world. We don’t have all of this. We have 2.3 million people under plastic tents in Gaza. So there is a sense of urgency. I need to take the first steps into changing the dynamics, and taking the first steps means I should start assuming responsibility. I should learn my mistakes. I should correct my mistakes. And these mistakes…

…it’s as simple as this: 10:34

Step #1. We Palestinians need to change our narrative. Currently, the Palestinian narrative that is denying the historical rights of Jews in this land. First of all, it’s historically incorrect. We cannot change history. Jews have been here for thousands of years. We might need to remind them that they have never been alone here. Yes, they belong. They have the historical link. They have the historyic rights. But there was always others with them. And these others are us. Yes, we have never been called Palestinian people, thousands of years ago, and there has never been a Palestinian state. Correct. But there are millions of people now that call themselves Palestinians, and they need to be the partners of the Israelis in this land. We need to recognize this common history in order to be able to find the common future. Second, we need to change our strategy that is based on using pressure against Israelis to try to achieve political gains. Israelis don’t respond to pressure. They become more stubborn. The only way to achieve something with Israelis is to try to persuade, convince. If we will fail to touch the hearts and minds of the Israelis, we will never have an exit out of this conflict. So instead of using violence as a method of pressure, or trying to mobilize the world diplomatically against Israelis, we need to talk to them. And we need to tell them, we recognize your historic rights. We don’t want to use violence. Let’s see how we can coexist together. And from my experience, it worked, always. Whenever I try this, it works. 100% success. So individually, and I am a person who meets an average of 200 Israelis a week, every day I am invited to meet a group of Israeli in the Nort, in the South, in kibbutzim, young people, people in the mechina,—those young youngsters who are being prepared to go to the army— they started to have a trend calling me to come and talk to them. So, I can communicate with all Israelis, different ages, different groups, different geographical areas in different cities. And whenever you are sincere and honest and try to use this strategy, it works. You find ears and you find a common ground. Maybe the common ground with you, Orly, is different than the common ground with Abe, but with you I can find common ground, with him I can find a different [common ground], with everyone we can find common ground. Third. I think……that there should be… I understand that currently maybe the main obstacles, if you want to ask me, why don’t we find a solution for this conflict? I don’t think it’s a lack of ideas. There could be ten different scenarios for Jerusalem, ten different scenarios for the borders, for the settlements, for the refugees, for anything you would like to discuss… the physical part of this conflict, the main challenge is the heart feelings. We Palestinians and Israelis, our hearts are filled with [a] cocktail of feelings, with anger, with hatred, with pain, mistrust. These heart feelings are the obstacles. If I can release them, most of the Israelis and Palestinians will have a set of mind that will accept a certain scenario for all these issues. And, I think that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians can be quickly released from these heart feelings. They need a process that is top-down. Currently, we are hostages of a layer of leadership from both sides that may be don’t have a clear interest to put this conflict to an end. Maybe the conflict plays, a continuation of the conflict, plays to their interests for so many different reasons. Politicians, they do have lots of calculations. So this is the only conflict. I am doing a master’s degree in conflict resolution in the Hebrew University. So most of the conflict resolution theories say that a political compromise will lead eventually to reconciliation. I think in our case, we need to start with reconciliation. Reconciliation is not a result of a political compromise. Reconciliation is a prerequisite. It is a condition to allow us to go to a political compromise. We need to focus on this. And we need to focus on this, on a speed process, by changing the Palestinian leadership, changing the narrative, changing the strategies, changing the dynamics of media. Now, currently, the Palestinian media only speaks on bad things on Israeli side and the Israeli media speaking on bad things on the Palestinian side. If we change this, if we start talking about positive things, because there is a lot of nice stories to tell our people about from the Israelis, and the Israelis, can find a lot of nice stories