Hello everyone and welcome back to People Juwan and O Podcast.

This is our last episode and the Goya will enjoy season.

I personally feel like it flew by and given what I saw on Instagram, it sounds like you really did enjoy the Goys.

So don't worry, I'll be sprinkling in some allies throughout our regular episodes going forward.

I decided to close this season off with a total legend and rock star, someone I have really wanted to speak speak to Ahmed Fouad Al Khatib.

Ahmed kind of needs no introduction in the activism space and I find him to be really well known and beloved, specifically in Jewish activism or Jinsta.

He's a Palestinian American humanitarian activist, and he also leads Realigned for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse and develops a new policy framework for rejuvenated pro Palestine advocacy.

Realigned for Palestine aims to cultivate a new generation of Palestinian voices committed to A2 nation solution, non violence, and radical pragmatism.

Ahmed also serves as a Resident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council's Middle East Programs, where he writes extensively on Gaza's political and Humanitarian Affairs.

He's an outspoken critic of Hamas and promotes A radically pragmatic approach to peace and Palestinian statehood as the only path forward between Palestinians and Israelis.

His writings and opinions have been published and featured across the US, Israeli, and international press, and his views are prominently featured across social media platforms.

He holds a bachelors degree in Business Administration and a Masters degree in Intelligence and National Security Studies.

He grew up in Gaza City and left Gaza in 2005 to attend College in the US as an exchange student.

Much of Ahmed's experience is influenced by having grown up in Gaza during the Oslo peace process and of course, during the difficulties resulting from Oslo's failure and the rise of Hamas and Islamism in Gaza.

Since October 7th massacre, Ahmed's life has been deeply impacted by the loss of 33 of his immediate and extended family members who were killed by three different Israeli airstrikes.

Still, he aims to play a part in breaking the cycle of dehumanization and defying the cycle of hatred, incitement, violence, and revenge.

I think it's easy to understand why I was so eager to bring Ahmed on and learn about his work and the progress he's made.

I want to add that I found on his Wikipedia page that in 2017 he attempted to visit his family in Israel and he was actually deported from Ben Gurion.

Although he was AUS citizen at the time and was not in any Palestinian territories for over a decade, Israeli authorities claimed that he was still a Palestinian with active citizenship and so he could not enter.

To my knowledge, Ahmed has not been inside Israel proper.

I think this anecdote, along with what you will hear from Ahmed, sheds light on the reality that Israel is not a place that can do no wrong.

And I know that as Jews, we are very aware of this.

But something we break down in the episode is this segment of Jews and Jewish activists that are unwilling to acknowledge any fault of Israel's at all.

And that's just not a way to move forward.

We have to take accountability for our actions, but it doesn't mean we are less supportive.

I got to tell you that this was one of my favorite episodes I've ever recorded on the podcast.

Ahmed really gives me hope.

His pragmatism is really comforting to me and it quickly builds trust, which I think is an incredible skill that he has.

As you heard, he is an ardent advocate for the two state solution and I do wonder how realistic that will be when all of this is said and done.

I personally don't know what the right solution is at this point.

I'm not in a place to prescribe that, but I'm always really eager to hear people's viewpoints on this.

The part that really concerns me more is something that Ahmed said, and when he said it, I immediately was thinking like you said it, not me.

What he was talking about is the reality that even if we do radicalize Palestinian people and we establish A Palestinian state, most of the Arab world still loves Hamas and loves to see Israel destroyed.

Like, how would we even begin to change that or tackle that?

It's just a scary time.

And when I think about that part of it, the whole thing seems insurmountable.

And I try to go back to what Leo Vega once said in his episode, How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time.

Anyway, you will love this episode.

If you want to discuss more, please always feel free to reach out to me on Instagram at PEOPLE.

Do you want to know?

Please enjoy.

Hello, Ahmed, Welcome to PEOPLE.

Do you want to know podcast?

I'm so excited to speak with you today.

Thanks so much for having me, appreciate it.

