time once again for community form and we are very lucky to have with us live in the studio this morning along pop a along pop a is an internationally known historian and author he was formerly a senior lecture in political science at the university of haifa he is currently a professor with the college of social sciences and international studies at the university of exeter in the u k he's the author of numerous books including britain and the arab israeli conflict the modern middle east the ethnic cleansing of palestine a history of modern palestine one land two people and his latest book ten myths about israel and he is also speaking this coming monday evening at townhall seattle alon thank you very much for coming and spending time with us this morning and pleasure to be here so start out tell us  what was your motivation in writing your latest book ten myths about israel the main motivation was to allow people who are who are either activists or are newcomers to the field of israel and palestine to have a kind of an overview of the gap that exists between popular perceptions about palestine and israel and the updated research on the question the basic notion of the book is that the history of the place is an important factor in explaining what goes on today and is also a key for understanding what could be done in the future and there's a lot of mis all a g about the history of the place there's a lot of fabrication misrepresentation that is not only intellectually wrong but politically is undermining the chances for a solution and reconciliation now it's very difficult to ask every judge activists or people who are interested to read all the recent books  palestine and israel there's a huge output on this so i thought it would be a good idea to take one myth against every myth against the updated research on that myth so i chose ten common myth that are prevalent in the public sphere about israel and palestine shared this misawa ji by the way is shared by heads of governments senior politicians senior economics and the common person in the street so i there is really a kind of an industry about the history of the place and also the contemporary reality in the place that needs to be challenge needs to be encountered with truth with facts not just with you know emotions and beliefs and there was the idea to do it as in a concise manner as possible almost like a pocket book that people could have because there's a lot of ignorance ignorance and misunderstanding about israel and palestine and again i stress the point this is not only wrong because the facts are wrong i really strongly believe that this misunderstanding does not allow us there in israel and palestine to progress towards peace and reconciliation and weren't you born in israel yes i was ok and you served in the i d f i did so and i asked because they're discussing this topic for those of us who didn't grow up in israel and or who are not jewish can make one extremely uncomfortable with the subject matter and one of those words and terms that is used a lot these days is zionism and i was hoping you would define that for us because again that's a word that immediately at least used to make me want to just you know run away from even discussing the topic you know and absolutely right this is a sensitive charged topic anti semitism so these are two chapters out of the ten chapters of the book so that if we say something about the first one it is important to know the history of zionism and it started as a movement of jews in europe who rightly felt insecure in europe and were looking for a way to save themselves and the other jews and they had the foresight one should say that they started thinking about it in the late nineteenth century and seventy years after that the holocaust happened so they had the right impulse to leave europe because europe would not want at least in certain parts of europe jews really were under existential danger the second reason  emerged was that like many other cultural and religious groups in europe this was the age of nationalism or what we call the spring of nations when a lot of groups felt more comfortable to redefine their identity is a national was chosen as a destination or the place where these two impulses can be met you know the the search for security and the wish to be redefined as a nation as happened often with such projects in the past the places you chose already had someone living there for centuries now most of these movement zionism included and it's very unfortunate decided that the only way they can implement their wish to be safe and to be a nation was by uprooting the native population listeners should be familiar with american history there's a similar chapter here with the way the white settlers genocide of the native americans it's not different what we  call in the scholarly world we call these movements settler colonialism we distinguish between them and colonialism because the settler colonialist are intent on destroying and eliminating the natives and i think that's what happened in far les it became from a movement of liberation movement that dispossessed the local native palestinians and its very existence is an existential threat to the palestinians has been from the very beginning and still is today so it is important as my book tries to show to know the history of zionism and the differentiate what was positive about this ideology and what is negative from the palestinian perspective this is really bad news throughout the history the second point i was making in the book is about anti zionism is anti semitism and i tell the story of the jewish the general jewish perception of the line isn't when it started a lot of jews do not accept it when the i there because they were very religious and they saw to the idea of returning to a holy land without a religious imperative