also to tell the population about it in the media. If we fight hatred and incitement in education, in the public debate, everywhere, if we start this process, if we allow our people to get rid of the confusion they have in their head, by nature, by DNA, we Israelis and Palestinians can coexist because we have coexisted for thousands of years in this land. We are not reinventing the wheel. So this is how I see… this is my vision. This is how I see that changes on the Palestinian side will automatically lead to changes on the Israelis side. And I can give you a practical scenario now, that I have in my mind, let’s go to politiquería [politicking] now, instead of this vision, let’s go to politiquería [politicking]. I think the Israelis now, after the victory of Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu], maybe Bibi will have interest to go for early elections, because nobody can deny the credit of eliminating the Iranian threat. He has done this in 12 days. So he thinks maybe now he can pass a new election. If not, by November 2026,, there would be an Israeli [one]. If we Palestinians, after the letter that was signed by President Abbas, and I am [an] opponent to Abbas, I am critical of Abbas, I wrote an article in the New York Times in December 2023, under the title, “Mahmoud Abbas Must Go,” and explained why. But he signed a commitment letter addressed to President [Emmanuel] Macron and to the crown price of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, where he committed to do elections, presidential and legislative, within 12 months. And he committed to issue a political party law that will basically not allow Hamas to participate. If we do these elections before the Israeli election, and we defeat Hamas in the election boxes—the only way to defeat Hamas is through election boxes— if we defeat them and we have a president that becomes our [David] Ben-Gurion, who will take Altalena choice, and says,“one law and one arm.” I will not allow any individual or any organization or any party or any militia to possess arms and to launch war on behalf of the Palestinians without consulting with the Palestinians. Nobody is allowed to use violence. We are the sole side in this place that can use the sovereign, the state. The Israelis, when they see that we defeated Hamas, when they see that we have de-militarized the population, When they see that we are using a new language, when they go to their election, they will vote peace. They will vote to a leadership that will pick up this new Palestinian partner and start the path towards reconciliation and towards political settlement. Well, this might work, this might not work. But this is my vision and I think it’s doable. Thank you. You really you articulated so much of what you covered in the article, and obviously so much more, and I knew I was working very hard to hold back the tears. I think Abe didn’t even succeed. It really is heartwarming to hear you speak the way you do, because I think it’s just so humanizing, and it really helps take the polarizing attitude away, right? It sort of… disarms, if you will, the so-called “other side.” And I, you know, you remind me, I’m Israeli American, as Abe said, and I had a best friend, Ashraf Mulham, may he rest in peace. He passed away of a disease not because of Israel. He’s from Ramallah, but I met him in Chicago, and we always talked about if only people were like us, kind of, you know, understand. He also spoke Hebrew. I learned a little bit of Arabic, but we just had such an understanding. And I really love your mindset. I think it’s exactly the right thing to bring peace to the region and and practicing that will just create more of it, right? You talked about when there’s us, there’s them. And I just saw this film called Wisdom of Peace, that’s the the teachings of the 14th Dalai Lama to honor his 90th birthday, and it’s it’s all about that. It’s all about, trying to avoid that mindset and to try to calm those sort of angry emotions, as well, that you seem to also address that. So, I mean, all I can say is I love everything you’ve said and it really resonates. And I know that there are a lot of Israelis and Jews, Jewish Israelis, I mean, that would agree with you and would love to see what you said come to pass. And I also believe, and you sort of touched on this in your article, that, in terms of the extremes, politically, in the media, the kind of stuff that you see in media that’s always emphasizing the negative and the criticism and the…… extremes on one side, it just creates the opposite. And it’s just this sort of horrible cycle of polarizing and tribalism that isn’t working. So, I credit you and I thank you so much. If I could just jump in and say, you should be coming to the colleges campuses in the United States with that kind of message because they’re not hearing that at all. And, yes, I was very moved by what you said, but I feel like