Now I've been happy lately thinking about the good things
to come. And I believe it could be
something good has begun for a while.
Been smiling lately, dreaming about the world of 1.
And I believe it could be someday.
It's going to come without all the air to dawn their eyes of
Peace Train or Peace Train take this.
Country come Take Me Home again. God been smiling lately thinking
about the good things to come and I believe it could be
something good has begun or Peace train sounding louder than
light on. The peace train.
Woo, woo, come on the peace train.
And then, of course, that's the great Cat Stevens singing Peace
Train song I grew up with as a teenager.
Now it, I don't know how the song, how it feels, what it
means to those of you. Some of you maybe are hearing it
for the first time. This is Michael Moore, by the
way. You're listening to Rumble with
Michael Moore and a few days ago part one we were at a a big
demonstration at Grand Central Station in New York City where
1000 plus Jewish Americans essentially took over this huge
iconic train station during rush hour last Friday night to insist
that. President Biden pushed for a
ceasefire. Did all the killing stop on both
sides and that we figure this out?
Jewish Voice for Peace organized this thing.
About 3 to 400 of them sat down on the floor in the middle of
this massive train station to non violently peacefully protest
the killing of any Palestinians as revenge for what Hamas did.
And it's. Horrific butchering of human
beings there on October 7th in Israel.
The New York Police came in and put the zip ties on 3 or 400,
mostly Jews and their allies. A lot of people willing to risk
being arrested and maybe taken away.
And nobody wants to stay in a New York City jail over the
weekend. But thank you for all the
response from all of you who wrote to me about the comments
that were made, the the different things that these
Jewish activists were saying to try and stop this madness and to
protect the people of Palestine and the children of Palestine.
A lot of great comments from all of you.
It's so heartening and very little hate mail from people.
So it's very powerful that I promised you at the end of that
Part 2 would happen and here it is.
Part 2 of this episode called War No More of my podcast here
and the next day what happened is my team Basil Hamden, the
original executive producer and Co founder of this endeavor, and
Angie Vargos who is the current executive producer and editor of
this and they the next day this would be this past Saturday went
out to Brooklyn. Where another mass demonstration
had been called, this time led by Palestinian Americans.
It started out at the Brooklyn Museum and they marched across
the the borough Brooklyn to the Barclays Center.
The big arena where the Brooklyn Nets and the the New York
Liberty WNBA teams play and also lots of concerts and things
there. And then from the Barclays
Center, they they picked up more people who were rallying there
and then. They walked over to the Brooklyn
Bridge and they decided to cross the bridge, which I don't know
if the police were ready for that, but it basically shut down
the bridge for hours on a Saturday night.
But they're very, very few arrests.
Everybody was peaceful, but everybody was insistent that the
slaughter stop, and they went across the Brooklyn Bridge and
ended up in Lower Manhattan and finally at Union Square and
again, Basil and Angie. Did some incredible interviews
and basically did what I What I'm going to do again here is to
turn the microphone over to not just Palestinians this time who
had so many important things to say, but also their allies.
What was striking about this demonstration, which was
probably three times as large as the one led by the Jewish groups
at Grand Central? It's also probably the largest
pro Palestinian demonstration in New York City for since I don't
know, forever. And while the demonstrations
that are going on, I mean you have the people that support
Benjamin Netanyahu and and support what Israel is doing
right now. They've had their also their
protests. But these protests, the pro
peace protests again are twice, three times as large as the
others. And this one on Saturday was.
Probably four or five times as large as anything I've seen
that's out there supporting Netanyahu and his gang of fellow
indictees who've been indicted in Israel before this event
happened and are up for trial for their breaking the law there
in Israel. And of course, the other thing
that they've been doing is trying to destroy their own
Supreme Court, so that. They could get away with what
they want to get away with in their government, the very right
wing government, a very autocratic pro.
I would call it fascist in in a sense that that they don't
really believe in. I think what a lot of people in
Israel and and have believed in the past in terms of trying to
form a democracy and of course it's been a somewhat failed
attempt over these 75 years because they can't quite figure
out how to have a. How to be a democracy and a
theocracy, to call something a Jewish state when it's a
democracy, which means everybody who lives there as an equal say,
that's been the difficult act of pull off.