How's it going?

How are you feeling?

Well, on this beautiful Saturday here in Washington, DC, I'm trying to be optimistic.

I always look for these tiny threads of positivity amidst the avalanche of hardships and challenges.

I'm personally doing as well as one could be given the circumstances, but my work exposes me to a lot of people and communities who are struggling.

And as such, it is always a struggle.

Every single day brings a new set of challenges, set of different news.

And so, yeah, recently actually a dear friend of mine with whom I speak daily, our daily check in would begin with, how's it going or how are you?

And I told her, let's adjust that a little bit.

Let's consider something like what are you working on today?

Because how are you doing?

It's just, it's such a loaded question.

And I'm somebody who was raised with the idea that you can be having a really difficult day by my mom in Gaza or my dad in Gaza.

As difficult of a day as you might be having always say in Hamdallah, you say thanks, thank God, like it could be worse.

But sometimes that's difficult to do nowadays.

And my dad is passed away years ago.

My mom is I was able to get her out of Gaza so I I can still she lost her family.

She lost, we'll talk about that later.

She lost her both of our my childhood homes, our family home.

And Despite that, she finds it in her, despite losing her siblings, her home, her family home, she manages to say I'm doing OK.

It could be worse.

I got out.

That's enough to kind of balance things out for her.

So I think of her, I think of others.

And I say when someone asks me, how are you?

I'm like, I'm OK, man.

I'm privileged.

I'm in Washington.

I mean, perspective is definitely everything I think throughout this time, and I can't wait to dive into your story and pick your brain about what we see in the world today.

Can you help fill in the gaps a little bit about who you are, what you're working on?

About a year ago, I started working.

I was in the San Francisco Bay Area working in International Development.

My My official job for the last eight years was in International Development for a philanthropic organization in Africa.

Malaria, deworming, poverty alleviation, neglected tropical diseases.

When October 7th happened, I was propelled into.

This world of.

Conflict.

I mean, I had dealt with the conflict in the past 10 years prior, but never in the way that I have since 10/7.

And so a year ago I formally left that job and joined the Atlantic Council as a resident senior fellow to try initially at least, and turn what began as a passion project into a professional operation.

And what I mean by that is that it was an effort.

To.

Build upon the writing, the social media activism, the going and building communities and travelling around the world, participating at conferences in different spaces and trying to elevate that even more, do more of that, but also trying to systematize.

It a bit hopefully.

Build toward some kind of an infrastructure that can bring around me like minded Palestinians and allies that could maybe position me to be part of Gaza's future after the war, after Hamas or post conflict era.

And so I came to Washington DC, started being physically here and working at the Atlantic Council.

And then I decided that one of the venues or vehicles for achieving the aforementioned was to launch an effort that I called Realign for Palestine, which is a project within the Middle East program supported by the Middle East programs from the unrestricted funds at the Atlantic Council to try and do precisely what I did.

Build some infrastructure around me.

Have some staff members in there, try to find Palestinian voices, Arab and Muslim voices that are really interested in shutting away the message of extremism and their armed resistance narrative and challenging Hamas's posture and seeking to create a new narrative 1/3 way, if you will, that is characterized by the rejection of violence, by holding multiple truths, by seeing things outside of the classical 0 sum game, US versus them, up or down, one or the other.

And that's easier said than done sometimes when not because I don't, it's hard for me to do that, but it's emotional for so many people.

And so, yeah, trying to find that community and build it, it has been a challenge.

But nevertheless, that's what I work on on on a regular basis.

And I would characterize my work into two buckets.

1 is narrative, 1 is policy.

And the narrative work is around looking back at Palestinian failures, Palestinian mistakes, what led us to not having a state 77 years later.

And that's again not blaming the victim or self loathing or self hatred.

But.

You know there are.

Some common threads in the Palestinian history, if you really look at it without the emotionality of it.

So I want to do that.

I want to move away from this, from the river to the sea, maximalist rhetoric.