your message must be brought to the States. I mean, we will do that to the best… That’s actually a really great idea, because…sorry to interject… but I, I totally agree, because I think what I’m seeing……is that because of that kind of other extreme rhetoric, so the extreme rhetoric on the so-called right, you know, let’s say among some parties in Israel, would……sort of create the opposite on the left and vice versa and vice versa and vice versa,…and it’s so horrible because it really then just absolutely makes sure that there’s no peace. Right? And in fact, I know that after October 7th, there was this talk of the, even the more, like, kibbutzim, the peaceniks, when the kibbutzim were starting to get to feel like they might have been wrong. Some people, right? And that’s a dangerous thing to… so, to have people hear more from people like you and your corollaries in Israel, of which there are many I know, would be really cool. We should facilitate a speaking tour of campuses. But I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you something. I had a tour in Australia three weeks ago. I was invited by the New Israel Fund (NIF). And, I had an opportunity to meet……leaders from the Palestinian diaspora. And, you know, there is a gap between how do we, the Palestinians, who live inside the conflict, see this conflict, and how people 10,000 miles away see this conflict. The more you distance [yourself] from the conflict, the more you start living in a fantasy. And……I always said the worst……Anti-palestinian……slogan is the slogan “From the River to the Sea.” Because is it really that we would like to throw Jews in the sea? Is it this worry? And, I said, I want to have a modification. I want to steal this…slogan, modify it, and turn it back to the Palestinian diaspora, and make it a slogan that brings everybody together.

And I suggest the following: 25:33

The new slogan that should be adopted by everybody,

is the following: 25:38

“From the River to the Sea……on Two States we both Agree.” This is the slogan that really serves the best interests of Palestinians, and I believe it serves the best interests of Israelis. I leave this to the Israelis, to decide about it. So there are things like the narrative. If you do small changes in a narrative, instead of seeing who belongs first, who belongs more…is it us or you? We both belong, simply. You have historical rights? Yes. We always existed together with you. We both belong. Let us see how we continue belong. And instead of“From the River to the Sea,”“From the River to the Sea, on Two States we both Agree.” So it’s a little bit of playing with the words, but it clicks with the minds of people. It organizes their set of thinking. They start being productive. They start having a connection with reality. Instead of living in fantasy. Yes, sometimes people in the Palestinian diaspora need to hear a Palestinian, a real Palestinian voice. And it applies on the Jewish community, Jewish diaspora, sometimes the connectivity between those who live the experience, and those who are a little bit far away, should be by more contacts. And I’ll be more than happy and honored to to have opportunities of talking to people on campuses in the USA, and I think it’s going to be a very productive dialogue. Yeah. No, it sounds like it. I think, you know, that that willingness to find common ground and understanding and compromise as opposed to, it being, well, you know, we’re going to battle each other to the death and one of us is going to take over……it’s just not…that mindset, that extremism is not serving either side in my in my view. And it seems like you agree. If I could jump in… the challenge is that, in America, especially in the universities, they’ve been so propagandized to think only that way. So, can you break the chain of that propaganda that has been, kind of, built into the sauce, so to speak, to the universities for the past 20, 30 years? So, I think it’s a great challenge to attempt, for sure. But I think Abe, that’s happened because of certain influences, including really deliberate campaigns by Hamas. And what we’re hearing Samer saying is that if you have a different leadership, right, that’s leading the real Palestinians in the territory, you’re going to have a whole different agenda and different education. That’s right. I mean, the propagandizing has been horrific. And, it’s just been creating more extremism on the other side, and then back and forth, and back and forth. I mean, you’ve articulated so well the point in the article, I’ve been struggling with media coverage about the conflict. I feel like it’s been, whatever you’re reading, it’s really hard to get an honest, you know, it feels like there’s always an agenda behind the media, you know, that’s going one side. I’m curious to know if you have any… I frankly feel like the media in the United States was very much swallowing an anti-Israel propaganda that was