Twisted Words – Truth vs. Consequences

Orly and Abe break down a few key terms (“Genocide,” “Ceasefire,” “Apartheid,” “Normalize,” and “Zionism”) with professors emeriti Laurel Leff and Sari Nusseibeh, who offer not merely definitions, but discuss the etymology of these terms and how they have shifted over time.

Transcript

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Welcome back for another episode of Peaced Off!

I’m honored to have two guests: 0:19

Laurel Leff, who is a Professor of Journalism at Northeastern and the author of “Buried by the Times” and “Well Worth Saving,” which examined how American media and universities responded to the Holocaust. Her work focuses on institutional silence, moral failure during times of crisis. And Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian philospher and professor emeritus of Al-Quds University. Welcome to Peaced Off! Thank you both for being here. And, I just want to start us off talking about, well, first of all, I want to acknowledge Professor Nusseibeh, who I keep miss-saying his name, is in Jerusalem right now. So, hopefully you’re staying safe. And if anything occurs during this recording, you need to leave, please don’t hesitate. And then to you, Professor Leff, I know you said I can call you Laurel, I will. You know, we’re going to start off talking about, you know, burying the truth, right? Then and now. So your work shows The New York Times essentially buried the Holocaust while it was happening. In your mind, what’s the moral cost of silence in the face of atrocity? Well, I think that in the case of The New York Times in the coverage of the Holocaust, and it’s always when you’re dealing with history, it’s always difficult to postulate about “what ifs,” but I do think that what the result of the New York Times putting stories about the Holocaust inside the newspaper. and that’s an, I think, an important distinction to make and different than what some people think. It was not that there were no stories. It was not that it was not known. It was not that it was not covered. The problem was that The Times made a determination that it was not an important story. And because they decided it was not important story, they did what mid-century newspapers would do, which is instead of highlighting the story on the front page, they put it inside the newspaper. And they didn’t editorialize about it, and they didn’t write about it in the magazine. And I think all of that contributed to the fact that it never got on the United States’ agenda for something that needed to be dealt with, despite the efforts of Jewish organizations……It just never materialized as an important issue for the American government to deal with. And I think that was largely the result of the failing of The New York Times and then other media that took their cues from the “Jewish-owned” New York Times about how they should cover these events. And I’m curious, Professor Emeritus Nusseibeh, I’m going to just keep trying your name, but I’m going to say it wrong every single time. I just, is there anything that comes to your mind about this question of burying the truth? Well, I think that part of any kind of war or conflict or confrontation between different sides with evil intentions, bad intentions, on both sides or on one side or the other, always tries to bury the truth and behind the truth, the moral principles that actually should be made to stand out and to be as clear as possible to all concerned. And I think, you know, the story we just heard about The New York Times is a good example, because, now I don’t really know why The New York Times didn’t take it seriously. But, clearly, the news of the Holocaust apparently came out very slowly in the United States. And whether that was intended or not or unintended, it certainly, made a lot of difference to lives. And, you know, I want to speak about the situation here. I’d say that similarly, we’ve had conflicts, not now with, a story being... But I mean, you know, a story being buried, like, you know, specific incidents during the war in the past, in 1947, 1948, people might have heard about…[the] Deir Yassin [massacre], for instance, where, there was a massacre, and, you know, it was supposed to be hidden. And we still have this even today. A lot of things keep happening. And, one side or the other tries to hide it. And more importantly, by hiding it, hides the fact that in this particular case, they do not really uphold, seriously uphold, the principles, the moral principles, they claim to uphold or to be defending. And, you know, we have a good example, I’m afraid to say, in the war now taking place, and that has been taking place also earlier in Gaza. Understood. And, people argue about burying the truth on all the sides, past and present, and so as educators, you’re both professors with emeritus status, how do you teach students to navigate moral complexity without, sort of retreating into silence or tribalism, right? Where they’re just all the way in one side? How do you teach that? I’ll start with you, Laurel. Well, I think I have the benefit of being able to do history. So I think what that means is that you can show students what happened within a context that is not ongoing. I think it’s much harder to describe what is happening now and the ways in which the stories are being buried. And I would agree with Sari that, you know, that there is an interest on burying the news. I think the question is how does the press deal with that? I mean, when you have two sides that are trying to get out their own narrative, what does the press do with that? And I think for