was meddling with god's ways most of the liberal jews created the reform movement and regarded this country as a far better destination for saving jews and making them more than a community which was at least as successful as a zionist project one should say the american jewish experience was  one if anything it was a very positive one so there were alternatives to zionism even if the problem with zionism pointing to fun to to the existential danger in europe was the right one it was not the only way of doing it and even after the whole locals than after the creation of the state of israel israel is not the safest place for jews in fact united states is far far safer for jews more than twenty five thousand jews died in israel since the creation of the state so you can say this is the safest place for jews jewish communities around the world are much safer you don't have to subscribe to the idea of the to be a jew you need to call on nice palestine or dispossessed the palestinians and therefore think that zionism has a very strong colonialist ideology in it which is not fitting in appropriate for the twenty first century and challenging it is very much like challenging apartheid in south africa and people who are not c anti christian because they challenge apartheid and we are not anti islamic if we don't accept the ideology so we need to know the facts and then people can have a proper discussion with us but i am afraid that people are throwing the anti semitic accusation in order to stifle the necessary debate about the future of israel it seems that is also used with some people who criticize israel itself and the government of israel that they are labeled as being anti semitic what is your thoughts on that yes that's even more ridiculous in a way i mean it's i but it's even more pathetic i think and ridiculous to accuse people who criticize a policy of the state as being against the religion it's almost like people in the united states who would have an issue with an american policy domestic or foreign it doesn't matter and would be regarded as an anti christian and in fact what i think the book shows at least tries to show and i hope it comes across quite clearly for those who read it is that a lot of issues which would be very sensical and commonsensical if you want in other cases do not work in the case of israel so it is very normal to criticize policies of governments around the world without being silence of being a racist only in the case of israel if you criticize israeli policy it means that you are anti semitic it's a ridiculous accusation and it is being used because israel has lost the moral argument israel has no moral justification for what it is doing to the palestinians and what it had done to the palestinians and when your moral justification not to be you know afraid because of these kinds of tactics in fact it's for the benefit of the jews in israel as well if americans will tell them you have re policies on the ground that either you identify with or you're not willing to challenge and therefore i'm i'm a great supporter of the idea of boycotting official israel as long as it continues its aggressive and oppressive policies towards the palestinians did i read correctly that one of your motivations and no longer teaching at the university of thousand so i have a long history of being a dissenting voice i think that the university could not tolerate someone whose profession is history so i mean israel had dissident economics before me but they were teaching other topics so it seemed like this is there what they're doing in the free time but they're not doing it in the classroom because the teaching chemistry or you know i  one of the first to destine to teach history and history of israel but i decided to do it from a different perspective from the mainstream ideological kind of point of view so i was guilty of many many things all of them have to do with not being loyal to the hedge of monica ideology of the state and that's that was the bottom line you cannot teach the history of  conclusion so i had to leave so it wasn't because your classes weren't filling up and you weren't oh no it was actually quite ridiculous on the year that decided to get rid of me i was chosen by the students of the universe is the best lecturer so the guy who checked me out had to give me the award for being the best lecturers there was his last there was my last official capacity was getting recognition from the university of being the best haifa and yet the one who had to leave there was a really funny moment i should say yes so you mentioned previously that israel was set up so much of your sister so settler colonialism is settler colonial is still the mandate in israel currently i think so and i think that's what's so unique about israel i mean the united states was built on the side you know europeans running away from europe encountering the native population happened in south africa south america australia new zealand but in all these countries these are the projects of the past probably the most recent one we have in south africa and the step the colonialist desert people and their struggle against the more open government but this is the main active one and it's part of the state ideology is part of the state's educational system it's part of the perception the colonialism unfortunately is not only about removing the native as much as you can or taking a very superior attitude towards the natives happened in south africa through apartheid there is unfortunately also a kind of the human is asian of the native of the local and my educational struggle in israel is really to human eyes the palestinians in the eyes of the israelis which is not a fit and easy project that that the whole educational system is built on the dielman ization of the palestinians so even liberal israelis are israelis