"Whispered in Gaza" (Part One)

Orly and Abe speak to Joseph Braude and Ahed Alhendi of The Center for Peace Communications and discuss Whispers in Gaza, a groundbreaking video series, produced by Joseph Braude, that reveals firsthand accounts from Palestinians living under Hamas rule.

Transcript

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I want to welcome back Abe Gurko who's a writer-producer. And he's, you know, basically co-producing this whole initiative. And he's also the author of the book Won't Be Silent. That is turning into other audiovisual projects. And our really special guests today are Joseph Braude and Ahed Alhendi from the Center for Peace Communications. And I thank you so much for being here, because I know how busy, busy you are. And I just want to just say a few words about these gentlemen and their organization, and then we'll take it. We'll leave it to them. The center for Peace Communications, it's an organization you can find at peacecoms.org And it's been doing incredible work, bringing, light to everything that's happening in Gaza, well beyond what the mainstream media has done. And well beyond what Western media has access to. In fact, well, first let me introduce these gentlemen then we'll talk more about the organization. So Joseph Baroudi, who's the founder, he's an expert on the nexus of culture and politics in Arab societies and an active presence in the region's media and policy debates. He studied Near Eastern languages at Yale and Arabic and Islamic history at Princeton. My aunt happens to be professor at Princeton. It's nice to hear the name of that university. He developed his Arabic to broadcast quality over a seven year stint at Moroccan National Radio, and added Persian to his Arabic and Hebrew and is a graduate- graduate student at the University of Tehran. So he's obviously incredibly educated in this space. He's the author of many books. We'll be listing everything, all of his writings on the website. And then Ahed Alhendi, who's an economist by training, is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Arab Council for Regional Integration. As a social entrepreneur in his native country of Syria, he organized artists to restore color and images of hope to public spaces and territories liberated from ISIS. He's also devised a program for Syrian artists to use 3D modeling techniques to build prosthetics for their fellow citizens who'd been wounded in the war. He's an active voice for Arab development and reform, and he's a frequent guest of the Pan Arab satellite channels. His writing has appeared in leading American and Arab newspapers. And at the center for Peace Communications, Ahed is a senior fellow. Rather than me summarize what your organization has done and is doing, I would love Joseph for you to just start us off to explain the center for Peace Communications. Thank you. Orly, it's a pleasure to be on your program, and thanks for giving us the chance to, share what we do. The Center for Peace Communications is concerned with empowering, civilians living under militia rule in, the Arab Middle East to express themselves, and to stand up for a different future in the region. In places where militias rule, those extremist groups typically try to monopolize, the public discussion and be the only voice, that communicates with the outside world to make sure that all fixers and stringers that are allowed to operate on behalf of news outlets are ones that, report to them. And so, but we say that, it's important not only in these societies to listen to the people who hold the megaphone, but also to hear from the people who are forced to whisper, And that's especially important when we think about Gaza today, where in this sort of a strange way, both the far left and the far right in the American discussion contribute to the dehumanizing, of civilians in Gaza. On the far left, and among Islamist groups in the West, they want you to think that all Gazans support Hamas and that Gaza speaks for the vast majority, if not all, of the population. And on the far right, they sort of agree, but they only say the same thing in different words by saying that, or asserting, that there are no innocents in Gaza, i.e., all of them are somehow connected to that bloody terrorist organization. The reality is, and this pre-dates October 7th, that most Gazans want something different than the, governance of Hamas that they've lived under for a generation. So back in 2022, we set out to give them a voice, to let them express themselves and do so in a way that kept them safe from Hamas retribution. We interviewed, back then, hundreds of Gazans from all walks of life, men and women of all ages across the coastal strip. We heard harrowing stories of life in Gaza and, in order to, amplify them while keeping them safe, we took the voice track of those interviews and, brought together animators, illustrators, and musicians to create a visual experience of the stories those voices told. So you couldn't see their actual faces, but in a very visceral way, you could inhabit their lives. And that became the series