students, the idea is to show them, and I think that for the Holocaust, that provides a particularly strong example because I think most, at least the narrative before the last two decades was that there wasn’t any information, people didn’t know. So you didn’t have to confront the question. So when students realize, you know, and this is obviously what I try and do in my classes, how many stories they were, how much information there was, how timely it was. It, I think, makes something harder about what they’re missing now, because that seemed to be something that they understood and now they realize they didn’t understand it. So ideally, they will then take the same approach to the current situation and be thinking really hard about what’s not being told, why it’s not being told, who’s not telling it. And, to the degree you can figure it out, the motivations behind all of that. Before I turn to the, you know, the next, I want to talk about language. I am just genuinely curious about knowing that media itself is so polarized, right? That, you know, whatever you read in one……you know, there’s left, right, and center media, and to great extremes. I’m just curious about burying in light of that. Like, why are stories not coming out knowing that there’s going to be an agenda behind at least one side of the press spectrum to pick it up? What do you think explains that, if you have an opinion? Well, I’ll pick that up and then...…I mean, it’s actually an interesting situation because I think, on one hand, when you look at the situation in the 1930s and the 1940s, you had major newspapers, other forms of media that were dominant, that were……If you were not in The New York Times, if it wasn’t in The Times, then in some ways it didn’t exist. And that obviously presented its own problem. Now, you have in some ways, the reverse of it. I mean, you still have The New York Times and other major media outlets, but they don’t have the same stranglehold that they had in the 1930s and the 1940s. So now you have much more opportunity to have platforms for stories for different kinds of information. But at the same time, it is very difficult to get attention. So that…even if there is all the information, how do you get it out? And most importantly, and it’s not just to the fragmented audience, I mean, certainly people who care about Israel can get lots of information about bombs falling on Israelis. But can you get stories about what’s happening in East Jerusalem, or in places where, you know, Israelis aren’t there with their video cameras? And so that becomes the problem, is getting the attention and then forming some sort of consensus about what’s happening. Because I do think that that is very important, particularly in a democracy, that it not just be a million people with a million different stories. Well, I was going to say actually, in our case, a couple of things… The problem with us, with me in particular, and in the context of education, is not so much to talk about history or about the press or the media, and to try and navigate with my students about what it is that is happening now. But to try and, somehow, get into people’s heads to try to bring out exactly what it is they feel as they form their opinions, their political opinions about what’s happening. So, if you like, the dilemma here is to sort of balance between the political opinions that are inspired by these emotions and feelings, on the one hand, and on the other hand……and which form, by the way, a public discourse……nd on the other hand, if you like, to try and create an analytical perspective that can, in fact balance the narrative that becomes very much the common, or dominating, public discourse. And if you’re in the process of talking with students and educating them, I found that it’s very important to simply continue to question people about those beliefs that they have. Now, we can pick up texts from the past, from history, you know, ideally, you know, you’d pick up, for instance, this very famous, dialogue between the Athenians and the Spartans that’s mentioned by Thucydides, where, you know, the discussion is about might and right. Now this seems, on the one hand, like it’s a historical issue, but on the other hand, it brings out when you discuss it with the students, exactly what it is they feel. And, are they sort of seeing it properly? This is in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, of course. Is what they do the right thing? Is what they think the right thing? Do they think the other side thinks the right thing? Is the other side doing the right thing? So the dilemma here is not between the media and the population, so to speak. It’s between the public discourse, on the one hand, and on the other hand, trying to get that public discourse tuned down, to really get a better or a clearer picture of what the situation is like, what really is happening, and what therefore can be done or should be done about it. Of course, the things have changed over the last 10 years or 15 years with all of this stuff, you know, the WhatsApp and so on and so forth. People now, you know, just repeat what they read on the social media. And then not much thinking goes in, you know, between. Well, and there’s so much disinformation. Yes, disinformation. I’m studying that, here in London. Well, you know, one of the motivators for me to even do this initiative at The Film Collaborative is, I’m very obsessed with language and media, and, actually speaking of, like, misinformation and disinformation in media, but, I wrote a law review article called“Words Matter,” about, what I perceive as