who regard the palestinians as aliens but they are tolerant enough to let them be there or have some of the land there is a basic misunderstanding even the more liberal zionists that zionism emigrated into the homeland of someone immigrants so if you are a liberal person you tolerate immigrants you're willing to let them be absorbed into the society but this is not the situation these are not immigrants you are the immigrants and the oss you have to ask the palestinians to allow you to stay and something very difficult after one hundred years of oppression to understand that the or present needs the legitimacy from the oppressed is very difficult to to this i mean that they thought they had the ability to drive these people back to their homeland where they had no homeland so the philistines i think very cleverly in the last twenty thirty years understood that their mission is not to think of how to get rid of the jews in israel but how to tell them that they are welcome but it has to be was in a political system that grounds equality to everyone not the kind of apartheid system that we have to israel that kind of jumps to a one of the points in your new book ten myths about israel that israel is currently pro trade in corporate media as the only democracy in the middle general book you have in political science of what defines a democracy israel doesn't pass the test on every aspect israel was not a democracy until nine hundred sixty seven because it puts one fifth of its another group of palestinians millions of them and deny them even more in a harsher way any basic right at least the first palestinian group was allowed to vote and to be elected the new palestinian group that israel incorporated doesn't even have the right to vote or to be elected they have no say in their own fate the same military galatians that israel used against the palestinian community for sixty seven are now used against the palestinian community in the west bank so in many ways israel reminds me of south africa because whites in south africa enjoyed a certain level of democracy but the africans did not enjoy any level of democracy in the same is true for israel so you can say that for the jews in israel israel is a democracy but anyone who is not a jew is a second rate if not a third rate citizen and there are legal discrimination against the palestinians whether they are citizens of israel or they live in new york but the tories there is official apartheid there are practices which are not officially admitted but are very known to everyone that discriminate against you i will just give you one fact which i think is very important and i think you list most of your listeners probably don't know the law and talking about israel with in the pre nine hundred sixty seven borders so to make it clear according to the israeli law most of the land of israel belongs to the jewish agency according to the charter of the jewish agency it is not allowed to sell lend to non jews so ninety seven percent of the land of israel is not for sale to the palestinian citizens of israel who are twenty percent of the population so they have no access to buying land to purchase land to expand in fact in the last seventy years only jewish settlements definitely exists in every society i don't think israel is unique in that but i think it's quite unique for a country that pertains to be the only democracy in the middle east to have laws that discriminate against people just because of their identity that's for me is the definition of a non democratic that actually seattle used to have red lining which prevented people of color blacks from purchasing property and major portions of the city that wants to believes in a two state solution and wants to get out of the west bank and the gaza strip and handed over to the palestinians and the kind of war camp right wing that is opposed to any settlement with the parties believe they have tactical discussion were to settle the right wing wants to settle even in densely populated arab areas in the west bank because they believe that these are the biblical sites the left wing so so called left wing in israel believes that is not necessary to settle where palestinians live so settle anywhere else in the west bank which made the whole idea of a two state solution and viable not viable settlements continue because most of these rallies believe in them and because the government throughout the history of the occupation says nine hundred sixty seven very cleverly divided in their perception of people the west bank into two areas there is the jewish west bank where everybody agrees you can settle and supposedly even the international community doesn't mind if you settle there and there is the palestinian west bank which is all of forty percent of the west bank which is densely populated by palestinians that if you're a reasonable israeli you don't think it's necessary to settle there even you don't mind if these areas would be called a palestinian state i noted the similar in the book i wrote a year project from the very beginning because of the settler colonialist nature of the state and the movement that created the state so just a few minutes left so do you believe you support a one state solution and you see a a reasonable compromise that can be met in your lifetime yes well first of all i think that one has to realize the imbalance between the palestinians and the israelis the israelis have the strongest army in the middle east they are the most probably the most powerful state in the middle east in the region and probably beyond well if things are the weakest political group in the area and so the first thing i believe even before one state solution and i devote my life to this is to convince the international community that it's in the interest of the international community to put pressure on israel