I want to actually amplify the narratives of people on the ground in Gaza who are done with Hamas, who want 2 states who don't really seek Israel's destruction.

Most Palestinians actually genuinely just want the ability to express their national identity while having economic and social freedom and liberty and dignity.

So doing the narrative work in conjunction with policy work as far as OK, I believe in the two state solution, which I call the two nation solution.

That's stepping back and just broadly speaking, thinking about it in terms of two nations, the Jewish and Palestinian living side by side and safety and security.

And that Jewish security, safety and self determination does not have to come at the expense of Palestinian freedom, independence, dignity and statehood.

And.

What does that mean in a post October seven world?

What does that mean in a post Oslo world?

What does that mean?

Where young people are disenfranchised, young Palestinians are disenfranchised with their leadership, whether it be the corrupt and moribund Palestinian Authority in the West Bank or the terrorist, violent, jihadi fascist Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

And so that's what I've been working on again, through the prism of meeting policy makers, meeting like minded Palestinians, having convenings events, writing social media, traveling around the world, working behind the scenes and doing humanitarian work as well.

And that is highlighted less and less, but, you know, helping extract people from Gaza when I could, and I did that for quite a few people, helping raise money behind the scenes for humanitarian projects in Gaza.

Helping even just honestly out of my own pocket with the starvation crisis and this hunger disaster over the last couple of months, just sending money to people and helping them obtain whatever limited inflated supplies they can get their hands on.

So that's in a broad overview of what I'm doing and it's some of it is successful, some of it is a challenge.

Sometimes in one area I'll take one or two steps forward and another area will have 5 steps backwards.

And it's a daily struggle and challenge.

But that's how I'm choosing to contribute to what I hope will be a new era, a new dawn for the Palestinian people in Gaza and beyond.

When people ask me where you can find like a moderate Muslim population to have discourse with, I always point them towards Realign for Palestine because to me that is the umbrella project or organization where moderate Muslims meet to think about the conflict and the future.

Tell me about your upbringing.

Would you always have considered yourself a moderate Muslim?

How did you grow up?

Well, sort of have it at a very, I would say, I mean there's two elements to that question.

I'll start by saying a bit about me, but I'll bring out, I'll address the first component of your question.

I had a very unusual lived experience.

I actually was born and grew up a small part of my life in Saudi Arabia.

It's very common for Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank to work in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Qatar or the United Emirates make money and then you take that back to your home and you start a life or you build a home for your family, you build something for your family, buy a piece of property and so.

But we would go twice.

Back and forth and then we lived in Gaza in the mid 90s and then we moved back in the late 90s and then we moved back again permanently in 2000, right before the 2nd Intifada.

And so I experienced the tail end of the Oslo peace process as a young boy.

I experienced getting a Palestinian Authority passport instead of the Egyptian travel document.

I experienced flying on the Palestinian airlines.

I experienced flying into Gaza's International Airport.

I remember vividly the hope and optimism that was associated with the peace process and the joint industrial zone, and the joke was that Gazans occupied Israel in the 90s because of how many worked in Israel and were intimately integrated into the property management sector, the construction sector, the agricultural sector and others in Israel, The tight relationship that people had with Israelis, their employers and the friendships that were built.

Then I experienced the disintegration of that during the second Intifada in 2000.

I was 10 at the time.

I experienced the violence.

I experienced the incursions, the protests.

Hamas is rise to power, the suicide bombings, the shooting attacks, the checkpoints.

We have two checkpoints in Gaza, the one in Ghosh, Qatif and then the one in Nanet.

Serene settlement in the middle.

Of Gaza.

We we lived in Gaza.

City in the northern part of the Strip experienced the attacks and the incursions and the fear associated with that.

I had a near deaf experience in the year 2001 that almost killed me and killed 2 of my friends and rendered me largely deaf in my left ear.

And that was really the catalyst for me seeking to leave Gaza and wanting to learn English.