anti-Israel media bias in the West. So I just want to hear your thoughts on five words, right? So words that frame headlines and protests and political platforms. But they’re also not necessarily understood in a you know, proper manner, right? Maybe people are just seeing them on TikTok, what we just said. So I’d like to explore what they’re really meant to mean. And so I’m just going to do one word at a time and hear from each of you. So I’ll start with the word, the G-word, I like to call it, I don’t mean to laugh about it. But it makes one nervous, right? “Genocide.” And, Laurel, I’ll start with you to speak about what it’s meant, what it should mean. What it what it should mean? What it means, what it means in your mind. What you think it means, what the word is supposed to mean. Yeah, I think like, so much of language, I mean, there’s obviously, and as a law professor, you know this, there’s a very specific legal meaning of the term genocide that arises out of the Genocide Convention [1951]. And, that it could in some ways could be the easiest fallback. We’re just going to define genocide as it is defined in international law. I think there are two problems with that. One is, first of all, even in international law, it’s not always clear. There’s certainly a lot of interpretation that needs to go into it. But also then people use… I mean, these words have entered into common language, and I don’t think you can then just say,“Well, let’s revert to what the technical legal understanding is.” You need to accept the fact that it is being used in a certain way in common language. I do think, however, that even understanding that there’s a lot of leeway, it is important to try and not have it just be an insult or an assault, to have a very kind of specific meaning that does have to do with an intent to wipe out a group of people, not just a very bad thing. I mean, I think we’ve kind of moved to seeing genocide as just a very bad thing. And of course, it is a very bad thing, but it needs to, if we value language, it needs to be more rooted, if not wholly rooted in the legal and historical meaning of the term. Understood. And, Sari, do you have any thoughts about this? Yeah, I think a lot of thoughts. I’m not sure that I can put them together, but, I look upon words, really, as instruments. Not meaning that they reflect something in reality, but they are meant to create reality. In fact, they are part of reality. I think a famous philosopher once said that— that they are part of reality— and the word genocide, I think, in the past few, I don’t want to talk about it in general, but has been used in the past two years, ever since Gaza, the Gaza operation, or war, started, really came under pressure from both sides……legal and political experts from both sides……not as an attempt to describe what is happening so much as to use it to go to the International Court of Justice. So the idea was, on the one hand, to get Israel out of the Court of Justice, and the idea on the other hand, from the Palestinian point of view, was to push Israel into the International Court of Justice. So, in fact, the word was being used not so much to describe as to translate something you want to have done in reality, a force against your enemy, if you like. By pushing a particular meaning for it. Now, if you take a step back, in my own view, anything that has or deals with unjustly shedding blood and whether we are talking, and I think this is, by the way, a Jewish thing, shedding the blood of one person or the shedding of life of one person is just as bad as, you know, the whole thing. You cannot divide up the moral principle that you have. You either have a human attitude to other human beings, or you do not. And it’s not good enough to say,“Well, it’s okay to kill five people or ten people. Only not okay when you come up to the millions.” I think it’s, you know, at all levels of the spectrum, totally unacceptable on the basis of your moral principles. And I think that’s why words matter, because we know that they’re used by politicians, they’re used by orators, they’re used by all kinds of people. Not because they’re trying to describe what’s happening, but in order to create a reality. And I think, you know, looking at what’s happening today, around us, you know, in the public world, presidents, for instance, the President in the United States says, or what, you know, this man says, or that man says, they’re all said for effect, not for describing, or not for putting forward information about what’s happening. And genocide, I think, is unfortunately,been another instrument of war, not only in real terms but also in creating more wars between people. Very, very interesting. Thank you. So I’ll keep with you. Let’s move on to another word. The Z word. Zionist. What do you think it means? Well, I don’t think it has one meaning. I think it has many meanings. And that’s what I think. And I think it’s sort of evolved over the years, ever since the first Zionist Congress, it had different people wanting different things, some of them searching for a spiritual place in Palestine, some of them actually wanting a physical place, a state in Palestine. The second school of thought eventually won. And it is with Zionism that the Palestinians were faced. Now for a long time, and I, you know, if you give me just a couple of more minutes, than I’m required to describe this, for many years we as Palestinians were brought up to……we were never brought up to be anti-Jewish, by the way……and, you know, I’m speaking about myself, my children, the generation I grew up with. But we’ve been brought up to be