to f change its immediate policies of oppression even before we talk about solution you know that to create conducive circumstances for a solution we need to get the israelis out of the life of the palestinians in the west bank to lift the siege over the gaza strip to stop the discrimination against the palestinians in israel and to seriously consider the right of the palestinian refugees to return now if i take all these three basic rights that israel violates the rights to live in peace in the west bank in the gaza strip in a democracy inside israel and to come back home for the refugees i can only see one political outfit that will enable us to implement these rights and that's one democratic state for  because i think otherwise we any other political solution would perpetuate it would would make make it even worse than it is today and when i say worse it's mainly worse for the palestinians but i don't i also think it's not a very positive for the say for everyone we should live democratically as you do here in the united states as human beings regardless of our identity religious identity national identity gender or color so one person one vote one person one vote i'm willing to take it by a national state if that is what people want it's much better than what we have today maybe people would want the collective identity i can appreciate it especially on the juice side because they have built a culture of their own i think a lot of palestinians will go along with this but the state has to be a state for everyone and should not be divided should not be partitioned and the third generation of settlers and the native people have a very good chance of making palestine and israel and whatever will call it one of the best places on earth well with that we are unfortunately out of time when i thank you very much for coming and spending time with us to  gentrification issues here in town and local photographer alex garland had a great post on facebook a couple days ago where he stated how can we have the two richest men in the same city as a homeless crisis is the answer was avarice so and i know you were speaking of mr b s i was one of the two richest men you were actually spending part of your day yesterday in front of amazon so i wonder if you can talk about that and talk about the bigger picture here absolutely and as you michel we are really in a historic period of social movements that is just beginning and a lot of the people around does have become politicized because of getting elected  jolted people into action but really this is this sort of children in in history with the millennial generation really rejecting the status quo preceded getting elected and what's happened instead is th from the larger fight against trump against the right wing and against the billionaire cause and i agree with alex garland who made that brilliant facebook post this is really an obscene and shameful situation where you have the t of the richest wealthiest people in the entire world bill gates who is well on his way to becoming a trillionaire and can people even imagine what that means and jeff bezos who's now increases well enough just this last week to become the second wealthiest person and both of them live in the greater seattle area and this is an area which has had unprecedented growth g d p growth rate in excess of the national average and buildings going up everywhere upscale condos an apartment you can't walk five blocks without having having to see a construction crane and yet we are seeing increasing poverty increasing unlivable ity the housing affordability crisis has just reached a choke point and homelessness is a alarming and inhumane increase and so the question really is why is this happening i agree with alex i mean it's the avarice of extremely wealthy people but it really comes from the capitalist system itself it's systemic components of the way th economy works that allows this kind of absurd situation where you have some of the wealthiest people in the world living in the same area and in an industrialized country that is the wealthiest in the history of humanity and yet you see homelessness going up that is why yesterday when i joined workers at s i s which is the security company that amazon contracts where i was there in solidarity with those workers who have been demanding their workplace rights including labor law free at all but also the basic prayer rights many of them are muslim immigrants and they're facing such repression at the workplace i mean people find it hard to believe this is seattle in the twenty first century and yet these workers are being impacted in so in ways that seem so anachronistic and so they've shown tremendous courage you know they don't have a union they're fighting for a union and so we were there at that rally was the workers the people from the labor council including nicole grant who is the leader of the labor movement here in the seattle area and se well you local six which has been playing a really important role in helping to unionize those workers and what we said there at that rally yesterday was that we are fighting against drop re stand with immigrants who are going to be facing massive repression in the form of workplace and home ice raids and if you recall michel we you know we organize the free danielle rally and daniel was just released from  after weeks of being held in detention by ice even though he has a legal right to be in the united states but daniel is not going to be the only one who will be impacted we're not going to be able to fight this on a case by case basis i think every legal help that is offered is absolutely critical but ultimately we're not going to be able to beat back against ice raids unless we build a mass movement so that was part of our message there were in solidarity with immigrants we're in solidarity with