And in 2005 I came to the United States as a 15 year old exchange student with the State Department.

And it was a year long effort to be here.

It was a post 9/11 initiative.

Live with as a host family for a year.

Go to high school.

I was a junior in high school and then try to go back and build cultural bridges and when I was in Egypt in 2006, about to cross back.

I was stuck.

In Egypt, unable to go back in due to the abduction of Gilad Shelly, a young Israeli soldier in the ensuing war that got the borders semi permanently closed at the time.

And I came back thanks to the support of human rights and peace activists in the United States, including many who were Jewish Americans who helped me stay here and applied for political asylum.

Ironically, the very day of my political asylum interview was June 14th, 2007, which is the very day that Hamas violently took over the Gaza Strip.

I was 17 at the time.

And I became the first Palestinian to get asylum in the United States due to Hamas's control and being the first of a wave.

And then I became a citizen of the United States 11 years ago.

And so.

During my time here, I oscillated between trying to fit into the Palestinian American community because I was not, for a significant chunk of my time here, considered classically A Palestinian American.

I was.

Palestinian and not just Palestinian, but they're really, and this is something that a lot of people fail to appreciate.

There are like the, there are nuances to the Gazan Palestinian experience.

Gazans are very different and culturally and in in different ways than the folks from the West Bank.

They're not only geographically and politically separated, but like I said, culturally there are things that are quite think of someone from Texas versus from New York and so.

I struggled with a sense of belonging and a sense of fitting, particularly because I came here by myself and my family.

Have two brothers and two sisters, and my dad worked as a doctor.

He worked for the UN in Gaza.

My mom was a math teacher, and my family all remained in Gaza and some would eventually get out.

But I didn't have AI.

Mean things in an Arab context are usually very family heavy, very family and community heavy.

And as a single dude trying to do things, it just young dude in high school and later on in in Community College.

And then I transferred just the mechanics of my social being did not fit to the community here.

Then there was the ethos of many Arab Americans who are driven by and Palestinian Americans in particular, who are driven by a sense of guilt and feeling bad and like Palestine and kind of like.

But sometimes that would often cross into a lot of sloganeering without really understanding the nuances that exists on the ground.

To the point.

Where some didn't believe that I should get asylum in the United States, they wanted me to go back to Gaza and hold the land and resist and not leave and not fulfill the Zionist agenda and plot of emptying the land of its people.

And I remember vividly being a 17 year old and hearing those sentiments and really resenting them and feeling that was out of touch and that was not compassionate and that.

Reaped of double standards and hypocrisy and I was like, well would you like to go back to Gaza and let's trade places?

So there was that element, but then there was the element of the typical pro Palestine movement that I actually did.

Join and the form of protests and some college activism and would be a part of on and on SJP Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims in Palestine whatever.

And over time, even though there were many kinds sincere people in these groups, I I did feel that the overall umbrella was truly misguided.

I did feel that there was a deliberate effort to explicitly leave Hamas out and to not say anything about Hamas and to basically make this into APR exercise.

And I've written about this ad nauseam.

And I've said that when I would say something or write something about Hamas, he would be like, Oh no, don't mention Hamas.

Don't mention the.

Rockets talk about how it's.

The occupation or it's the blockade, or it's keep the focus on Israel.

We have to maintain a veneer of unity even if we don't like Hamas.

And I remember.

I'd be like, well, but Israel.

Are able to like regularly criticize the far right and Netanyahu and whatever like Hamas is a fascist Islamist outfit.

Like they're they've destroyed the national project of the Palestinian people.

They were a tool for Netanyahu to keep the Palestinians divided and have Gaza in one setting here and then the West Bank and the Qatari money later on and like the story that everybody knows.

So I was like, my God, like actually, no, the real pro Palestine play and move here would actually be to call out Hamas.

And so I became very frustrated by my inability to analytically and anecdotally be my authentic self about the stories that I was hearing of Hamas shooting rockets forcibly from right next to people's homes and then threatening to kill people, beating people.