And so, like in America, you have a 2 tier, 3 tier system of
those who are the ones who really get to be in charge and
have full rights, and the others who have lesser rights and are
struggling to be recognized and to be seen as equal human
beings. By those in charge.
So nothing we don't know anything about.
As Americans, you know, we remember often times the OG of
whether it's the genocide that we did to the native peoples
here in this country, to building our country with
enslaved human beings, kidnapped.
Talk about kidnapping hostages. I mean, I don't.
I don't know what the numbers are for how many hundreds of
thousands or millions. Of Africans that were kidnapped
by white people that were quote founding this country of ours,
but they built it with these kidnapped human beings that they
tortured, that they put in chains, that they lynched,
raped, brutal torture. And that's the story they don't
want to tell our children in school anymore as they try to
prohibit history being taught anyway.
So this Palestinian LED demonstration, Palestinian
Americans, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans.
On Saturday. But once Basil and Angie arrived
there, they could see how broad the scope and the diversity was
of the people who showed up to support the people of Gaza.
And it was not just the Arabs and Palestinians.
It was all groups, all ethnicities.
It had the sense of Basil, who's, you know, his his parents
are ones from Palestine, the others from Syria.
He said to me, he said, I've never, all these years here,
I've never seen so many different groups of people show
up to support us, to recognize us.
In that sense, you have, if you have ever, you know, if you
belong to a certain ethnic group in this country over the years
and how many years your parents or grandparents try to just get
by. But being not seen, Being
invisible, almost, and not really getting to participate in
the American Dream in the way that, say, others have have.
We've been able to do that. And on Saturday, he and others
who grew up here grew up in New York City.
And in the areas around New York City, here were all these other
people. Here were white people showing
up to support them and to support their relatives in Gaza.
And also the you'll hear from when you hear these voices in a
minute, how the majority really of the crowd, of the marchers,
of the protesters. Were women.
This was like a female majority demonstration.
It was uplifting. And you're about to hear from
them and listen, let me tell you, they're going to, some of
them are going to say things that are going to be hard to
hear. I just asked that that if
obviously if you're not of them and you haven't lived their
lives, please listen. Please listen even to the stuff
where you might disagree with it or you don't feel good about it
or whatever. But if we don't listen to all of
us, don't listen to each other, we're not going to make it.
You're going to hear from some of the the marchers, their
feelings about Joe Biden, and it will crush some of you.
And you're going to say, Mike, why are you running this?
Why are you writing these voices?
This is not what we need to hear right now.
We don't need Trump to come back.
We can't have Trump come back. We have to stop Trump.
And they're just asking at what expense?
And they're kind of asking us to not say at any expense because
you you can't have somebody in the Oval Office that suddenly is
not acting on the values that we thought he had or that we
believe that he had. And I'm not saying I agree with
it. I don't know if I will go this
far but. But I thought I left it in here
because I want you to hear it. I want you to hear what young
people are thinking. We can't lose a single vote here
if you really want to stop Trump from coming back.
And it's a little scary to hear how depressed, how full of
despair, they feel right now regarding him and the things
that he's, he said. I don't know if you saw this in
the news this week, but he mentioned how he'd seen the
photographs of the beheaded babies.
And then his his White House made him walk that back the next
day because, well, because he he didn't.
And yet he added to the He contributed to this sort of this
utter crazed feeling everybody has right now because of the
horror of October 7th. You know you understand it, but
now you don't know what is being said and who's doing what and.
I want you to listen to this, my friends, and I'm talking really
to people of my generation, boomers, Gen.
Xers, and we got to figure this out, 'cause there's bigger fish
here that we're dealing with and we got to do the right thing.
So I'll turn it over to Basil and Angie, and I'll talk to you
in a few minutes after you hear from some of these incredible
young people, mostly women, frankly, our failure to listen
to them. Is at our own peril.
Here we go after last night going to Grand
Central Station, where Jewish Voice for Peace organized more
than 1000, Not just Jewish New Yorkers, but Jewish New Yorkers
and many allies to fight for a ceasefire in Palestine and in
Gaza. This is Basil Hampton here with
Angie Vargos and we're in Brooklyn, NY.