workers who are fighting to unionize and ultimately we cannot have isolated struggles first and that everybody should join us may first or may day is international workers day in america it has had historic value as immigrant rights day throughout the nation but especially in states like california hundreds of thousands of immigrants and workers are going to be walking out or striking or protesting or engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience demanding a different kind of society and i urge everybody in seattle whether you have a union or not whether you're you go to work and get a paycheck or not if you have a stake in fighting for a different vision of seattle and america then you should be out with us on may first i believe s c a was having a vote just the tail end of this week that we should know the outcome on monday as to whether to join that record yes as he is he l education association the union that represents public school educators in our city have just shown tremendous courage and also just a understanding of what it would take to fight against trump but also you know this is a union that has been engaging in a valiant struggle against the chronic underfunding of public education this is the union that courageously went on strike in two thousand fifteen and i walked with them on the picket lines and we had a rally in city council chambers in solidarity with the union and you know the picket lines the teachers weren't there to caterers weren't talking just about themselves they were absolutely demanding a fair contract which is the right but they were primarily talking about the needs of the students they were talking about how outrageous it was that seattle being such a wealthy city was still home to an increasing number of students who were facing racial disparities and discipline and in schools and facing homelessness and hunger at home this is just not acceptable and the teachers were out there on the picket lines fighting for them fighting for full funding of public education in opposition to the state legislators complete and utter inaction in funding education and so the question really that comes up for us in seattle statewide nationwide is what it what is when what is a strategy how do you do we fight for education for example the question i would ask is why hasn't the state legislature democrats and republicans why haven't they fought to tax the wealthy why haven't they fought to tax big corporations like amazon like boeing so that we can create funding for public education we're not a poor state the problem is that the wealth is consolidated so unbelievably in the hands of a few corporate executives and billionaires that they also own the political power they control the corridors of government and so you know ultimately you don't see these two political parties there is admitted really fundamental differences between the two parties but ultimately neither of them stands for the interests of working people for the interest of public education in the broader social interests including housing affordability so i think what what our history in the in the recent years in seattle has shown that w achieved tremendous successes and pushing back against the status quo only on the basis of building mass resistance mass movements that does not allow itself to be beholden to what's acceptable to corporate politicians i mean we won the historic fight for fifteen in seattle and sea tac the year before only because movements refused to accept council members and other politicians in this area who said well fifteen is too presumptuous you should be asking for fifteen or we may not be able to a many tenant rights and we're getting ready to also fight for more legislation on tenants rights you know going towards a fall tenants bill of rights but the only way we will be able to do that is if we are clear that we win only for our movement refuse to accept what is presented as possible by corporate politicians if you rely on them you're not going to ever change anything so what is the key for dealing with for instance developers and landlords in town developers appear to still have the upper hand even though there's been like minor gains with them as well as i just saw last night on on social media that your friend carl haglund a looking at evicting raising the rents and forcing some more people out at some of his facilities yes thank you for mentioning all that mean gentrification and housing affordable affordability are now the main crises i mean there's just whether you look at home prices for you know for those who are actually considering lucky enough to consider putting aside downpayment for a mortgage loan or if you're a renter either way things are hard but things are especially hard for interest but but if you look at the whole housing market it's you know let's look at the overall housing market not only are rents skyrocketing and homelessness going up recently the seattle times reported that forty percent of the homes ownership homes that are being sold in seattle are being sold for a million dollars or more and the numbers get only worse when you branch out to bellevue or martyr island ninety five percent of the homes in mars are island are being sold for a million dollars or more this is shaw outside of even the rooms of imagination of ordinary working people you know how how many people what proportion of seattle's workers make anywhere close to the amount of money in an amount of income that he would need to be able to afford homes like that what proportion of seattle makes the amount of income that you would need to be able to afford the average rent for a two bedroom apartment if you know if you're a family with two or three children how to do that how do you how do you live in this city and more and more the people who work in the city and make this city