anti-Zionist. This is what we were. My parents, my family, my school. Everybody would tell us we are anti Zionists. So I grew up thinking like this. But then I discovered, many years on, later, and especially when the talks began between the Israelis and the Palestinians, that in fact, Zionism is something I can find a way to live with. And the reason for that was that I found on the Israeli side, Zionists, who would, in fact, who wanted to have peace with the Palestinians on the basis of some kind of formula of sharing existence in two states or whatever. And so I discovered then that Zionism is not as totally evil as I was brought up to believe, but in fact was something that I can live with. Now, however, and this is the pinch, in the last 2 or 3 years or 4 or 5 years, my thinking began to transform. And I began thinking, well, maybe the enemy, the real enemy, is not Zionism, which, after all, is a realistic and political movement. And, practical, and one I can reach a deal with. But the extremist Jewish, extremist Jewish way of thinking with which I cannot make any peace. There’s no room for me in that kind of extremism, just as it is, just to make it clear, it is impossible to make peace with any extremist ideology, whether it’s religious, Muslim, Jewish, Christian. And we’ve had, you know, cases of that throughout history, or anything else or Buddhist, if you like. So I decided, you know, I can come to terms with Zionism because it’s a political movement. But I cannot come to terms with an extremist Jewish ideology, which is a divine movement. And, you know, I’m helpless above, you know, in front of God. Thank you for sharing all that. Laurel, on the word Zionism. Well, first of all, I really appreciate what was was just said, and I’m not sure I necessarily disagree with any of it. I do think that what we’ve seen and in this context and in so many other contexts over the last ten years, is that once there are extremists in control, then it becomes very hard to deal with it, with them, with it, with anything having to do with it. You know, I, and especially coming out of my study of the Holocaust, I mean, my sense of Zionism is that it is a response to 2000 years of Jewish powerlessness. And if you think of Jews as a people, and I understand that’s a more complicated issue than it is with some other groups, then part of what it means to be a people is having the power, which is usually state power to defend yourself. But I do think that that is, as Sari said, a political movement, a political understanding, and not a religious extremist one. And if it becomes a religious extremist one, then it isn’t, then you cannot compromise and you can’t make a deal. And because, of course, you know, you’re talking about a very small piece of land where two people live, if you can’t make a compromise, then you have nothing to talk about. So, and I fear that’s kind of where we are at the moment, but I don’t think that that should undermine, and for me, it doesn’t, for some people it does. For me, it doesn’t undermine the original purpose of Zionism, which is to provide safety for a group that has been persecuted for 2000 years. And were always a very tiny, powerless minority in states that were willing to persecute them and kick them out at any moment. Duly noted. And if I may just chime in, they also have indigenous claims and ties to the land too, right? So it’s not that they just all came from someplace else. So I think there’s that other element of Zionism. It wasn’t a piece of land picked out of a hat. But, and I would also, forgive me, but I just note the religious extremism, which I do not support, is not only on the Jewish side. If I may, just put a little dot on that. So let’s turn to another fun word. This one is the C-word. So, you know, “Ceasefire.” It sounds so peaceful. And I understand very much the deep anguish around the war. And every death is a shame. You know, and I really love what you said, Sari, about that. But it’s a loaded term, right? So I’m curious to know when you hear the word what is it connote? You know, what do you hear in that word? And I’d like you both to reflect on it in this time. I guess, Sari, I’ll start with you. Well, in my case, all it means is that people stop shooting and throwing rockets and, you know, doing all of that, and giving peace a chance, if you like. But it’s not peace. I don’t look upon it as peace, but I look upon it as a kind of putting a full stop to the madness and craziness that takes place, that we see taking place, and giving the chance, once again, for people to use their minds, their brains, to see how to get on and reach a peace deal. And I think peace deals are possible. They’re not impossible. And I think refusing that they are possible is something that should be extricated, sort of brought out to people’s minds. Everything is possible. And certainly if war is, you know, 50% possible, peace is 100% possible. So ceasefire is just, an interim thing. And it has been actually in our history in Israel-Palestine. And they never held for long. But I want to say also that, by the way, going back, I quite agree. I mean, extremist ideologies, whether Jewish or Muslim or even Buddhist or Hindu. You know, I’ve seen it all, you see that these people can become crazy. And, you know, religions are fine as long as they do not overtake one’s senses of what it is, the humane thing to do with oneself and others. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I actually kind of want to do two words at the same time. Just to consolidate this a little bit. But, you know, the other words, there’s “Apartheid,” and, you know, I know someone who’s Israeli living in South Africa who’s really reconciling with that word, and “Normalize,” which we hear a lot. It’s like a purity test, and I’ve heard it used as an excuse to not, you know, engage in dialogue, not wanting to normalize or engage in dialogue with so-and-so or such-and-such. And so, if you don’t mind taking them each, and we’ll take turns. Laurel, I’ll start with you,“Apartheid” and “Normalize.” You don’t have to. No, no, no, I just that’s really difficult. And putting them together is even more difficult. Okay. So separate them. Right. So I mean, I think with apartheid there’s a similar issue as with genocide in that there is, specific legal and historical meaning, but it is also used in everyday language. And as, Sari said, it’s also used to weaponize, you know, so that it becomes not necessarily only about the meaning of the word, but how the word can be used and that’s certainly true of apartheid. I guess the other thing is that we also like to think that either it’s apartheid or not, either it’s genocide or not. And in some ways, you know, particularly with genocide, because it does have that legal definition and, at least in theory, it’s some sort of enforcement mechanism that goes with it. It becomes either easy to put it in one category or the other category, where in fact, of course, there are degrees, right? I mean, and that’s true with apartheid. I mean, you can have, a system that is like there was in South Africa, and where it’s embodied in all aspects of law and then you can have ways in which culturally it arises, and it still is a form of apartheid. So I think that’s one of the ways in which that term, is particularly difficult. And I think to just quickly go to “Normalizing.” I think, in one hand, it can end conversations, but on the other hand, it could start conversations, because I think part of the idea is not to I mean, even in our conversation, you know, I was willing to say, you know, you can at this moment, it seems like there can’t be any negotiation. And that is in some ways my normalizing the events where as the the professor said, sometimes you can’t accept those kinds of things that ends the conversation. Where what you really want to do is start the conversation. So the refusal to accept things as the norm can actually be a conversation ender, not a conversation starter, or the other way around. Yeah, it can be a conversation starter, not a conversation ender. Exactly. Yeah, I know that the blinding sun that’s unexpected in London is confusing this conversation. I’m going to shut the roof in a minute. But Sari, what’s your, I know it’s a lot to talk about, but whatever you want to say about apartheid and normalizing. I’ll tell you this, with regard to the the term “Apartheid,” I’ve never really been very comfortable with its use in our political context. Now, why is that? Because I didn’t think that importing concepts from other places to try and understand how we are living is actually the best way to approach our problem. We have as Palestinians a problem of not having full or equal rights with Israelis. And this is true not only in Israel itself, among Israeli Palestinians. It is even more true after 1967. Let’s just say for however many years, 50 something years, where we’re clearly, you know, living under a state of occupation with no equal rights at all. Now, I can describe that, that there is this duality of rights. I can describe that without reaching out to something that happened in South Africa and trying to explain to everyone in the world, look at South Africa, this is also here. I don’t have to go there. I need only to go to the moral problem I see here and to try and explain it to others. And that’s why I was never very happy about using the word “Apartheid.” And I know it is used as a weapon. Now with “Normalization,” there’s an interesting story here, I want to tell you. You know, I was for quite some time the president of the university I was working at. And there’s always a very strong movement against having, normal relations with Israeli academics and in general, with Israelis. And I stood out against this by saying that actually, what we need to do, and this goes back to what Laurel, in a way, was saying, that what we need to do is to try and open the conversation between the one side and the other in order to bring normalcy back again. And by normalcy here I meant, of course, and I still mean, how we see human relations. Should or ought to be balanced between them. Now, a lot of people think, and this is how it is now understood, that by accepting, for instance, dealing with an Israeli or dealing with an Israeli group, or a professor, or whatever, what you’re doing is that you’re normalizing the unequal situation between Palestinians and Israelis. But I’ve held to the view for many, many, years that, you know, based on the unequal relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the way forward is to try and bring those relations back to normal by actually talking, by creating dialogue between the two sides. And there’s a lot to be gained by talking. There’s a lot to be gained by listening, by the way, but also by talking. And at the end of the day, I think, you know, we must all come back to the basic principle that we’re all the same. You know, we’re all human beings. We all need to live good lives. And the interesting thing is that we can. We can, by cooperating, live good lives and, you know, have concern for each other. And that actually brings us to Peaced Off! And actually why Orly started this, and I’m so proud to be part of it, and it