It is a Palestinian American organized protest calling for
ceasefire in Gaza and freedom for Palestinians, and calling
for an end of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine and in
Gaza. We're at the Brooklyn Museum
right now where everyone is congregating, and it looks like
pretty soon the crowd is going to head over to the Barclays
Center and then later to the Brooklyn Bridge.
So we're going to walk around, talk to some folks here why
they've decided to come today. My name is Leanne.
I'm from Palestine, born and raised in New York.
Where in Palestine is your family from?
My family is from Britannia. That's near, near Jerusalem,
correct? Yes, in the West Bank, how is
your family back home doing right now?
Not good. I the family that I have back
home, most of us are here. There is a couple people still
there. And they're definitely not doing
good. There's been a lot of pressure
trying to get people fired, trying to get people canceled.
I. Actually almost got fired from
my job for wearing this hat right here that says what it
says Free palace. Time.
And I was wearing it every single day for months, and they
tried to fire me for wearing this hat when I came in last
week and I made a very big deal about it.
And I told him, this is not something political.
This is something for human rights, for general human rights
for everybody, not just us. I hope you've been able to keep
your job. Oh, of.
Course, yeah. I talked to them and my boss.
Both my bosses are very nice and they understand the issue.
We have somebody at my job that is from Israel and their family
lives there. So they did complain about my
hat, but of course I stood up because this is for general
human rights. A lot of people have turned out
today, not just Palestinians, not just Arabs, but this is a
very big crowd. It's a very diverse crowd.
How does it feel to be in a crowd like this today?
It feels amazing We have all types of people here because
this is the root of all oppression.
And if everybody stands up for this oppression, then we'll all
be safe. But if we don't fight this
oppression, then the whole world is in danger of being oppressed.
So if the whole world doesn't stand up for this, then we will
have no peace. Can you tell me what your
science says? Yeah, it says from Bodhiken to
Palestine and the Occupation. I organized with Brooklyn
Bodhikwa Resistance and we have a contingent here of over 40
people supporting Palestine in solidarity.
Because all of our struggles are interconnected, from Puerto
Rico, where the US has colonized us for over 100 years, to
Palestine, where they've been living under an occupation for
75 years. We have to be in solidarity,
because we're not free till we're all free.
Should I read the statement here?
From China to the US, empires must die.
From Xinjiang to Palestine. Yeah, Price must be free.
And why are you here today? I'm here because I support the
Palestinian cause. I've been to West Bank, been to
the border of Gaza, and I've seen what the occupation looks
like. And it's brutal.
And I think as a human being, this is what I should support.
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Yeah. And I'm Chinese.
There's a lot of human rights abused back home as well.
So I relate to what Palestinians are going through right now.
So I was born in Korea, which is a historically imperialized
country. That was also influenced by US
imperial rule. It's divided Korea and we just
want unity in Korea and a free Palestine.
And those two liberation are intertwined along with the
liberation of all people under oppressive systems.
And would you mind reading your sign for me?
Sure, there is a reason that the NAFA and the division of Korea
coincided in 1948 backed by the same imperialist interests.
Ceasefire What do we want? Ceasefire What do we want?
What do we want? Ceasefire What do we want?
What? Do we want?
What do we want? My name is Naomi Brussel, born
in New Jersey. I live in Brooklyn.
What brings you here today? It's the only time that I don't
feel miserable. Is when I'm with other people
who are protesting about this horrible process that's going on
of of thousands of people being murdered by the Israeli military
with our money, with the support of all of the Western nations to
commit a genocide. It's it's it's horrific.
I don't know if you read the media about this rally and other
pro Palestinians. What I have seen them say is
that the Hamas attack on. The Israelis was horrific, and
it was horrific. And then they don't really say
why this type of an attack took place.
They don't say what the actual roots of this problem are, and
they don't really focus on what's happening to Palestinian
people. They're just not doing it.
Once in a while you might see, Oh yeah, a lot of people,
they're mourning because their children and and mothers and
fathers and grandfathers have been killed and their houses
have been crashed down on top of them.