run are being forced to live elsewhere more and more people are moving out yes more people are moving in that's true but it the people who are able to live here are increasingly people who have very high salaries and i think that really if we are to make t make life affordable in the city then we have to take dramatic steps and let's start with simple things just a few weeks ago the city council voted on the university district  her horrible lead on this we argued that we should extract as much affordability as possible under the framework of the hollow committee which is basically the housing policy committee that was drafted by the mayor and we were all told that he should just bind to holla because that's the best way that's the only thing that we're going to get i don't agree with that i support everything that is council also shows that even within that framework to squeeze out met the maximum affordability is not the goal of most politicians so when the proposal to increase the affordability within that framewor accepted framework was brought up it was only council members hardboard o'brien and i who voted yes for it how is it possible that we we have such a burning crisis of affordability and we don't even have a city council that is politicians on the city council how did they get away with doing this why wasn't that a majority vote that is or that to me my i mean my message to all your listeners is that that should be a reminder that we need to build a powerful movement that holds the feet of politicians to the fire and demand accountability and the way you demand accountability is not by sending politely ward emails to the city council members which that's fine if we should we should do everything that we can to communicate our message to them but  to get what we want just by asking politely we have to demand our right and we are to build enough of a movement that that has this that that can have the power you know sort of sway the balance of power two words  working people to work small businesses that are reeling with the cost of rent and away from the landlord lobby away from the real estate industry away from wall street speculators who are increasingly investing in real estate in the united states and it's in seattle and away from amazon which is a behemoths in seattle so i think that unless we talk about affordability in housing in association with the movement with the resistance that will need to be  build we were not going to get that kind of affordability the writing is on the wall with little policy tweaking here and there we're not going to change what seattle is becoming which is a playground for the wealthy so i would urge your listeners let's think seriously about it for a moment think about what kind of vision do you have for seattle in the next ten years if your vision which i would which i would wager is the majority vision of seattle in the vision of the majority people which is a city that actually is affordable for everybody and that homelessness is eliminated and transit is expanded and traffic snarls are eliminated if that's your vision for the city then we're going to have to fight for it because right now that is not the way things are going and you will hear many politicians including council member burgess and others say that while this is a supply question we don't have enough housing well let me speak for a moment as a ph d economist yes we need more housing but that is not the barrier here the barrier is the affordability of units so how does it help to increase the supply of housing if the majority of the new housing units in the form of apartments are condos are increasingly out of reach for ordinary working people and so wealthier people move in and ordinary working people get pushed out that is not solving the problem even though supplies going up that is actually allowing seattle to become a playground for the wealthy so i would urge people to get away from such would weaken our mix and just look at reality you don't need to be an economist to recognize that simply increasing supply does not solve the problem we need dramatic shifts in policies that are specifically units should become affordable that is ray far from what the mayor's committee has recommended and what the city council's majority is willing to fight for like three to five percent you know look at look at the look at the divergence between those two numbers so we need a big proportion of the new units to become affordable so just from an economic standpoint unless that happens the cities are going to become affordable but we need more than that we also need rents to be brought into reality from the star stratosphere so we need rent control and economics shows that rent control works again i'm speaking as an economist but how are we going to get all this i mean just take rent control as an example the state legislature the only way to will change is if we build a mass movement of renters in seattle that continues to demand rent control and already in the last three years there's a sea change from many people having swallowed the mets  dangers of uncontrolled to understanding that actually this could work in fact if you remember michael in two thousand fifteen nicholas got a former council member and i did a debate on gun control against a man while our republican senator from ellen and roger valds who was a lobbyist for the real estate industry and it was an important even we need more political politicized events like that where we clarify the facts on rent control and empower ordinary people whether they're homeowners or renter's if you have a vision for social justice in seattle then we should join the movement for and control and it's very important this year because john grant who's running for city council seat number eight and which is a citywide race and the key to all of our