good evening and welcome or politics i'm your host bill ford this may palestinians commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of nakba not by an arabic refers to catastrophe catastrophe it was the expulsion of nearly a million palestinians from and so strong homes and land in one nine hundred forty eight israel declared statehood in one nine hundred forty eight my guest tonight playwright filmmaker and activist for the palestinian cause million palestinians was it related to israel becoming a state yes it was to found a jewish majority state in what was historic palestine the founders of israel thought it was necessary to drive out the majority population of indigenous palestinians i'm curious how is it done in a million people move to offer the violence and terror terror in the in the sense of implanting fear in a population to get them to do what you want and some deliberate actual expulsions putting people on trucks driving them away throwing them off the trucks and forbidding them to return now you are you're not palestinian were brought you do this is you know i'm not not palestinian not jewish not error not married to one i'm just a us citizen a civilian i grew up like most people in this country i think with the idea that israel was a spunky little country surrounded by savages  and it was only after i turned forty years old so so pretty recently i like to think that i met some people read some books really took a very small amount of research to learn the surprising thing that in our country's unilateral support of everything that israel does we're not necessarily supporting human rights well i'd like to just dove in a little bit on the expulsion of women on the  hundred forty nine there were about four hundred thousand so about eight hundred thousand people had been driven out or killed in that same time you know that's just staggering those numbers u here two thirds of the population two thirds of the palestinian population at the time the the land that they left what happened to it became the state of israel founded on may fifteenth hundred forty eight it has been suggested that the founding of the state of israel happened first but in fact these of palestinians were already underway well before the state of israel found it was found that it's been suggested that israel the new state of israel was only acting in self defense against arab countries that had declared war on it when it declared statehood in fact several hundred thousand palestinians had already been driven out before them the plan actually goes back farther than that now you're talking about during the british mandate period there were a number of violent acts to drive palestinians from ruin him even before the british mandate period even before the end of the as the zionist movement grew up in europe in the late eighteenth hundreds response to jewish persecution two thousand years of jews being persecuted in europe they had the idea of founding a national state a national homeland to escape from this persecution so it was a national liberation movement for them but to found a majority jewish state in historic palestine meant by definition that they had to expel the majority population that was already there so from the start the dialogue in the zionist movement was how to expel the majority indigenous population of historic palestine you mentioned  as being the national identity of the national consciousness of the jewish people good brought about the movement into palestine more precisely a national liberation movement for jewish people in europe that lead ultimately to the expulsion nearly a million palestinians from their one and again this is tied very intimately with jewish identity in jewish consciousness particularly european jewish consciousness want to be precise about that european jews were really subject to persecution everybody in europe in the eighteen hundreds was colonizing and taking over places in asia and africa and around the world so it kind of made sense to go and form a nation state so to themselves in europe this felt like a progressive movement the needs the aspirations and the existence of a million palestinian arabs was not taken into account and so ultimately about eight hundred thousand palestinians were driven out so that that jewish majority state mainly founded by european jews could be found what about the british bring them into a period were to be obligated to actually offer protection to the problem to very britain and france and european powers and even already the united states in this period between world war one world war two had agendas of their own so they were happy to make promises to both sides to the zionist jews from europe to the arabs there but in fact what the zionist national liberation movement did was to ally itself not with other national liberation movements because palestinians already were in national liberation movement the zionist movement allied itself with the european powers so they early on in effect got permission from britain to take over the occupation of palestine to become the new occupiers and that's what's essentially happened the zionist movement has become the new occupier of historic palestine and yet that's not that's not really what's in the american consciousness when you think about it now most let me ask you pointedly what is the the real problem today we're discussing this descriptively but what is what is the real underlying issue there are several why this or why this expulsion is important for us to realize is that it hasn't stopped it has formed what amounts to gradual ethnic cleansing the purging of one people palestinian arabs to make room for another people israeli jews it's taken the form of actual murder of actual killing of palestinian men women and children so what some zionist jews experience as an immigration movement to palestinians has been an invasion and that invasion has not stop to maintain the jewish majority state the sovereign state not astin ians have had to either be driven out or subjugated kept in prison so in one nine hundred forty eight eight hundred thousand palestinians  driven out by force not allowed back in not allowed to return so that jewish majority could be maintained in one thousand nine hundred sixty seven the rest of historic palestine conquered kept under occupation so palestinians several million palestinians under occupation citizens of no country kept under military dictatorship by israel in effect subjugated no right to vote for the government to control their lot that controls their lives on voting right didn't go through prison in detention at some point it's in the common experience i heard a researcher point out that in gaza ninety percent of palestinian children in gaza have watch their fathers being