And also there's people buried in the rubble whose bodies you
can't even get to. I mean, that's what they don't
talk about. And the normal, you know,
mainstream, so to speak, the media.
And that's, that's in the end, as you would say, it's a shunda.
It's disgusting. It's a shame.
It's shameful on those. So-called journalists that are
not really talking about the truth, you just use the phrase
ashandar. So are you a Jewish American?
I am a Jew. Yes, they say.
This is a a pro Hamas rally, a pro terrorist rally.
I mean the. Well, because they're not
distinguishing between Hamas and the Palestinian people.
They're not talking about how Hamas actually developed as a
force. They're not talking about the
actual history of what's gone on there for the last 100 years.
They're not talking about it. Hopefully, Michael Morris, but
you know this. This is a a disaster, a
catastrophe, another knock up for the Palestinian people.
They've suffered too much. They're suffering now.
It has to stop. So it's on us as people who live
in the United States, who live in the belly of the beast, to
demand. We demand an end to the ongoing
genocide of the Palestinian people, funded by U.S. tax
dollars. It's not just like they're
writing checks. They are sending warships,
warships full of missiles, hundreds of missiles
manufactured by U.S. companies who stocks went up, companies
like way beyond. Companies like helping systems
like General Dynamics War profiteers.
These war profiteer stocks went up.
They are pocketing blood money. the US is benefiting from this
genocide one way or another. How many?
Kids, did you kill today? How many kids did you kill?
Today it says Protect Gaza, USA, stop bankrolling genocide and
what? What brings you here today?
Oh, I want my tax dollars to stop funding genocide in Gaza
and Palestine. We're really upset about the
genocide in Gaza, and we'd like to see Palestine to be free.
And who are you here with today? I'm here with my boyfriend and
my son, he just turned one. He's been to a lot of Palestine
rallies in the last couple weeks and we hope he won't have to go
to too many more before the. Ceasefire.
Just it's it's terrifying seeing all the major institutions in
our country line up for genocide and support it.
It's really horrifying. The Kuni administration has been
demonizing students speaking up in in defense of Palestine and
Palestinian life. But we are here to show that
Kuni stands with Palestine and people all over the world stand
with Palestine right now. I'm Hosnia and I'm from Bosnia.
What brings you here today? Basically we're all here sitting
behind our phones, seeing what's going on in Palestine and the
most we could do is protest and donate and pray and so I'm
really trying my best to make some type of change.
As a Bosnian, is there a reason why this issue is important to
you? Yeah.
Yeah, very big reason. During the last war in Bosnia,
there was a Bosnian genocide over 8000 people were murdered
just because of their religion, just because they're being
Muslim. And the people who also murdered
them were trained by Israeli IDF soldiers.
You mentioned you've been following the news closely on
your phone for the past couple of weeks.
How hard has that been? Terrible.
I can't. I've actually had midterms the
past week and it's been really tough to just sit down and focus
when this is happening in the world right now and nobody is
doing anything. You know what I mean?
You want to add in of. Course, of course.
Can we just get your first name, Zana?
Thank you. As a CUNY college student,
thousands of students have gotten the same e-mail from the
chancellor of the New York State.
And they showed like their their remorse and everything for
Israelis. And as a Muslim, I'm going to
get a motion. They really just don't focus on
the mental health of Muslims. They haven't spoke anything
about the past 75 years that Palestinians have been going
through. And I just think it's very
inconsiderate just to focus on one one mental health group
rather than all their students, you know?
I talked to some teachers that were from CUNY here today that
were also protesting and they said that the administration was
pushing back on students that would support Palestine.
Did you find that? I did.
And I also noticed that a lot of college students have been
either getting expelled, suspended just for simply
showing up to protest. A day before this war broke out,
I was writing my essay about Al Aqsa Mosque, which is in
Jerusalem, which the next day got attacked.
Muslims are not even allowed to step foot in there without
putting a gun to their head. And I was honestly worried about
even writing my essay, just knowing that the fact that me
speaking my voice could basically decide if I can even
continue my education or not. But that's exactly what they
want us to do. They want us to stay quiet.
