(film reel clattering) - Welcome to today's Ethnic Media Services Zoom news conference.

I'm Pilar Marrero, associate editor for Ethnic Media Services.

[light background music] The bloody conflict now underway in Israel and Gaza is escalating fast.

Many fear it threatens a broader regional war with troubling and unknowable ramifications.

(sneezes) Meanwhile, social media is inundated with horrific images of the ongoing violence.

Some of it designed to inflame anger and to cast blame on one side or the other, but the horror is there.

According to experts, more Israelis died during Hamas' initial assault than on any previous day in Israel's history, including all of its wars, dozens, some say up to 150 Israelis, are believed to be held hostage by Hamas militants.

On the other side, the destruction currently being inflicted on Gaza and its civilian population is increasing by the hour with talk of a ground invasion imminent, and with few places of refuge for Palestinian civilians who are now under a state of siege with no water, electricity, food, or fuel, and one million are being [background music fades] told to move from their homes, if they haven't yet.

All of this comes as acts of hate and bigotry targeting Jews and Muslims have reached record highs in recent years, particularly here in the U.S. where anti-Semitic and Islamophobic rhetoric have become almost mainstream, according to experts.

Our panel will discuss the roots of the current conflict in Israel, what it portends for communities here in the U.S. already confronting the impacts of hate, and whether the violence in the Middle East could ultimately deepen fault lines between and among communities here.

To talk about this, we have today Jamal Dajani, Palestinian American journalist and an award-winning producer, co-founder of Arab Talk Radio.

He served on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission between 2009 and 2011.

His interview was prerecorded by our editor Peter Schurmann, as Jamal is traveling to the region as we speak.

Then, we'll have Estee Chandler, organizer for Jewish Voice for Peace, Los Angeles Chapter.

And Fatin Jarara, she/her is a New York-based Palestinian community organizer, having organized with Al-Awda in New York, Palestine Return Coalition for 20 years.

And now, we will hear from our colleague Jamal Dajani.

He's a Palestinian American journalist and an award-winning producer, founder of Arab Talk Radio.

He also served on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission from 2009 to 2011.

- I haven't seen any reasonable voices trying to stop the conflict.

Unfortunately, the United States and this administration, they have given the green light to Israel to keep bombing Gaza.

There are some calls for negotiations and so forth, but I've spent the past, basically, 18 hours glued to the web and monitoring the media in the Middle East.

And, the onslaught is ongoing.

You know, entire neighborhoods have been leveled off and over-- You know, 300 children have been killed in Gaza.

Doctors have been targeted.

Seven?

I think six reporters, journalists have been killed.

So, this conflict could drag other players.

You know, the United States has moved its aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean off the coast of Gaza, which is unprecedented.

What's happening now is not happening in a vacuum.

Now, the death of civilian on both sides is abhorrent, and no one can, you know, say anything but condemn it.

However, I don't see this being put into context.

"Why is this happening today?"

And, why it keeps repeating itself.

So, when you say "we want revenge, we want revenge", well then, we're gonna go on for the next hundred years.

Because for the past 75 years, Palestinians have not seen any advancement in negotiations, or they have not realized any of their aspirations or hopes, and they're living under apartheid.

Before we used to say the word "apartheid", everybody used to get angry about that.

But now you have Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Israel's own human rights organization, B'Tselem.

They're all certifying Israel as an apartheid state.

So, if you have people living under apartheid, what do you expect them to do?

We've been seeing the rise of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism for many years.

This is not something new.

Of course, we live in the Bay Area, and so you don't have the cases that you'll see in other parts of the country.

And, of course, white supremacy.

I mean, we've witnessed that during the Trump administration, and white supremacists chanting in the streets: "Jews don't replace us", and so forth.

And they are, you know, white supremacists are opportunists.

And, that's my fear from white supremacists is that they'll take advantage of any international event, be it in the Ukraine, or now in between Russians and Ukrainians, or between Palestinians and Israelis to take advantage of this and ferment their hatred, and anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

I mean, we're gonna see some incidents now.

You know, during demonstrations people are heated up, and one side supports Israel; the other side supports Palestine.

