Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…Yeah. And it’s fascinating also how interconnected they are. Like a friend of mine, Momahari, he recently did a documentary report on the day that Haifa fell during the Zionist invasion, the Hagana led the Palestinian residences of Haifa down to the city center. And as absurd as it sounds, those of them who stood on the right side of the street were forced into cars that took them to multiple stops that would later become multiple refugee camps, the last of which was Jenin refugee camp. And those who stood on the left side of the street were forced to board boats that took them to Lebanon to become refugees there. Last month we saw the Israeli army in invade Jenin in maybe the largest military invasion of Jenin since 2002, and they killed many people. They attacked medics and journalists in broad daylight on camera. They have destroyed infrastructure, and it was all very painful. But I think the most compelling aspect of the raid on Jenin was what followed. Israeli soldiers that night, held their megaphones and instructed hundreds of Palestinians to flee their homes. And they told them, if you don’t leave, if you don’t have your hand up in the air, you will get shot. And they were forced to leave their homes in the camp and walk to God knows where. I can guarantee you, because the Nakba is not that old, I can guarantee you that some people who were marching away from their camps were chased away from their homes in the camp in Jenin were some of the same people who were chased away from the homes in Haifa in the first place. This perpetual exile that Palestinian people continue to live is unbearable. In my case, my grandmother was removed from her home in Haifa in ’48, and then she moved from city to city. And then in 2009, she saw half of her home taken over by Israeli soldiers. My grandmother died in 2020, and two months later, we got the next expulsion order from the Israeli court. I’m quite ashamed to admit that I was relieved that my grandmother had died, because I did not want her, 103 years old at the time, to go through yet another Nakba. And this is the fact for so many Palestinians, regardless of where they are on the map. If I may read the description of the situation in Jenin, and maybe you can comment. So this is on July 3rd, 4th and 5th, just reading the Washington Post’s description. So this was an Israeli military incursion to Jenin, the raid included more than 1000 soldiers backed by drone strikes, making it Israel’s largest such operation in the West Bank since the end of the second Palestinian uprising in 2005. The Israeli military said it dismantled hundreds of explosives, cleared hundreds of weapons, destroyed underground hideouts, and confiscated hundreds of thousands of dollars in quote, terror funds. Many of the 50 Palestinians who have attacked Israelis since the start of the year have come from Jenin camp and the surrounding area. Palestinian attacks inside Israel have killed 24 people this year. UN experts describe the Jenin operation as “collective punishment”, in quotes, for the Palestinian people amounting to egregious violations of international law. Many of the more than 150 Palestinians killed by Israelis this year have also come from these communities. Palestinian fighters say they need arms to defend themselves against the Israeli occupation and military incursions into the camp during which Palestinian civilians including children have been killed. So those are the, I would say, different perspectives on the many people on both sides who have been killed, many more Palestinians. Can you comment more about the situation? I think the Washington Post article is a little bit more careful than other media that came out recently about Jenin. I was listening to our Reuters radio show and they failed to ever mention the occupation. I don’t even think this paragraph mentioned that Jenin is under occupation by the Israeli forces, by the Israeli regime. I think this is the most important piece of context that gets obscured in our media reporting, is these cities, these refugee camps are under illegal occupation. The Israeli army has no business being there in the first place. That is the departure point, that is the most important piece of context that will answer to you why these people are arming themselves. Many of which, by the way, lived through the 2002 massacre and bombardment of Jenin, and grew up in that violence. The context that Palestine is under occupation, that these Palestinian cities are under occupation, that they have to deal with land seizures at all times, that they cannot leave their towns without a special permit, all of this will give context to the violence. And the thousands of Israeli soldiers that raid the camp that day, that traumatized an entire generation. They think they will quell that generation. They think that with such bloodshed and such barbaric violence, destroying infrastructure, attacking medics, killing people left and right, and they think with this kind of terror that they can quell people, tell people that they can guarantee that these kids are not going to grow up and resist. But that’s the opposite of what happens. One thing about Palestinian people, they will not compromise their dignity. These people live in dire, excruciating circumstances and it is so courageous, in my opinion, that they even think to defend themselves against one of the most lethal, one of the most sophisticated armies in the world, against a nuclear state that can wipe them out in the matter of seconds. But at the end of the day, it’s not even about courage, it’s about survival. They don’t do this because of machismo or because of heroic tendencies, it’s because this is about survival.…

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