not acknowledging some of the things you said. And that’s what made me really appreciate what you said. I’m just curious if that’s something that you think about, or…actually, what media are you reading, where you live? Well, I’m the most invited Palestinian to all Israeli media. So sometimes I’m invited to channel 14, and sometimes I’m invited to channel 13. And the the gap is big between both. Yes, yes, that’s good. Maybe you could explain because they’re very different media, whether it’s a Fox News or a CNN. So I mean I can talk to both, OK? So I can be talking to Haaretz, or to Israel Hayom, or even to Makor Rishon. Okay. So I can talk to all the media. They interview me, all of them, because, you know, a positive message is a positive message. I mean, sometimes you don’t agree, but you like it. It’s positive, I mean… This is this is something I have learned. We should stop lecturing Israelis. We Palestinians, we are very professional into, you know, lecturing the Israelis on international law, and things, and the Israelis don’t want to listen to these things. If I want to deliver a message, I should set the example. This is better. You know, I remember only and, you know, this brings us again to the……how bad or how good the international media and the international opinion is treating both of us. I think… yes, it’s important to know how others see us. Okay? Yes, I would like to know how the world is seeing me. Okay. This is important. But to a certain extent I realize something. Whatever we try to do as Palestinians, the world will never stop seeing us as barbarians. On the 7th of October. It will not help us. That stain will stick to us for tens, or hundreds of years, or for forever. Because the world has seen us in a certain way on the 7th of October. Now, how is the world looking about the war in Gaza, and whether people would like to use terms of war crimes or genocide……we cannot argue……the Israelis can argue a lot of whether the term applies or not, it doesn’t help. Sometimes the world has certain judgment. What’s more important for us, to prove to everybody that we’ve done some mistakes. In this conflict there is no Mother Teresa. Okay, we do wrong doings. Even she wasn’t that great. So some people said, go ahead. Fine, but, the challenge now [is] how to prove to the whole world our common humanity. That before being Israelis and Palestinians, we are human beings, both. And that we are able to find a way out of this conflict, together, depending on each other. Because trust me. Any help, or… if we just try to believe that the solution will come from somewhere in Washington, D.C., or London, or Berlin, it will not come. The solution……the only way to a political compromise goes via Tel Aviv and Ramallah, not via Washington, D.C., not via Berlin, not via Riyadh, not via anywhere. It should come from within. When we get prepared to take tough decisions, we will take the tough decisions and we would end this conflict. And then the whole world would respect both of us. We will defeat that unfairness in international media and public opinion, whether that’s how I feel, or whether that’s how you feel, okay. That’s the only way to defeat it. When we prove that we have common humanity. And I was talking about lecturing or setting an example. I remember when I went to Kfar Aza, and I condemned Hamas in front of cameras. It was a very tough decision, because the public opinion was somewhere else. Because it has been seen as if I am de-legitimizing the suffering of Gazans. And it was very tough for me on a personal level, because when I was in Kfar Aza…–Kfar Aza is only one kilometer away from Beit Hanoun, the northern part of Gaza– I was standing there, and when I turned my eyes, and looked at Gaza, I’ve seen war, live. Okay, it’s the bombs, it’s the fire, it’s the flames. it’s……I’ve seen this. And I know what kind of impact it has there, because I look, like the Israelis, I received the videos every day. But at that moment, I didn’t want to turn my eyes there because at that moment, I felt the responsibility on condemning what my people have done. And I leave what is happening there for them. They might not be able now to say something about it. One day they will say,“Yes, maybe there was one single mistake or ten mistakes.” So, this is the best message you can send to the Israelis, coming and condemning what you have done and leaving the others’ acts for them to to evaluate. Don’t give lectures. I agree with you. And I actually I’m glad you mentioned it because when I read it in your article, I made a note to myself. I just wanted you to know that there are many Israelis who are doing just what you did, in reverse. I’ve seen several films already from the Israeli side with respect to Gaza, and with respect to past issues. So, I’m just letting you know that I agree with your mindset around it in the setting by example, and I also think that doing that