Up.

Carrying out violence against people who did not want tunnels or rockets to be anywhere near their spaces.

The way that Hamas was penetrating UNRWA, was penetrating UN and humanitarian NGOs, the way that organization was turning Gaza into a, a cash cow with taxes and smuggling.

And I mean, so, so I, I really, I, I walked away from it.

And then in 2015, I launched an organization called Project Unified Assistance to create an airport in Gaza and internationally run Israeli approved airfield that would facilitate the freedom of movement without any Hamas involvement and.

The way that so many people were who were part of the.

Classical pro Palestine movement opposed this on the grounds that, well, Gaza is so terrible, if you create an outlet for people to leave, they might leave and never come back and it's better to keep.

You want to keep them in the terrible conditions and.

Precisely that.

Precisely that.

And that was very much so the final straw 10 years ago in which I walked away from that community and I realized that it was not one that was optimized for pragmatism, for results.

And when I say the community, I mean I'm talking about the main infrastructure of activists, college activism, the intersectionality between the humanitarian organizations and the advocacy organizations that have joined forces.

Instead of having a firewall between humanitarian work and political and activism work, he's joined in together.

And so I was really frustrated.

By that so that's on one hand then in parallel with this whole thing while being in the United States I was building robust relationships with American Jews, Israeli Americans and Israelis across the spectrum.

Initially, yes, heavy on the left-leaning side through dialogue groups, but then through engagements, through interfaith groups.

But then.

Through organic means.

It was really an eye opening exercise that allowed me to really understand how the Jewish and Zion itself, the identifying Zionist and Israeli communities.

Are truly not monolithic and that there's a spectrum to really understand and dig deep into and and dissect and that was a process that ultimately showed me how how futile.

These labels, these calling everybody Zionist this and Zionist that, and you're a genocider and you're an ethnic cleanser and you're an occupier and you're an oppressor and you're a colonizer.

I'm down for intellectual discussions.

I'm down for historical discussions and I am very pro Palestine.

I believe that the Palestinian people have legitimate grievances and injustices that they failed.

But this trend of anti normalization do not talk to Israelis or Jews unless they show you credentials that they're anti Zionist, which I thought I think is a is an extraordinarily ridiculous position.

It's almost saying like right off the bat, how racist would it be of like, well, don't talk to Muslims or Arabs unless they right off the bat show you that they're not.

I'm not equating Zionism or ISIS, but like that they're not Al Qaeda or that they're not like this idea of presuming that they're a terror organization or that they're part of an ideology or that they're like just because of a membership of a religious or an ethnic group, you are going to expect people to belong, to have a certain thought process and that in order for you to talk to them, you need them to alleviate your own fragility right up front.

And I just, I don't know, it's something about that that So I went the complete opposite.

I went full on for normalization.

I was in my appetite was insatiable for communication and dialogue and engagement, even with people that I vehemently disagreed with.

Because that's how I knew the argument.

I wanted to hear it for myself, and I cannot tell you how many times I interacted with Jews and Israelis and Zionists in the United States in the land.

Well, I didn't.

I haven't gone to Israel, but from the land.

Who were like, I never met anyone from Gaza.

I thought y'all are crazy and y'all are terrorists, that everybody has a Hamas tunnel under their home or whatever.

So like them, thousands of lives that I have touched through this engagement is something that to me has been part of the journey of.

I hate this word, but let's just call it moderation.

Not that I was violent or insane or whatever to begin with.

But it really demonstrated to me that empathy and humanity and dialogue and conversation, they're not kumbaya.

They're not like, let's hold hands and everything is going to be fine.

They're actually part of the 1st.

They're like the first tier of the pyramid of transportation, of conflict resolution, of addressing the historical grievances of planting seeds, of bridge building, of narrowing the gaps even if you don't fully fill the gaps.

And that's where I would say it was a combination of and to be clear, there are some within the.