Whispered in Gaza that was released at the beginning of 2023. And ever since, and especially since the tragedy of October 7th in the current ongoing war, we have been, spotlighting Gazans who are increasingly emboldened to speak out and face the camera in ways that they didn't, you know, only a few months ago. And that's a lot of what's keeping us busy these days. Well, and the fact that you have, access even now as Western media has not been allowed into Gaza and you know, I know there's criticism. I mean, we just saw some, in British television, lots of criticism against the IDF over that. But at the same time, there's a lot of reasons for that, that the Israeli side would argue. Your organization is the only one that sort of has consistent presence, from my understanding, So if we see video clips or get audio or imagery or any other reporting, that it's really your organization facilitating that and bringing that to light. Could you explain that a little bit more? What I just said? Well, there's, the present reality is that, Western journalists are not allowed into Gaza, except when embedded with IDF troops. I suppose it's very dangerous to be there. It's I think one of the most dangerous places on Earth right now. So our full time Gazan staff are working as journalists, fact finders. sources and stringers, not only for us as an organization, but we make them available to journalists and researchers, and that is, you know, what keeps them busy around the clock. And they're a very dedicated team. Many of them were involved in youth activism in Gaza. They planned the anti-Hamas street demonstrations of 2019, and served time in prisons under Hamas. And, continue to stand up for what they believe in. One of the arguments that I've heard about- I'm just curious, to me, this sort of not allowing journalists in generally unless they're embedded with the IDF. I mean, I know there's an argument against that, saying that they're just being controlled by Israel. But on the other hand, there's concern for safety, but also that otherwise journalists would just be sort of the puppets of Hamas, that Hamas would, insist that they, you know, only publish what Hamas wants them to. And that's not proper journalism. So I'm just curious how are people able to come forward and be safe? And if you don't mind, I have one more question; I remember seeing a study that was published after October 7th, but it was a half a year ago, and it was showing that Gazans support Hamas as well as those in the West Bank. I'm just curious to know how one is meant to understand the truth vs not truth of all that kind of information and perspective. Well, I'll work backwards from your last question. Pulling in the Strip is inherently problematic, both because of an authoritarian system's desire to control and manage the outcome of those polls, at gunpoint. And because of methodological problems associated with polling in traditional societies, when the question of an individual's opinion, is, you know, a subject of debate. That's why in Iraq, after, you know, its first elections, in 2003, people said it looked less like an election and more like a census. Our knowledge of the situation, which is also borne out by some of the opinion polling, is that, there has been growing opposition to Hamas that predates October 7th, owing to Hamas' brutality, corruption, and operation of a mafia like nepotistic system of rule. But since October 7th and certainly today, most Gazans are very angry at Israel for the destruction that it has brought on the Strip. But they blame Hamas for starting a war it couldn't win and hiding in tunnels while civilians suffered many casualties, while other Hamas leaders live in luxury in Qatar and Turkey and elsewhere. So that is, an ongoing, you know, feeling that's only grown and you see it manifesting on the streets of Gaza from north to south, where anti-Hamas protests bring thousands of people at a time, to call for Hamas to leave the Strip. And I want to turn- thank you so much for that, really illuminating. And, not that surprising. I also I want to acknowledge that Abe Gurko is the reason that we're having this session. I was working on an article about media bias, and he helped me with a ton of research, and he discovered you. So I want to give credit where credit is due. And really it's full circle for me to have been by, since March, tracking you down. And this is the moment, and it's best for you to bring your story to our community. Yeah, the timing has worked. So Ahed, I mean, just to understand about what you're doing at the Center for Peace Communications and something that you that's been on your mind as we talk about all this. Thank you, Orly, for having us. And first, I would want to talk that, personally, as a Syrian American who grew up under the reign of the Assad regime, I really have a natural sympathy with all Gazans who have been living under Hamas. And as Joseph mentioned, many in the West, especially on the extreme left, extreme right, they look at Gazans as they are all with Hamas. They used to look at us as Syrians, that we are