who's just launched a campaign against me our money they're both going to be fighting for and control as part of their campaign program our policies and what's important also is that both these candidates are pledging to run as independent of the democratic establishment and are pledging to not take a penny of corporate cash just like i did and we have shown that it is possible to run campaigns on that basis and win and also get into office and w policy successes but only on the basis that we use our office as an amplified ways to build social movements as we have done in my office so that that message is essential and urge people to check out these two campaigns and join the movement for rent control involved in that at all or watching from the side or what yes my office is very much a part of the coalition that is fighting to tax the rich and not only that my organization socialist alternative is that's the rich was one of the most important slogans of our campaign so we're very serious about using common sense policies to address the inequality but with the that these policies are not going to get in acted simply because they make sense you're not going to win these things just because you're making a rational economic argument anymore than we won fifteen for that reason we won fifteen yes winning fifteen had lots of rational arguments on its side but that's not how we won and we wanted by building a struggle against big business and against the corporate politicians that is what we're going to have to do here as well and so the coalition which is composed of many truly grassroots organizations like transit riders union like the neighborhood actions councils that god formed after trump got elected the association itself the educators are part of it and many other unions are part of it as well and community organizations the labor movement and my office we are all in solidarity with one another that we need to accelerate and you know i find that when i talk to working people young people on university campuses in my neighborhood era i talk to people at the grocery store all the time i have never heard anybody question like oh my god that's an absurd idea you talk about tax the rich people's responses yes absolutely please do in fact even many  well off people will say yes i agree with this and i know i probably be among those who will get taxed but i think that's the correct thing to do so we have a real mandate from the majority of the boarders and the public in seattle intend to do a down in every district downhaul in my district will be happening soon and i'm you know i'm going to be spearheading that in solidarity with the coalition in the month of may and as a matter of fact one of our messages on a summer of resistance but how do you you know how do you build that summer of resistance it can be in the abstract right to be able to fight for concrete demands and so in seattle i would urge everybody not only to come out on may first but also join our message that one of our they're against trump and i completely agree with them we want seattle's politicians to be anti trump and i billionaire class and accountable to not just immigrants but all working people all voters but it's not enough to just make try to act extortionately like you know the message from jeff sessions that all well we'll be cutting funding to sanctuary cities although i don't think it's legally or technically straightforward for them to do that but the point is that even if they were to do that what is our what is our solution to that we can't solve the problem that is faced by our city and by our country by right off right when the problem of right wing policies by going on the defense i mean political strategy i'm an organizer i know that an experience that the way to fight to keep the gains we have won in the past is actually to not just be defensive we have to we have to wage a defensive struggle and i would urge everybody to take seriously office of approach meaning not just say what we want to say what we have but actually say you know what we're going to fight for something more we're going to fight to make seattle affordable we're going to carry out a campaign of policies that makes seattle affordable for everyone and like the wells fargo divestment like the fifteen dollar fight you know it has the potential to go nationwide and i would say that if we succeed in taxing the rich in seattle i have no question in my mind that it will resonate with activists around the country which is why i think we're probably all expecting a major and infusion of money against such a campaign from outside the state outside the city talking with sharma swatches seattle city council member and member of socialist alternative alternative democratic socialism or go and other groups and we're hoping that people will join us for a really exciting discussion we have to panel discussions very important discussions and the first discussion is going to be how do you make seattle the center of resistance against and i will be speaking nicole grant the leader of the labor movement will be speaking john grant will be speaking the key to all of our will be speaking and other union representatives will be speaking and socialist students will be speaking so i think it's going to be an exciting even not just we're not just going to have rhetoric but you know concrete actions a proposal to make all it's going to talk about why may first is important and a big participant in our actions and you deb is going to be u a w the union that represents a graduate student workers who are also taking a strike vote to go on strike on may first and they're there in an inspiring example i would urge people to join them on may first well that we are unfortunately out of time on i think you very much for coming is spending time with us again thank you so much f