Pro Palestine community, I haven't completely abandoned like I have a foot in the Palestinian community here, but just stepping back from that activist class and that professional being like a professional pro Palestine individual, stepping back from that and that whole industrial complex and leaning in more towards the uncomfortable engagement and.

Dialogue that are often so criminalized was the bedrock of my journey of transformation from Gaza, from the violence that I experienced.

From the tragedies that my family experienced in 48 and being the refugees themselves and having been displaced and the violence that I experienced, we haven't even begun talking about October 7th.

But the totality of the aforementioned became the bedrock that stuck with me.

That, ultimately, is what?

Was there when October 7th happened.

This brings me to your recent appearance on Jubilee's middle ground.

Because as you were talking about all these people having this unreasonable point of view on the conflict, this maximalist point, right away it was like, that's just like the Jubilee segment that you did because you were surrounded by all of these young, mostly young pro Palestinian people and they just had really unreasonable takes.

What did you make of it?

Well, of the 20 that were there, that there were three Palestinians present, I thought was somewhat revealing.

I already knew the trend, but revealing to hopefully the masses that.

You had.

And I'm not saying this in a derogatory way, but with all due respect, you had two Mexican gentlemen, 2 Filipino gentlemen, an African, an African American, two Jewish dudes, 1 mega guy like.

You had all of these non Palestinians lecturing me telling me that you know that you're a Zionist, you're a shill, that's a genocide, you're bad, you're this and it wasn't it was not like you have your.

Opinion, and we have our opinion.

That was not the dynamic which is.

A normal human part of the normal human condition that.

Would have been fine if that's what it was, but that's not what the segment was.

It was very much so a lecture, shouting, match, yell, let me yell and scream and tell you how horrible you are.

And by the way, they trimmed out several conversations.

They didn't show several engagements.

There were several people that came up and sat there and they trimmed that out.

And they trimmed the in between, in between people coming in and.

There was a lot of.

Aggression and nastiness in that room.

I actually have thoughts about this.

I think that this like free Palestine movement or whatever the right vocabulary is to denote the side of the movement.

That's like no normalization, no negotiation.

It almost feels like they're taught to be aggressive and because if they're aggressive, you can't make progress.

And that's the no normalization strategy.

So it's this circle of we don't talk because we don't normalize, but when we do talk, we make sure the conversation dies at the outside and it's impossible to have a conversation.

And I don't know if those people know that's what they've been taught to do.

I don't know that they realize it.

Well.

And to add to it, I mean, listen, I get it.

It's horrible what's happening.

It's horrendous.

I experienced it, I physically experienced it, my family experienced it.

But there's a combination of lack of emotional control and regulation.

There is a.

Total.

Abdication of responsibility by academic institutions and spaces.

This is the outcome of perpetual safe spaces and trigger warnings where these kids are unable to hear anything that trespasses on to their holier than thou system of belief.

This idea of you're on the right side of history by.

Being aggressive and this is a genocide.

I mean you won't see them do aggression like that on other.

Social.

Causes and I very much so think, unfortunately that there's there is a feedback mechanism or loop if you will.

A self fulfilling prophecy that these kids have whereby they shout people and things down, they get their way.

They think that somehow translates to power and control over the discourse when all they're doing is they're destroying the discourse.

They're making the cause radioactive.

They are doing nothing to help the people on the ground in Gaza.

I mean, two years later, they've done nothing to help the people on the ground in Gaza.

And so I used to tell them, for example, why not partner with hostage families to who were partners in pushing Netanyahu and the Israeli government for a deal to free their loved ones and the war.

And I was an ally both sincerely because I cared about the plight of the hostages genuinely, but also I said there's a also like a self interested play here for both parties.

And they kept saying, Nope, you're a normalizing traitor, whatever.

These are not hostages.

These are prisoners, they all deserve to be there.

Screw the hostages, blah blah blah.

So complete display of inhumanity.

What about the Palestinian hostages?

What about this?

What about that?