all with the brutal regime of Assad. And this has personally offended me as a person who survived as a prisoner and who was tortured in Assad prison, even prior to 2011. So, I’m talking to Gazans on a daily basis, who again, I feel natural sympathy with and they are all reporting, to us, to CPC, about the suffering they are living under Hamas, how Hamas is trying to silence them, and most important, and I here would like to bring a recent example where, people protesters went and marched in the street against Hamas, Al-Jazeera channel took these footages, and they put it as these protesters are calling for Israel to stop the aggression, while nobody of the protesters mentioned the word Israel even. They were directing their anger against Hamas, against Hamas leadership who are living in luxury in Qatar and in Turkey and other countries around the world. This gave me a moral duty and gave us at CPC, a moral duty that we need to help these people. When you have Al-Jazeera, and you have a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of international media channels that are very biased to Hamas. And they want to, really strengthen the message of Hamas that all Gazans are rallying behind Hamas, while in reality it's not the case. Before, October 7th, we had a big portion of the Gazan community that are against Hamas. But now we have a big change in the community. People are daring to protest Hamas publicly, even much, much more. They are holding Hamas responsible for the destruction that it brought against them, for the adventures that Hamas leaders are taking and gambling while they are hiding under tunnels or living a luxury life in Qatar and in Turkey. Thank you. So, I mean, I know this isn't the subject of our discussion today primarily, but I'm just curious to understand, why do you think the international media- I mean, Al Jazeera, I get it is funded by Qatar and that's not so surprising. But I'm curious if you have any opinions about why the media is so not telling the truth. Again, as a Syrian, I used to see that with my eyes. A lot of international reporters, they were sympathizers to the Assad regime. And I will explain to you why; before October 7th, if you are a journalist, and you want to work in Gaza, you cannot do that without permission. and so-called,“security clearance” from Hamas. And when Hamas- when like, let's say, BBC would want to send a reporter to Gaza, probably Hamas would say, no, we don't accept this one. Why don't you work with the other one? And a lot of these people that Hamas would push, they are sympathizers with Hamas. So a big part of that has to do with the local reporters that are very much biased toward Hamas. And many of them proved to be like members even of al-Qassam brigades. This is the biggest part. And when you don't have free media, when you don't have journalists being able to go there and you're relying on people who are checked and cleared by Hamas, you would see this bias there. But unfortunately, respectful media, channels or international media channels must be aware of that. They all know and are aware -- all the big bosses of these big, media networks -- they are aware that you cannot work in these countries with your reporters unless your reporters are blessed by the authoritarian regime that is ruling this area. And actually, I remember in the article that I researched, there’s some litigation against Reuters and AP arguing that some of their correspondents or photographers were actually Hamas members and that tracks with what you're saying. Well, you you mentioned earlier, Joseph, the initiative that you have, Whispered in Gaza. It's film content and curious, just explain what it is, and we're also going to obviously show some of the work. But would you explain? Yes. Again, when we, grappled with the question of how do you enable Gazans, independent of Hamas, to express themselves when anyone who opens their mouth and differs with Hamas within the Strip is subject to prison and torture and sometimes worse? We settled on the idea of interviewing people, recording, filming the interviews. But rather than expose their faces, to bring animators and illustrators to the task of, creating visual sequences that depicted the stories their voices told. So when you finally hear from authentic Gazan voices, you hear stories that are unlike, anything in the polemics of the conflict right now. A different inner world of Gazans. And this is a story of a Jean Valjean like character who tries to simply make a modest living by selling vegetables on the street, and is being, punished, sent to prison and tortured by Hamas for not paying them protection money. And eventually they say they're going to kill him. The story is narrated by his sister. How this young man eventually decided that he had to flee the country on a dangerous journey by sea. And they don't even know what happened to him. And, you know, she talked about his mother crying and missing him and wishing that he would, call them. This is a broader social reality, Orly, there are many young Gazan men and women who have attempted a perilous