But if you look at statistically across the board, most of the hate crimes, anti-Semitism, attacks on mosques, attacks on synagogues, they're perpetrated by white supremacists.

And, when it comes to the Palestine issue and their aspiration for freedom and independence, Palestinians have a lot of Jewish supporters from Jewish Voice for Peace, who, you know, for many years they have been major critics of what's going on by Israel and its apartheid practices.

You have to distinguish; this is not a religious conflict.

It is not an ethnic conflict as it has been described by the media and others who would like to see it this way.

This is a territorial conflict.

It's a colonial conflict.

You know, if you have one ethnic groups, whether the Israelis are Jewish or they came from Afghanistan or China, wherever, Palestinians are going to see them as invaders.

When you are driven out of your home in 1948, you know, and just come and got kicked out and live in refugee camps, you're gonna see Israelis is as invaders.

This has nothing to do with religion.

There are extremists' view, and I've named some of those who try to take advantage of religion and say this is about religion.

It's not.

- I now welcome Estee Chandler, organizer for Jewish Voice for Peace, Los Angeles chapter.

Thank you for being with us in this difficult moment.

We understand your group supports peace activists in both Israel and also in the territories and among Palestinians.

Can you please talk to us about how you see this conflict affecting your work here in the U.S. and the relationships between groups?

- I think it's very important to put the context to what we are seeing coming on the ground, which we're not seeing in the mainstream media Gaza has been under near 16 years of Israeli military blockade.

Much of the media is reporting that Israel left Gaza; that's just not true.

They just moved their defenses to the perimeter.

So, Palestinians there have been living under siege for almost 16 years now.

The Israeli government might have just declared war on Gaza, but in reality, its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago with Israeli occupation and a systemic apartheid that has been acknowledged by all major human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch.

And even Israel's leading human rights organization, B'Tselem, two or three years ago now released a report titled "This Is Apartheid."

I think it's also important to understand that for the past year, the most racist fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions, a rise in home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation, and repeatedly storming the holiest Muslim sites in Jerusalem.

I say this because the mainstream media isn't reporting on these incidences.

So, of course, what we're seeing now, it doesn't come out of a vacuum, and reality is shaped by when you start the clock.

Unfortunately, what we are seeing now is another "mass expulsion", another "Nakba", where half of the society of the 2.2 or 2.3 million people in Gaza have been asked to leave their homes from the entire northern half of Gaza, or because Israel says that they are going to bomb you.

They've given over a million people less than 24 hours, or 24 hours to try to move amidst all the bombing and rubble, and roads that have already been destroyed.

So, right now we're terrified that what we are about to witness is a genocide, and I do not use that word lightly.

But, when you're talking about half of the population of Gaza being driven from their homes, that is the word for it.

We're already seeing the effects of this right here locally on the UCLA campus.

We're seeing that student groups are being-- people from Students for Justice in Palestine are being doxed on social media.

They're being-- you know, their ability to organize for years has been suppressed.

Not being able to secure spaces to do teach-ins.

You know, this happens not-- you know, this isn't something that we see locally here in Southern California, but we see it on college campuses across the United States.

And, you know, there-- like other speakers have said, there is much misinformation in the media that drives this.

And so, students and activists are made unsafe.

I am someone who has been threatened myself.

So, it is vitally important that media entities, like many of the people here, give voice to actual facts and to give the stages you have to Palestinians to tell their experience and their story.

Because what we hear here locally in Southern California is there are constant attempts to... to suppress speech by Palestinians, education about the history of Palestinians and of the, you know, Israel's original colonization, military occupation, and imposition of apartheid upon Palestinians, in Palestine.

- Thank you.

Thank you so much for your words.

Let's see.

I wanna invite Fatin Jarara.

She's a New York-based Palestinian community organizer.

Thank you for being with us today.

And, can you tell us how you see the impact of the conflicts on Palestinians anywhere in the world, particularly when we tend to see an increase in hate after events like this happen?

Welcome.

- Hi.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Fatin Jarara.

I have some remarks in regards to some things that were said, but I'll also address the question.

I think it's all related.

I think that it's really important to remember the framing of everything that we say.

And, I think that even this panel right now, the framing that it's using the Israel versus Hamas conflict is problematic to me.