But going back to the original piece, I just, I'm tired of non Palestinians trying to help Palestinian, actual Palestinians.

Even the Palestinians who were there talking to me about the West Bank.

The West Bank and Gaza are apples and oranges, completely different settings and this idea that Gaza and the war on October 7th and Hamas are a response to the settlers and what the settlers are doing is complete hogwash.

That Doctor Who I respect his right to say is very condescending, but whatever.

Like of all the Palestinians they found like they had to find.

Or that one lady with the kafia covering her head that said.

We need deaths on social media.

Because those are great photos for the legitimizing Israel, like dead Palestinians are great photos to mobilize the global anti Israel campaign.

And so it left me even more disillusioned with the whole movement.

This isn't.

And I kept saying there's a lot more to being pro Palestine than simply being anti Israel.

Right now we have an anti Israel.

Movement all right, but we don't have an actual pro Palestine movement because if they were pro Palestine troops.

The first tenet of that is recognizing that Hamas is the most anti Palestinian horrendous evil sack of garbage that served our people on a silver platter to the most far right and extremist government in Israel's history.

Like, what did you expect, carrying out the single worst day attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, which is terrible with a government that has been Veer and Smootrich and Eliyahu And like, all these characters, like in Netanyahu?

Like, what did you think would happen?

Like, did you really think that this would honestly, did you really think Hezbollah and Iran and the Houthis are going to come to your rescue?

And this is what's sad is that you can provide overwhelming evidence to people about Hamas's criminality and it'll be right before them and no one will really like it.

It just it won't matter because the ideology is so sick and severe right now that it doesn't really matter.

I wrote a piece 2 days ago for the Atlantic magazine and it arguably is like one of my most viral articles I think just because of the timing.

And I said Hamas actually want the the title is like Hamas actually wants a famine, famine in Gaza.

But I ended the piece was saying, and I laid heavily into the Israeli government.

I wasn't letting the Israeli government off the hook by any stretch.

Oh my God.

Like I was like saying they're inhumane policies.

This is disgusting.

But I ended the peace was saying, if you want to undermine Hamas, go ahead and, like, flood Gaza with aid and, like, food, food and, like, make sure that you don't actually cause a hunger crisis like that because this is Hamas's final play to end the war through international pressure against Israel in a way that achieves its goals.

And the reaction from the entirety of the pro Palestine movement, I mean, the amount of threats, the amount of attempts to docks, the amount of ways in which people just like literally I ended the article with saying feed Gazans and they were like, you're a gift to Zionism, you're a spy, you're a Zionist, you're this, you're that.

And then the really far out there ones.

I've been promoted now.

So I'm now officially part of the Epstein list and network.

So that's why.

Congratulations.

Yeah, thank.

You yes, so, so that's why.

So maybe when I flew in from Gaza, I the, I went on a detour to Epstein Island.

I mean, ridiculously stuff, right?

Ridiculous.

So there's just, there's not, but just briefly.

I want to mention.

That like I think in a similar way that I'm talking about the insanity of the pro Palestine community, there are very much so mirror images of that happening within the pro Israel community.

Thank you, thank you.

Because that is the truth, and it's equally bad.

And I think unfortunately people love when I criticize Hamas and I'm courageous and I'm brave and I'm my God and your Prime Minister and Ahmed for president of Palestine and blah, blah, blah.

But when I highlight clear and indisputable evidence of horrendous statements, actions, digressions, transgressions, clear questionable acts or what are clearly criminal behavior by individual soldiers or policies that are a disaster or why did you destroy this or why are you shooting this or are you Ahmed?

I thought you were a sincere, real peace activist.

Oh, no, you're just doing Takia.

Oh my God, you're all pro Hamas in disguise.

Oh my.

So like, there's this embarrassing like, and it's actually embarrassing like, and that's where I just say like, you cannot think that you're going to build alliances with Palestinians by simply expecting them to be entirely subservient to the entirety of your narrative when even other fellow Jews and Israelis and Zionists are furious with the government of Israel, are furious with the policies and are like pulling their hair out with what's happening.