They want us to not speak out. They already started shadow
banning everybody's Instagram stories.
The amount of stories of mine that got deleted for for nudity
and for, yeah, which has absolutely nothing, has nothing
to do with anything that we've been posting.
They're just trying to silence everybody.
I think it's disgusting, honestly.
It's a it's a political tactic because when you make the other
side seem less than you make them seem like animals, like
terrorists, then nobody has any humanity left for them.
And then it creates US versus them.
And that's just an horrific situation because it forces
people to choose sides when in fact we should be choosing human
life. Can I ask how old you guys are?
I'm 1819. Despite all of the fear that
there is in in speaking out, in the pressure.
You guys still showed up today, so that says something about how
much this means to you. And in part of my belief system
is that if you see something wrong and you don't stand up and
fight, you're worse than the oppressors.
Silence is violence. There's people.
There's two types of people in the world.
There's somebody sees something wrong and they go with the flow.
They're scared of getting attacked or or judged or
anything. They're the oppressors as well.
But if you stand up for what's right and we believe that, God
will reward us at the end of the day for standing up.
For what's right in our hearts. Anything else you guys want to
say? Free Palestine.
Palestine. Palestine.
Arabia.
Palestine, Arabia we just want to have justice.
We have no problem but we feel hurt when we see the children is
be killed by we have no idea what's going on in the world and
the problem has been heard. My mom she come she cannot work
2 minutes, but today she worked for 30 minutes.
And I'm so proud about her and I'm so happy about her.
And she crying all the way from from the top to the to the to
the to to down. There, we will not stop.
We will keep working. And I'm proud to have my mom
with me to be. Palestine, Arabia, Palestine,
Arabia, Palestine, Netanyahu funded Hamas.
And then he quotes whoever wants to thwart the establishment of a
Palestinian state needs to support the strengthening and
financing of Hamas, said by Netanyahu in 2019.
My son says settler colonies don't watch war against
indigenous peoples. They launch annihilation because
in all instances of occupation, specifically in the instance of
Israel occupying the lands of Palestine and Gaza to Jinan,
from the river to the sea, they are trying to annihilate the
land. They are not looking for a two
state solution, They are looking for a one state solution that
puts Israel at the forefront and demolishes the indigenous
peoples. So we are here today to make
sure that we save those people. I'm holding a sign with a
watermelon inside a blue cage, and it symbolizes the
Palestinian people in the siege in Gaza, the open air prison,
and what brings you here today supporting humanity.
And Palestinian people having the freedom here to show off for
posting. I think the crowd is important.
And also I've found protests as being like the one reprieve
amidst all of this. Just being able to March
alongside people, chant and shout and makes you feel like
you can do something instead of just watching.
It doesn't feel like the utmost of like I'm actually doing
something, but at least I can be alongside people.
And it has also just felt therapeutic internally.
Again, to just be able to shout and.
How have the last few weeks been feeling?
Just I guess, following the news, talking to friends about
what's happening? How has that been going?
Put into words how that's been feeling, dude, It's like little
deaths every day internally reflecting what is happening in
the world. Yeah, just like grieving and
mourning constantly. But how do you put that into
words? I I'm not able to, really.
So it it feels like an internal death every time I see any news.
And so again. So being alongside people who
are feeling the same way has felt really important.
A lot of the media coverage about this, it seems to have
just started on October 7th. They treat it like history
started on that day. So how challenging has it been
to follow the news since then? As an Arab, the dehumanization
feels very disappointing and very hurtful.
And I've I was too young during 2001 and 2003, but I've heard
that. It's that same level of like
Islamophobia and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims and
Palestinians specifically. But I can't say I'm surprised
journalists have a responsibility to accurately
question and critique superpowers.
And I am not surprised that the US media has failed to do that,
because it has always failed to do that, not even fact checking
their own guests who come on and lie.
Specifically, like Israeli officials, and we've heard the
most outrageous things being said and it's just not being
fact checked or corrected or anything.
You said you're too young to remember.
You know, O1O2O3I. Unfortunately, I'm I'm not too
young to remember that. There was no social media back
then. There was no YouTube, there was
no Instagram, There was no TikTok.