journey by sea to find refuge elsewhere. This goes back years. There have been mass funerals held for these people, which turned into spontaneous demonstrations against Hamas. And it’s really a widespread tragedy in the territory that goes back nearly a generation. So this is a series of 25 short digital animated clips in which you hear actual recorded voices of Gazans describing their lives, accompanied by, I think searing, animation and music from the region. They tell stories of a mafia like system that shakes down local merchants, of gender discrimination and subjugation of women akin to that that we've seen in Iran. They describe theft of humanitarian aid, the experience of being silenced. And as one person put it quite strikingly, the fact that they are forbidden to say they don't want war. Now, some of these people, forthrightly advocate for peace and partnership with Israel as the only way forward. A sort of, you know, whether it be a two state solution or some other means of managing or mitigating and resolving the conflict, but others are, not in favor of peace with Israel in the sense that they, forthrightly say that they were in favor of the first and the second Intifada. They’re fierce Palestinian nationalists who nonetheless oppose Hamas’ wars as self-defeating, harmful to the Palestinian cause, and as one person put it, maybe I want to resist by writing a song. Maybe I want to resist with my pen. Don't impose on me how to resist. And then there was a piece that I think is a couple years old about the fatwa against Hamas. I'm wondering if one of you could speak to that. And obviously ad anything. Sure. Well, Ahed, do want to take the fatwa? Do you want to talk about that? Yes. Of course. And, you know, many, many Muslims around the world are also offended by the fact that they are- everybody's associating them with Hamas and especially after the videos that CPC released to the public where, as we mentioned, that many were not aware of what's going on in Gaza. Gaza was like a closed ghetto, because of Hamas sponsorship of all the media. So nobody knew what's exactly going on there. So when these Muslim scholars, they've heard live testimonies and they were able to verify that these people really exist, they issued this fatwa against Hamas. You might want to add, Ahed, that these are Iraqi and Pakistani clerics of both sets and the fatwa bans joining it, joining Hamas, funding it, or fighting for it, if you want to say that. Yeah, of course. And this fatwa comes from Iraqi-Pakistani scholars that they issued this fatwa calling on Muslims that joining Hamas should be prohibited. And, So, yeah. That’s good. Excellent. All of a sudden I'm impressed by the fact that you've created this series, I think you mentioned, what, 25 or even more, of these works. as part of the Whispered in Gaza initiative. My Brother's Gone, And the one about the fatwa. I know there's another one that we were going to show, about a woman who, you know, lost her husband and her twins. And I want to get to that in a minute. But, given what you've said, it would- given what we all know about Hamas and the control that they exercise in the region, how is it that you're even able to keep doing it without them coming against you and your people? Well, they try to silence these people and they try to torpedo our distribution channels. When Whispered in Gaza was released, they really used every underhanded trick in the book. Hamas, deployed a bot army to attempt to get these platforms taken down. They failed. When that didn't work, they actually scrambled their own cast and crew to create a pirated version of Whispered in Gaza, where they took our animated sequences and overdubbed Hamas propaganda under them. So we had a clip called What I Want for My Children, in which a Gazan mother says that she's afraid to send her kids to Hamas-run schools and mosques because she fears they'll indoctrinate them into taking their own lives and that of others as suicide bombers. But the bootleg version by Hamas says“I overcame my fear, and I sent them to the mosque, and now I'm proud that they're going to be martyrs.” So, of course, those were copyright violations. And so we were able to issue copyright strike notices on YouTube and Facebook and so on. But of course, the real danger is the physical danger that anyone who within Gaza, who speaks out against Hamas faces. As I said before, the people who work with us are very brave. They are veterans of the Hamas prison system, having organized against Hamas before. They just used to do it alone, because, and this is the great tragedy of the whole thing, that even when they stood up against Hamas years before October 7th, braving gunfire, prison, and collective punishment for their families, they got very little attention in the outside world. And nobody stood up. No government, no leadership stood up and said,“we need to support these people.” And that's one of the tragedies of, international policy toward Gaza before October 7th. Today, these people are still largely alone, but we're one of the organizations that is constantly