beaten up by israeli soldiers and israeli police who wonder what what people are thinking when they grow up with that kind of thing in their heads and you have to worry about wonder about the american consciousness  everybody in seattle plus a lot more off of their land with no right to return part of the self image of israel and israelis is that they are the moral people the good people it's not easy to accept that your state was founded on ethnic cleansing that ethnic cleansing was necessary for you to have a majority democracy in your state it's unpleasant for us to think that in this we're looking to let me back you up  villages palestinian villages were attacked there was a very famous massacre india seen men women and children civilians who had signed non aggression pact with their jewish neighbors were attacked and murdered bodies dumped into quarries begin later prime minister of israel bragged about this said it was a brilliant maneuver on their part creating terror it's interesting lation it's interesting of people looking at the past blood on the hands of israeli prime settlements came down so that was a plus the israeli soldiers were redeployed to the borders but israel still controls the borders the air space the water rights the electricity grid the imports the export the israeli army enters at any  time the even technically the israeli government has veto power over any legislation that the so called palestinian authority has there tries to pass so essentially they are still occupied but mainly they are imprisoned million and half people in prison block from getting medical supplies blocked from getting major food supplies i understand they call it food insecurity but really what it is is a program of starvation deliberate hunger crisis human created hunger crisis one way to control the population is to keep them on the very very low calorie and again to maintain the jewish majority state it has been necessary either to drive out the palestinian population or to imprison them and the imprisoning is what the occupation is about in gaza and in the west bank now this is what you mean referred earlier to a thing that comes in the driving out of people either by deliberate murder or by putting them on trucks taking them away the massacre palestinians and dear scene was followed by leaflets by israeli loudspeaker trucks driving around in other palestinian cities saying in arabic get out or this will happen to you next jewish observers have reported heads on pikes on these trucks so deliberately terrifying the mostly unarmed palestinian population in one nine hundred forty eight in some cases invading villages putting the population on trucks driving them  dumping them and shooting at them when they tried to come back and then creating a legal structure within israel to stop them from coming back well i think it's important for viewers to understand that and the cleansing really was unconscionable but tell us what is the step after of the closing if americans don't develop a conscience and put a halt to ethnic cleansing what happens next the current process seems to be to keep palestinians for israel to keep palestinians in prison to make their occupied territories of the west bank and gaza as uninhabitable as possible so that they'll leave if they have the opportunity so the palestinians will leave themselves or to send in bulldozers and tanks to confiscate palestinian homes to knock down palestinian homes and literally to drive them out so that goes on until there are no more palestinians there or to divide up the country to put up the separation barrier sometimes called the annexation wall so that israel can add x take over water resources arable land and imprison palestinians on smaller and smaller reservations so they're a powerless cheap labor force this is all happening in plain sight i think every american knows about the settlements and the apartheid or separation wall and yet it goes on i mean there's really a captive in prison population here we have to realize that the u s government and the government of israel are allies that had a very important strategic friendship they share security information they share weapons industries and so the information that we give in this country is governed by our government is channeled byron government and therefore tends to be extremely  biased in favor of the israeli point of view when the information they get in israel is extremely biased and some of them don't know israel's an open society so they can know the information is there just as the us our country yours and mine is still an open society the information is available to us but we're encouraged to look away from it and to perceive israel as the victim in this situation instead of the him prisoner and the aggressor and by taking those down there is really rather states israel has caused a lot of trouble for the united states and like many political allies the only allies as long as they serve each other as we know now there's an increasing number of israeli spies who are being found that are powerful pro israel lobby at work that sort of surrounds congress makes it much harder for congress to take action about this that takes it but i mean it isn't like the israelis just got in boats and landed in america and set up a paki packer's got to be homegrown in some way it's a it's a phenomenon that has some strong support here where is it coming from i don't think it's anybody  on my block that i know of that staunchly in favor of a pac well it could be maybe i wouldn't spec your block more closely because one of the one of the myths we have in this country is that the pro israel lobby is only supported by the jewish population in this country part of the jewish population in this country deeply mainstream organizations that support it but many jews in this country oppose it meanwhile there is a lot of right wing christian support for the pro israel lobby their support from the weapons industry from the aeronautics industry for this alliance with israel so again us government agendas are being served by this alliance with israel and are distracting us from the human rights ongoing catastrophe that on the obvious plain facts you know the truth that are before us that we're refusing to see you mention the christians for for israel i think that makes most israelis fairly uncomfortable to know that they're supported by  you know apocalyptic christians i have i have heard a variety of viewpoints on that that very fact some israelis are willing to say we need all the support we can get we'll take it in we'll negotiate either some israelis  are i think honest enough and intelligent enough to say that they should be careful about who is supporting them because the the whole christian right wing support come from this