So it's like the mainstream media is just doing such an
awful job. But then you have to remember
that. Most people don't watch them
anymore or they don't have that much credibility.
So it's like, do any of your friends watch cable news or the
nightly news at 6:30? Or no.
But I I have family who does like my parents do.
My mom, who consumes all her media through cable news,
corporate news, was completely paralyzed out of terror and
heartbreak at the way that they were covering it.
And it's been like. For her really affirming for me
to give her news that she's not seeing on that television, to
show that there is a different narrative and that there is
pushback, you have world leaders who do care and who are like
speaking out for Palestine, people in the streets getting
arrested. I don't know if CNN reported on
the Jewish Voices for Peace protest last night, but like
everyone with an Instagram saw the videos.
And I think that's where people are getting almost their news.
And I think that's a good thing because it brings the news back
into the people in Palestine's hands, you know what I mean?
Like we're hearing directly from them on the ground.
The last few weeks have been so hard on on everyone, but all of
a sudden, you know, there are thousands of people here for the
last several hours. How does that feel to you?
It feels really amazing to see more and more people like out in
the streets than like previous protests and to see more and
more people being radicalized and gaining consciousness and
putting that consciousness and that education into action.
I think we're just getting started.
People are just starting to tune in like I think it's about to
grow exponentially and as the more that this administration
and the media lies to an educated public, the more they
make an out of themselves, the more that they lose credibility
and. We're shifting the time, you
know what I mean? It's going to happen.
Another guy. No more money for a reservation.
Not another time. No more money for Israel's.
Time What brings you here today? I mean doing the right thing,
like standing. Standing with people who deserve
to be still with. Standing with people who are not
being heard at all the way we supposed to, for each other.
Is this your crew here? Did you come with this group
here today? Yes.
My girlfriend. Some solidarity just just being
with your partner. That's.
Right. Really, the only thing that I I
would want to say is the sooner we realize that our struggles
are interconnected, whether it be the black struggle or, you
know what I'm saying, like the immigration struggle, the sooner
we realize that all of those things are interconnected and
that all of our oppressors are the same people with the same
agenda. People with white supremacy on
the mind and imperialism on the mind, the sooner we realize that
all of our oppressors are the same exact people, the sooner
we'll get free. Have you been active in protests
before today, before this? Yeah, definitely.
I mean, the moment that I think radicalized me was Mike Brown.
I was a teenager at that time. The interesting thing about.
Mike Brown and Ferguson was. It was at that time that
protesters in Palestine and protesters in Ferguson would
start communicating, commiserating, trading notes
about what it's like being tear gassed, about what it's like
being under oppression, about what it's like dealing with law
enforcement or or or military occupation.
So that seemed to be a big moment in black Palestinian.
Solidarity and and relation. So it's interesting that it's
still manifesting itself now. I mean, yeah, it has gone back
for a long time also, You know what I mean?
Like the Black Panther Party, they were in solidarity with
with the Palestinian people, Angela Davis in solidarity with
the Palestinian people. So many of our leaders stood
with Palestinian people. And I think if my community
looks deeply into that and looks deeply into Palestinian
struggle. Like we already said, like we'll
find a lot of commonalities and a lot to talk about and a lot to
figure out together. A lot of people in DC are
talking about, well, Joe Biden just lost a lot of support from
progressive Democrats, from young people, from people of
color. Have you voted for Democrats
before and are you still open to voting for, say, Biden in in
2024? I've only voted for Democrats.
I will not vote for Joe Biden no matter what he says, no matter
what he does. And this will sound crazy, but I
would turn this country over to Republicans before I vote for
Joe Biden. The thing about it is one of
them is a wolf. One of them is a wolf in sheep's
clothing and. I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope
that people can see it and we can find new options.
Because this, like he Joe Biden will never get my vote again.
And any politician, any president that doesn't stand
with Palestine, will also never get my vote.
I think I might be ready for a world where we do start getting
back on politicians backs at every wrong turn.