looking for new ways to support them, to defend them and so on. I think the last film that we're going to show as part of this segment is the woman who lost her twins. She wasn't able to get pregnant. She went through IVF treatments, she had twins, and she lost her twins and her husband and most of her family. And she’s sort of responding to the Hamas leader, Sami Abu Zuhri’s, you know, his talk about like, well, all the like- basically there's enough new children to replace the martyrs. And he's very happy about October 7th, it seems, and thinks that Hamas will prevail. And so she's responding to that. I'm curious if you could give us your own explanation of the film and any final thoughts? After we asked the young mother in Gaza to share her story and we heard it, we thought, wow, she's talking about her love of her children who died, presumably, or apparently in a strike, a military strike, in Gaza. And she's responding to Hamas’ spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, talking about the assurance that he feels that Gazan mothers wombs will, provide new fighters. And we thought, what better way to counter the dehumanization of Gazan mothers and children and babies and so on. Than by juxtaposing Sami Abu Zuhri’s remarks with a woman reacting to them and talking about how she struggled through IVF with her husband, to have the blessing of two children, how she lost them, and what she thinks of a man who wants to use her children as cannon fodder. I had a question about- Have you experienced Gazans who have strong feelings about wanting to get the hostages released? And if they’ve tried? Because that's what you hear a lot, is that how come no one's trying to save them? But I'm sure they're afraid and I'm sure they're strong arming everyone. But that would be something I'd love to hear about. Ahed, I’ll just throw out if you want to walk them through whatever your thoughts are about that. The fact that a call for releasing the hostages is now one of the slogans of the anti Hamas protests, and the fact that we ourselves have heard from Gazans who wanted to report to us that they felt that they had sighted hostages being moved from point A to point B, but I'll leave it to you. Yes. I want to add on, or start from where Joseph ended. I got a couple of calls from Gazans telling me that we are suspecting that this place has hostages. We have seen many people who are masked with guns at an expected place. And, possibly there are hostages here. And the most important thing that- you have people now in the street, in the protest movement who are braving Hamas gunfires, are calling for the release of hostages. And they are saying, release the hostages, send them back to their homes. And we want to go back to our homes because, they were displaced all over the Strip, all of them, they want to go back to their houses. And they have felt how the family of the hostages are feeling right now and called on Hamas to immediately release the hostages and send them back to their loved ones. We really don't- You know, Western media is not doing a good job of conveying this. And I'm so grateful that you are. Are you getting resistance by American media to talk about the work you're doing? How's that going? Well, we have, of course, found some of the Western media to be quite supportive of what we're doing. David Ignatius wrote a column about Whispered in Gaza. We've been featured on CNN, MSNBC, Fox and NPR. We're a relatively small part of the story that's, you know, primarily, focused on advancing an altogether different narrative. But that's because what we do doesn't really divide neatly between left and right and in a, polarized informational environment here in the United States, I think one of the biases is simply to find things that narrowly and straightforwardly represent an entrenched political position here in the United States. And we don't do that. You know, I want to add something, Joseph. At many of our network in Gaza, sometimes when they are expressing their frustration with Hamas, they told me about stories where there are international reporters outside, telling them, “why are you becoming servants for the Zionists?” So you have also this mentality that comes from Western people that are trying to silence these activists and telling them, “shame on you.” Why are you opposing a liberation movement that is protecting you? So, I would say that these people, they really need all the help we can provide for them to bring their voices outside Gaza, because it's not only the Arab channels that are trying to stick with a Hamas narrative, but many international media as well. Thank you so much for saying that. We've noticed that. And we're- the whole point of Peaced Off is to move past the polarization and get the truth out, What sort of take aways, anything that you want our listeners to know that you haven't yet shared about your organization's work and just the current situation in Gaza that you'd like people to understand. I have one message; don't buy Hamas propaganda. Don't buy Al-Jazeera propaganda that want to dehumanize all the