Because, this implies that this is an issue between a whole nation of people and a militant group when it's not just that.

This is an issue of occupation that is imposed on an indigenous people.

I think it goes without saying that, or maybe it has to be said because unfortunately we've seen that the Anti-Defamation League has been a source for a lot of people to do DEIJ work, diversity, equity, inclusion and justice work or any kind of affiliated work.

I've seen it in my own workplaces sometimes where I've worked that, you know, the definitions that they use about racism and anti-Semitism and whatnot are the definitions that a lot of people like to apply because they seem to be some kind of authority about those things.

However, as Estee Chandler mentioned that this organization is indeed Zionist.

This organization not only is anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian, it's also been, you know, recorded as anti-Black and anti-queer.

And, I'm not gonna go into, you know, you can find the research.

If you are all journalists, you can go ahead and find the research there, but it is there.

So, that is number one.

Number two, the definition of anti-Semitism as adopted by the ADL and whatnot.

There is actually a push for institutions and governments in the United States and Europe to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism that has been pushed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

And, this is all related to the point about what is happening against Palestinians locally and then against Muslims, because I feel like Arabs and Muslims as well are adjacent to the community of Palestinians, right?

The definition that the IHRA, the International Holocaust Members Alliance, wants people to adopt about anti-Semitism includes that any criticism of the state of Israel.

So, I-- if I wanna-?

You know, maybe I live in a place and my local government adopts this definition, and I cannot say that I don't support Israel, or I cannot say that, you know, that Israel commits war crimes, which is-- it does according to the international community on a regular basis.

That would be an offense, right?

Like, a criminal offense if I were to do that.

So, that is something that I think that we wanna keep in mind because there's a lot of conflation when it comes to anti-Semitism, which is something that we have to consider, right?

So, that's one thing.

The other thing is, I mean, I was listening to-- and to be honest, like, we are very occupied right now, obviously, you know?

I studied linguistics and I understand how deep this kind of rhetoric goes.

So, when you are out there talking about these things, it's really important to understand that manipulation of language, whether you intend for it to be manipulation or not, language is really important.

And, for me as a Palestinian, it's not my fault that the Israeli government insists on identifying as a Jewish nation, okay?

I didn't choose the oppressor.

I didn't choose the religion of the oppressor.

I didn't choose the identity of the oppressor.

The conflation of this identity Israeli, Jewish, and Zionist is not my fault.

Okay?

It is not the fault of my allies, either.

It's not the fault of Muslims, and it's not the fault of Arabs and anyone who is adjacent to the Palestinian community.

In fact, we all know because we wanna bring it up.

When we talk about whether or not the, you know, the Jewish people have a right to the land, a claim to the land, they will always say, "well, "the only Palestinians really were the Jews that were living there."

So, they will identify Palestinians as Jews and only Jews, but they will not talk about any other Palestinians.

Now I wanna talk about, like, what has been happening on the ground on my way here, trying to look for parking.

I found those vehicles, you know, the vehicles that have those screens?

Like, you know, where they're there for advertisements and whatnot.

And, what I saw was the faces of Israeli children and their names, and I think their ages.

And it says "kidnapped, kidnapped, kidnapped."

And, I mean, I could tell that this was what it was about because I, you know, I'm familiar with the situation.

Yesterday at Barclays Center- it's a big venue for concerts and basketball and whatnot.

There were people that were, you know, giving out "I stand with Israel", "New York stands with Israel" flyers.

And, the push for the support is really high.

But as Palestinians, we actually have, footage after footage- I grew up on that footage my entire life- of Palestinian kids and Palestinian mothers and Palestinian fathers.

We have plenty of evidence.

Plenty.

And, "we have to dehumanize those people "that were killed "just to convince the rest of the world that our people are oppressed."

And, they're under a brutal occupation and a brutal colonization that doesn't just passively occupy, doesn't just passively, you know, keep people in the confines of the Gaza Strip and just have military checkpoints.

And, it's like, "Oh.

You know?

They don't like us, but, you know, we're so nice to them.

"We're the only democracy in the Middle East "and have more rights than they would've under their own "governments if they were, you know?