I think I'm kind of sick of people thinking, oh, we have a
Democratic president in office. I can trust that he's doing the
right thing. Like these past few weeks have
shown us our presidents are not really going to protect us.
Our presidents are our oppressors.
Biden is not listening to US. 66% of voters want a ceasefire
and he is not calling for a ceasefire and like I think 84%
of. Democrats want a ceasefire as
well. Like, he's not listening to
those people. He's not listening to the
majority of people. He is just enacting his own
agenda and every president will keep enacting their own agenda.
And I think we have to realize that we need to reform the
system completely to actually get any support from leadership.
And I think until then, like, we just have to fight on the ground
and do it ourselves. Can I ask you just one question
because you mentioned that Biden would never get your vote again.
Was there a moment that? That switch happened for you
that you remember. You might not, but is there?
What was? What was it?
I do remember it was the beheaded baby.
I saw the photos of the beheaded babies and as we know Israel has
provided 0 evidence for those beheaded babies.
He has continued to get on his podium and lie to us.
And like I said, he lies about things that we can see for our
self and like that we can Fact Check our self.
And I just can't trust somebody like that.
Uh, yeah. Is that the same for for you
guys too? Same moment?
Absolutely. Yeah.
Thank you. Anything else you want to say
before we wrap up? Anyone else want to talk?
I'm from Lebanon, from Beirut. This is my second year in the
US. My grandfather was from
Palestine and so I was never able to go back, neither was my
father. And so now it feels like really
amazing and historical to be able to do that and speak on
behalf of my parents and their parents.
How long have you been in the US?
Two years? Two years?
OK, so how being in a new country and and having all this
happen and having the media? Onslaught.
How does it feel to be an an American in America at a time
like this? It's really, you know,
dissociating. It's pretty crazy for something
as simple as the word Israel to be normalized in the sentence
here and then not being able to say anything about it.
And that was that's how it felt in my previous workplace, where
people casually mentioned celebrities that were supporting
Israel. My Co founder was proudly
Israeli and would. You know, mention it in the
workspace, asking me where I'm born and then letting me know
that he's Israeli and kind of like expecting an answer or some
kind of response from my end. So I feel like that's something
that was always that was never normalized for me.
So it's really, it was really terrifying to be in a space
where like you have no way to. I don't know, you have.
Yeah. Do you feel that you're able to
let them know, hey, I'm, I'm Lebanese, I'm Palestinian.
Are you able to equally? Tell your story.
Or are you been made to feel that you need to repress your
background or or or your heritage?
Definitely was made to feel repressed by.
I couldn't say anything about it, Especially at work, it was
always that fear that it would cause.
I don't know. I would fear for my job, for the
my security in the country. People wouldn't, wouldn't
understand, would directly classify me with something that
they don't understand as well. So I was definitely silenced.
A lot of times I would meet people who would.
Let me know that they were from Israel and then often times
would then ask me if we could be friends.
And it was really crazy. Because for me, it's like they
don't see that there's already a huge power dynamic and them
asking me if I'm comfortable being friends with them or
having a conversation with them. It just says so much about their
comfort in the situation versus how disturbing it can be for
anyone like me. I'm Palestinian and Syrian
myself and Muslim myself, so now we're even.
Ordinarily, we're already on the defensive about our background.
We have to let them know that we're the good guys, we're the
safe ones. You know, we're not the
terrorists or whatever. And now, after October 7th, you
have to doubly be on defense and let people know that no, I'm
I'm, I'm, I'm one of the good ones.
There's a there's a lot of that. But at at the same time, I feel
like I'm slowly with the support of people I'm slowly, I'm slowly
letting go of. That needs to justify anything
if they're going to. I feel like even if I justify as
much as I will and show them history and prove at the end of
the day I feel like we're always going to be portrayed as
barbaric or terrorists in their eyes.
So there's no point in like wasting my energy and proving my
innocence to them, you know, at the end of the day, I'm going to
continue to fight and resist. I don't think the battle is in
justifying our stance at this point, or our innocence.
Because, you know. We're just weakening our forces
that way and said we're going to keep fighting and if they choose
to open their eyes, that's when the change will happen, you
know. Last question.
This was a huge turn out today and it was very, very diverse.