people in Gaza and say that they are all Hamas supporters. They are the ones who suffered the most from this regime of Hamas. They were starved by Hamas. They were taken as hostages, like 2 million Palestinians in Gaza were taken as a hostage by this evil regime. So they are all begging us, please deliver this message to everyone you see in the word, everybody you see in the West. We are against Hamas. Hamas have been persecuting us for decades. And we want to be liberated from this regime. Before I turn to Joseph, thank you so much, I'm curious what would you say if someone said, “well, you're just you know, you're also propagandists, you also have an agenda.” I don't know if people come to you with that, but I'm curious what you would say if they do. Yeah, of course a lot of people would. Some people would accuse us of that. We are doing propaganda. But again, I mean propaganda for who? Many in the right wing, even in Israel, they don't want us to show this image about the Gazans, that there are Gazans who are anti-Hamas. There are Gazans who want a better life. They don't want to be living under this regime. So, yes, maybe some people in the extreme left Islamic organization, they think that we are doing propaganda for Israel, for the United States. And at the same time, there are people in the right wing who accuses us of doing propaganda for Hamas while in reality you are just giving a megaphone for these voices inside Gaza and letting them talk where nobody is letting them talk. If they think what we are saying is propaganda, they can give us a platform and we are happy to provide them with dozens of Gazans who they can hear it from their own ears, and they can verify that these people are in Gaza. Amazing. Thank you. Do you get a chance to bring these people to the UN, or just to show the videos to the UN? Because they seem so- Yes, we have. Go ahead. Yeah, we did. We had many videos, even live calls like the one we are doing here now, between Gazans and between parliament members in Spain and Italy and Germany and Canada and the United States. So when we over the course of the last year, Joseph and I have been really busy taking these testimonies, connecting decision makers in the West with Gazans on the ground and many of these decision makers, lawmakers, they were really astonished and surprised to see that there are real Gazans inside Gaza talking to them from behind the ruins and telling them that,“we don't like Hamas and help us to get rid of Hamas.” Thank you. Thank you so much for saying that. Joseph, so last words from you, your organization that you founded and you're the president of, Center for Peace Communications. What haven't you shared that you think we need to understand? I’ll pick up on a couple of things that Ahed said. First of all, you know, the question of balance in understanding the realities in Gaza, and what is propaganda, and what is a balanced conversation. What we're trying to do is, you know, we see Hamas monopolizing the discussion on Arabic media and through its proxies and surrogates in the West and we are trying to offer or contribute to balance by giving people who oppose Hamas an opportunity to express themselves as well. As I've said before, in places where terror militias rule, it's important not only to listen to the people who hold the megaphone, but also to the people who are forced to whisper. And that's what we do. And to Ahed’s point you know, he said don't believe Hamas’ propaganda. They don't represent or speak for all Gazans. And I'll just say the flip side of that is think about how you can support Gazans who are independent of Hamas and want a different future. If you're a media outlet or a scholar, or an activist in the United States, ask what you can do to give them a platform. And that we regularly publish our ideas about how to help them in other ways as well, through new kinds of education, empowerment of youth, and other things that will become possible along the way. So peacecomms.org is where you'll find a lot of this information and find out how you can support our organization as well. Thank you so much. Yes I want to thank Joseph Braude and Ahed Alhendi for all the work that you're doing, it's exceptional. And we are just grateful that you're doing the work and honored that you were here today to talk to us, thank you. If I can just add that we would like to do an episode with people from Gaza to kind of join this conversation and put, you know, the- Right. So, we are committed, to doing another one, which I think we had a time slot. Everybody in West Coast, LA. You’ll have to get up at an ungodly hour in order for the sun to still be shining in Gaza so that you can film. So we can catch them on video for you. But we're ready to do that. And, you'll hear from a prominent Gazan activist. And Ahed will translate. Yes. Fantastic. This has been Episode 3 of Peaced Off!, a curated film and conversation series presented by The Film Collaborative. with guests Joseph Braude and Ahed Alhendi of The Center for Peace Communications. 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.