invites it to occur on the other side and then more, and more, and more. And that’s the beautiful bridge that you can build. I just… in terms of the future vision and any last things you want to say, I want you to know that I sometimes fantasize about just, really, bringing a lot of support to the region by having a peace tour that would be a joint effort between the Palestinian communities and the Israeli communities to get all kinds of people of all kinds of faiths to the region, to do tours, to feel totally safe, to go back and forth, to really bring money and support, and give reason for great infrastructure developments to help all the communities. I’ve had fantasies about reality shows with Palestinians and Israelis, like, I just……I have these visions of a really shared coexistence that’s peaceful and lasting. I know, it feels like fantasy, but talking to you, it feels like a real……it’s really possible, as I felt when I talked to Ashraf, may his memory be a blessing, as they say in the Jewish faith. But I’m curious…you’ve said so much… that has been incredible. In our final moments, what are the things that you haven’t said yet that you want us to take away? Well, I would like to tell you that coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, the integration of Israel in the Middle East. This is not fantasy. Denying it is the fantasy. I can see that maybe, within my lifetime, your lifetime, maybe within less than ten years, I can see that I will be driving Israeli friends to spend the night in a resort in Gaza, or maybe to visit a casino in Gaza. Let us say, and I can see. The Israelis, they love gambling, so… I think a casino one hour from Tel Aviv is something nice. Trust me, it’s a good option. Maybe driving with [an] Israeli neighbor to go and have lunch in Beirut and maybe dinner in Damascus. It [will] happen. I can see it. Well, if we are able to, to seize the opportunity of getting the Saudis to sign with Israel. If I could jump in and say, you are clearly one of the leading voices. And as far as I’m concerned, ten years from now, I see you as one of not only driving them to go gamble, but driving the whole ship, from now, starting today, having this conversation to where we are ten years from now. I mean, it’s voices like yours that… Orly and I have been searching for people to talk about this the past two months. We’re finally starting to find people who see a path forward. And it just gives me so much hope. This has been such an emotional conversation from my point of view. Let him finish…thank you, Abe, but now we’ll let you finish, it’s all right, go ahead… Orly, I will tell you something. I know very well the Palestinians, I said that at the beginning, I know very well the Israelis. Trust me, I know very well the Palestinians. Trust me, I know very well the Arabs, especially the the Saudis, the Arab wants to integrate Israelis. If Israel signs with Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians, and if I were an Israeli, I would change the Independence Day of Israel to the date that Israel signs with the Saudis and the Palestinians. This is the real independence of Israel. When Israel will start shifting from being a free land in a jungle, to being a free land in a very nice neighborhood, that endorses, that opens the doors for it, you can imagine with the brains that the Israelis have, and the financial resources that the Gulf has, and if we start acting as a region, this is a lot of potential. This is a game changer, and we are almost there. We need two leaders, one Palestinian, first a Palestinian to come. And then I am sure that that Palestinian, if he starts working hard, will bring the Israelis to the table, will bring cast, will bring another Begin……okay, because the coming Israeli, election is going to bring a center right leader, maybe [Naftali] Bennett, let us say, to the power……if Bennett will find himself in a center left coalition and not a center right coalition, he would be the coming Begin. He’s going to side with the Palestinians and the Israelis and change the life of everybody. So we are almost there, and I believe it’s doable. And I know the Palestinians, I know the Israelis, I know the Arabs. All of us wants to enter to this path. We need a little bit of political will into the leaders that might be leading the Palestinians and the Israelis in 2026. Inshallah, I hope. Inshallah. Thank you. OK. Thank you. Thank you, bye-bye. This has been Episode 2 of Peaced Off!, a curated film and conversation series presented by The Film Collaborative. with guest, Palestinian political activist Samer Sinijlawi Peaced Off! is curated and executive produced by Orly Ravid. It is produced by Abe Gurko. Both Orly Ravid and Abe Gurko serve as moderators for this episode. Our head of Audio and Video production is David Averbach, who also serves as series Art Director. You can find more about this podcast at getpeacedoff.com.