apocalyptic notion of a name gathering of jews before the end times and armageddon at which time a small number of jews according to this mythology must convert to become christians and the rest of jews must be condemned to hell and to live in torture for the rest of eternity so many jews are aware that these are not good allies these are not very deep allies unfortunately they are allied however in in centuries old underlying racism against arabs and against muslims and so that's the thing that cuts very deep in this country as well as in europe and of course in israel you know we can't i know that many americans don't discuss the palestinian issue really good walking out the facts are they're probably very uncomfortable for most americans to know that we're being led down a path that in my opinion that's very wrong headed for so immoral really i mean we're not saying that israelis don't have rights we're saying that palestinians have the very same rights to do some release yes exactly exactly this is this is what most of us are working for equal rights those are the two words to remember equal rights but how does how does this come about is i know there's a lot of revisionist history i know there's a lot of slant in our media and you look at the ownership of the media it's pretty clear that it's it's got a tilt where would you put the responsibility for revisionist history that's at least deterring people from chewing on this issue and thinking about it thinking about in finding their conscience and yeah i'm not inclined to to point to one particular set of bad guys because wherever you look there are hardworking people who are trying to trying to overcome an israeli historians today invent this invented history that there was no ethnic cleansing no no israelis and orients in fact are some of the pioneers who are bringing out the facts of the truth of what happened in one nine hundred forty eight israeli activists and human rights activists are some of the front line workers trying to end the human rights violations by the state of israel well i can't help but notice on a lot of the channels  c span various channels there's always some think tank formed on the middle east and it's just predictable you know israel its right to exist with no mention of the palestinian right to exist the terror bombings against israeli when you look at the numbers of course it doesn't hold up yet the staggering death toll and injury as assassinations are taking place so it's murder and just the iron fist policy it's never mentioned in these people or i would like to think are sincere but a lot of times it's usually people who are pro israel going to clump together to discuss their seriously there certainly are issues with what you call the corporate media and is is  largely the corporate owned media for example one of the major obstacles to justice to equal rights are these settlements israeli citizens jewish citizens being moved on to land that was caught skated from palestinians who were driven off of it with tanks and bulldozers it keeps going on it keeps undermining all peace processes people know about but don't understand the extent of the problem that it's a continuation of violent invasions well most of the media in canada for example is owned by one person  n canada the executive director sent down in order that their news stations were not to use the word settlements anymore they were to call them jewish neighborhoods that sort of thing happens in this country as well so there certainly is a kind of censorship a kind of in some cases sincere belief that israel needs so much help that we must bend the information to support them and in some cases very likely a cynical believe that we're going to protect our allies because we have economic and strategic stakes in it and so we ground in the west bank in gaza are sending back of the truth but what they're saying is not coming out in the stories from there we're going to say no before we run out of time i want to ask you what can we do about it george orwell his famous quote it's really hard to see words in front of your homes this was written you know in the thirty's and forty's and it's applicable sixty years later it's really hard to see woods in front of your nose what do you think needs to be done so that we can give palestinians the same human rights that we can deal with the same sort of obvious truths that the israelis are clamoring for or the people that support israel are clamoring  one step one for us for you and me for people in this country in the united states educate ourselves see beyond what we see on t v and in the newspapers read books read books by israeli historians ill on pup pate flap and tom say give  even even benny morris who has documented the ethnic cleansing bit happen very carefully from a right wing point of view he says there should have been more of an eclipse educate yourself talk to that media the media serves what it takes to be the audience if the audience is quiet and the audience is us they'll continue bending the information to what they think makes us feel good about ourselves some of these truths may not make us feel so good about ourselves talk to your local media the united states gets several billion dollars a year of direct foreign aid to the state of israel one of the richest countries in the world that's a third of our foreign aid budget we should not be giving that much foreign aid without strictures to a country with a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights that's the law congress should change that we shouldn't be giving them diplomatic cover we shouldn't be giving them military cover we shouldn't be giving them political cover in the united nations so talk to your congresspeople talk to your senators talk to our government they have to change as well why is that is really netanyahu could say nine eleven has been good for israel you can hear a comment by the kasam rockets yet the israelis are always bombing in the most densely populated real estate in the world was it can't help it kill families there is palestinian violence too there is palestinian resistance if we understand that there is ongoing ethnic cleansing that palestinians live under ongoing attack then we understand whether it's palestinian violence in resistance when we understand that we can start working  equal rights for everybody who lives there you know this truth seems so obvious and i don't think anybody listening would have any complaint about equal rights palestinians equal rights one of  those values that i was raised with and then country why can't we get there it's just it staggers me and we're doing the show because it's a place we need to get i'd like to invite you back to continue this discussion make americans conscious of palestinians