I thought it was. I saw all the Palestinian groups
organizing it. I thought it would be
predominantly Arab, but it was extremely diverse.
What did it feel like to be in a crowd like this today?
I feel like it feels like I'm less afraid to walk out with a
Kafiya, you know, something as simple as that.
It is definitely nice to see people from all walks of life
and different backgrounds come in solidarity with Palestine,
something that we probably previously would not have seen.
It just creates A safer environment for us to exist
peacefully, slowly changing the status quo.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Appreciate it. Wow, there's a lot of food for
thought there is there. Thank you Angie and and Basil
and all of you who agreed to speak to me and here on my
podcast. Please share this with others.
Let these voices be heard. You will not hear them on most
of the mainstream media. They're not pundits.
They're not war pundits. They're not ex generals giving
you the way of the land there. These are young Americans.
And they care deeply about what's going on.
Thank you to all of you for that.
I also just before we close here, I want to thank the people
that sponsor today's episode of of Rumble.
One of them is an entity entitled Better Help.
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The holidays, of course, now are upon us, my friends.
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MORE Moore. Thank you for listening to these
two episodes, Part one and Part 2, War No more.
We're going to stay on this. I'm going to stay on it.
I'm going to be very active in doing whatever I can do with you
and with millions of others to bring peace here and to stop any
kind of slaughter. My condolences to all who
suffered in Israel and in Palestine, and especially this
last week. The slaughter, the rubble, the
bombs, the Rockets. The unbelievable carnage in Gaza
perpetrated by Netanyahu and his military wing.
Wow. And the fighting release the
hostages. Let's all learn to live with
each other and let's free the people that have been living in
an open air prison for the last 16 years.
Come on. Enough, really.
You know, doesn't anybody ever stop to think how we're going to
pay for this someday? What are we doing?
Trying to create a whole new generation of people that reach
a point where they feel like all they can do is to kill, do other
killings, do other. It's like, I do not want to live
in this world like this. And the fact is I'm not going
anywhere, so. That means I and you and all of
us have to participate. And I think if there's anything
you get out of this, if you've been feeling this great despair
over these last three or four weeks, one way to get out of
that despair is to act. Get up off the couch.
Get out of the house and participate.
Join a group, Join a protest. Make your voice heard.
Just get active and be with other people.
Don't do this alone. Don't sit there and think it's
just all hopeless now. It's all, and I'm helpless and I
everything I've done to work for the good of humanity in my life.
And it's like, what's the point? No, no, do not give into that.
Get out there. Be with other humans.
Call a friend or two. Get in the street.
Be peaceful, Be nonviolent. Offer your hand of love to a
person who might be surprised that you're offering that hand.
Let them know the world you want to live in.
You'll feel better at the very least.
Honest to God. You will feel better being with
others, other like minded people that want to see a better world.
OK, that's going to wrap it up for us here on Rumble with
Michael Moore. I will have more to say in the
coming days, both on this podcast but also my sub stack.
And you can sign up for my sub stack.
It's all free just like the podcast.
If you can support us financially, great.
Thank you all of you who do that many, many things, but you don't
have to do that. There's no pay wall here with my
writing or with the podcast, so please participate and read and
share. I greatly appreciate it and I
honor all of you who are out there.
Demonstrating and protesting for peace.
Writing your members of Congress and encouraging this president
to call for a ceasefire. Let's straighten this out.
No more killing. This is every night.
Every morning I wake up hundreds of more dead children.
For what? What did they do?
Stop it. Stop it.
The world knows that this is wrong.
The world was appalled at what happened on October 7th.
But this doesn't make it right and we know it and they know it.
So don't just sit back as that. One young woman said.
Silence is violence. I'm Michael Moore.
Thanks again to Basil Hampton, Angie Vargos for helping make
these last two episodes possible.
And I'll talk to you all very, very soon.
This is Michael Moore and this is Rumble.
Peace out. Now I've been crying lately,
thinking about the world as it is.
Why must we go to? Warm hating.
Why can't we? Live in bliss 'cause I'm on the.
Air, darkness their eyes of be strained for.
Peace can't hate this country.