brings back just about, where are we in terms of… by normalizing brings us back to the idea of humanity and how that seems to not be on the forefront of everyone’s agenda. And having this conversation, just listening, as a listener, it was really almost emotional because when we talk about words being weaponized, like Zionists, particularly, I think of my parents, who are Holocaust survivors, and how their community was just about the simplicity of just going back to the origins of Zion, at a place they could call home. So I thank you both so much for being here. I mean, we’ve been doing this thing… What has “Peaced you Off” this week? For me, I know it’s what’s going on in Israel because my husband happens to have gone to visit his family and has been every few hours sending me images from the shelters. So, if we could just go around, and what “Peaced you Off” this week? Sari? Well… I think this is very crazy where we are. In my case, my wife was stuck in London, so she couldn’t come back, so she’s not with me. My kids are abroad, so I’m sitting here by myself trying to……and a couple of dogs who get very excited when there are rockets, rocket sounds, and they jump at me, wanting protection. And, you know, I tell myself, you know, if my dogs feel like that, you know, what state is the world in? And how can we get out of this? I hope very much that we can get out of it as soon as possible. I’m fed up with the fact that people don’t seem to be reasonable. And I say what I’m “Peaced Off” about? Well, I’m going to you know, this is coming obviously from an American perspective, sitting in very peaceful Newton, Massachusetts, where there are no bombs dropping. I’m feeling very safe in that sense. But, listening to the crazy rhetoric, and especially, I mean, that’s coming out of our White House, I mean, it doesn’t, you know, even in other crises, even when you had, you know, George Bush in the White House, that it seemed as if there were people who had some knowledge of international relations and military who were making these decisions……you know, and decisions, not perfect, oftentimes not even good, but they were at least trying to apply knowledge and rationality to it. And I just feel like, at least on the American side, that that just is completely absent. And I don’t know what that means, either for this conflict or for the world. But, you know, being someone who’s a professor and believes in thought and trying to come to reasonable solutions, the idea that that is not, does not seem to be part of the conversation is very, disconcerting and leaves me very, very worried. Orly? Yeah, I’m forever “Peaced Off” by the binary nature of the discourse around this conflict. If I read Haaretz, I’m reading all the way one thing. If I read, you know, The Wall Street Journal, or The National Review, it might be all the way another thing. And I don’t want to read extremes. I don’t want to read extremes. I want to read people dealing with the facts and perspectives, information from all the sides, all at once, because all I’m seeing is more and more polarization, including within myself. I find myself, you know, so conflicted about what to think and feel, in part due to, feeling like either people are all the way to the right in a way that I find distressing, or all the way to the left in a like, sort of wholly anti-Israel way that I find incredibly distressing and disingenuous. And so I don’t feel like I have honest… I don’t feel like there’s too many people who are having honest, complete, holistic, humane, sophisticated, discussion around this conflict, and it’s “Peacing me Off.” But that’s what this is for. So thank you. And thank you so much because you guys are awesome. And, we really appreciate your time and your sagacity and your commitment to truthful, you know, responsible discourse. Thank you. Yeah, this is great. And it’s been a real pleasure for me to meet both of you. Trying to get you to the same spot here. But that’s what this is. This is the form of bringing people together to listen and share ideas. And, you know, this is just the way forward. And again, if we could get through with WWII and Germany and all that, I believe anything is possible. And this is where we are today. And thank you so much. Thank you. And, just very quickly, I’m honored to be meeting all of you and happy to have met Laurel. So you have all my support. And I just want to say I’m honored to have even been on a panel with you. When Abe suggested it, I was kind of completely blown away. And it turned out to be even more wonderful than I thought it would be. So thank you. That is so lovely. And we’ll share with you the whole thing, all of the podcast and of course, your episode. And so I just want you to know that I do have family in, not East Jerusalem, but in the other part of Jerusalem. If there’s something that they can do to help you, you know, please don’t hesitate to reach out. And just if you think that that’s possible. I think at the moment they need more help than me. That’s probably true. Okay. Well, with that, peace to you all. Salam. Peace. Peace. Cheers. Take care. Take care. Bye. This has been Episode 6 of Peaced Off!, a curated film and conversation series presented by The Film Collaborative with our guests, Professors Emeriti Laurel Leff and Sari Nusseibeh. Peaced Off! is curated and executive produced by Orly Ravid. It is produced by Abe Gurko. Both Orly Ravid and Abe Gurko served as moderators for this episode. Our head of audio and video production is David Auerbach, who also serves as series Art Director. You can find more about this podcast at GetPeacedOff.com.