"We have to hold up dead babies "with brains splattered to convince the world that this is happening to us."

Yet Biden cannot even-- doesn't have to look at a photo of a decapitated baby for him to just parrot those lies.

Okay?

And, that's how deep the manipulation goes in the context of the United States, that you really don't even have to do all the work that you do.

It is already done.

The United States has never been on the right side of justice when it comes to liberation movements.

You know, when it was Algeria and South Africa, Nelson Mandela was on the terror watch.

And the United States, I'm sure called him a terrorist before they started to, you know, celebrate him.

Indigenous people here.

I mean, this was happening on Indigenous Day, right?

They were not being, you know, called heroes or anything until they were already, you know, exterminated off of their lands.

And now, all that we can say to indigenous people on this land is "Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day."

You know, what had been happening here is that a lot of people have been very afraid to go to school.

For example, yesterday at Brooklyn College, a councilwoman went to the Palestine rally, showed up with a gun.

She does have a concealed carry weapon, because now that's a thing in New York City.

Okay?

She showed up and that apparently is a felony to show up with a-- even a licensed gun.

But she thought that she could go to intimidate those youth, the college students.

She was charged.

She was arrested and charged this morning.

And, I was actually surprised at how quickly that went down because, you know, white supremacists actually get away with a lot in this country.

So, first of all, we can't comment on every single person's actions.

And, in fact, when people from the pro-Israel rally side spit at us and hit us, okay, and call us things and threaten our lives, I don't go and say, "Wow.

Okay, those are individual incidents, but I keep them as such."

They do not reflect the Jewish people.

They do not reflect even the Israeli people.

Okay?

They reflect Zionism to me, and they reflect white supremacy to me.

And, they often incite violence against our protestors.

And so, that is something that I need you all to keep in mind.

And, we don't condemn-- we don't condone having a swastika at our rally.

- Thank you, Fatin.

Each of you, please tell us what you would like this ethnic media to take away from this.

Just one minute or a minute and a half each, at the most.

Thank you 'cause we are over time.

- Yes.

I wanna echo what Fatin said, that it's not enough just to say yes on both sides.

It is imperative that we center Palestinian voices on their experience, go to organizations like IMEU that does that, and that if only our media would speak as clearly about the violence towards Palestinians that happens every single day that we wake up and see about settler violence.

And, you don't hear it being called terrorism.

In fact, that's what it is.

We have to, we have to start seeing every human life as equal in value.

- Thank you.

Fatin?

- Yes.

Thank you for having me.

And, yes, thank you for saying my name correctly.

I think that it's important to recognize that for us as Palestinian, we do see all lives of worthy of living a dignified life.

Before the creation of the state of Israel, right?

We did harbor refugees from World War II.

There were Palestinian Jews just like there were Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims.

And, they continue to live.

And what happened, which is the Nakba, as you all know, is something that Palestinians have been trying to resist in all forms.

In all forms.

It's not that I wanna see violence.

It's not that I wanna see people, you know, losing their lives.

But, I wanna see my people live a dignified life.

I wanna see my people liberated, and I would've backed the people who were fighting for their lives in the Holocaust, if they had to employ any form of resistance against something that was terrible that was happening to them, against the extermination of those people, whether it was Jews or anybody else.

And again, like I said, it is not my fault that my occupier and my colonizer [background music] and my oppressor happens to be Jewish.

That is something that I think that a lot of people need to understand; that we would have that stance.

Hamas would say whatever it wants, and Hamas actually makes a distinction.

I put the link because you were-- you have been employing the chat.

I put the link of the charter that it makes a distinction.

It's not us that conflates Zionism with Judaism.

It's the Zionist state.

It's the Zionist state that insists that this is an identity that is equal.

And, I guess, you know, it makes sense.

When you are Jewish, you can just become an Israeli citizen if that's what you want to do.

And, that confuses everybody else.

So, for me to say that I, you know, don't support Zionism and I support resistance against this very racist ideology that is super white supremacist to me, I'm not saying anything against Jewish people because there's a lot of Jewish people, I would say, like Estee and others who support my plight to just simply live free.

- Thank you to all our colleagues to have covered this, and thank you, everyone.

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