And unfortunately some of that I think is.

There's some problems within Land of.

Some have just due to the.

Trauma due to the way the Israeli media acts, whatever, that's one thing.

But there are some in the diaspora, in particular diaspora communities on both of our, on both sides sometimes.

Need to like outdo?

The actual people in the land, like people in Gaza, are constantly ripping Hamas and attacking Hamas, just like many Israelis you look at the protests in Israel against.

The government and against the behavior of the current government, and yet folks in the diaspora, they're like, oh.

No I can't say anything negative about Israel because I don't want I don't want the Zionists quote UN quote to twist my words or I don't want the anti semites to come after me or to twist my words and attack Israel.

I feel so seen.

I agree completely and one of my favorite.

There's like a group of these right wing Ginsta influencers and we lose them, especially on the West Bank settlements.

Like they have no ability to recognize that what is happening on the West Bank is 1.

Messed up.

And two, just not in Israel's best interest at all for peace and security reasons.

And that is not a hot take.

That is just like a centrist pragmatic take.

And they just don't understand because in the same way in the pro Palestine movement, their aspiration is not a Palestinian state but the destruction of a Jewish 1.

The same goes true on the right wing pro Israel side.

They don't care that there is a Palestinian state and in fact they don't believe one should exist.

Like there's one woman I see online I had to block her because she posts such unhinged things that are like who are the Palestinians?

They're just Jordanians and Egyptians and they don't exist and they should have never gotten a state.

And it's like we're not going back.

We there's a national identity, there's a culture, a cuisine and a large group of people that are entitled to indigeneity and self determination.

Like, you are wasting air right here just doing this.

And so I wonder, as you're trying to grow realigned for Palestine, I'm going to assume that your strategy is to find more allies and build a larger coalition so that at one point moderate Muslims represent the majority, like the overarching viewpoint, and so that you can make change.

Is that the strategy?

Well, that's a very critical question for which the answer to it is twofold #1 is that was the strategy, that was the belief, that was the hope.

And to be honest with you, I don't know if that's achievable in the near future.

And multiple things are true at once.

The number of Arabs and Muslims and Palestinians who privately reach out to me and say thank God someone else is saying what we believe but have a hard time saying so publicly is significant, especially in the diaspora.

Not to mention in Gaza where a large number, I would argue the majority of the population are completely against Hamas.

Those who have been displaced, those who have been reduced to 8 dependent subjects, you know, desperate for their next meal and not sitting there and going, wow, Hamas did us a favor.

So it is entirely like there are people that I am in contact with and that reach out to me that appreciate the hell out of what I'm doing.

On the other hand, the masses of the Arab and Muslim and significant number of diaspora Palestinians, after decades of ignorance, after two years of horror, after Al Jazeera, after running amok on college campuses and in the streets, after weakness and fragility by our leadership because they're afraid of being called racist or Islamophobic.

I just, I think the genies out of a bottle and I don't see any substantial, I don't really see.

I mean, why do you think it took the Arab countries, including the moderate ones that are deeply anti Hamas, 2 years like up until last week to criticize Hamas and to say October 7th is bad?

Disarm, return the hostages.

It took them two years.

Even the ones that hate Hamas.

I just texted somebody that I was like, why did they do it now?

Why did they do it under this circumstance after all this time?

Why is it now that that document was made?

Because their populations are rabidly pro Palestine, but really their populations are rabidly pro Hamas.

The majority of the aforementioned populations are anti Israel, anti-Semitic, and pro Hamas one way or another.

Not just Hamas as an entity, but pro the idea of what Hamas has done and is doing.

And there's a constant dance to try to about to manage these aggressive populations with rhetoric in the past that's.

Where the Arabs?

And Arab regimes would just use the Palestinian issue for their survival.

So they'd be like whatever, like, you know, yell and scream and use the Palestinian issue as like a, a dumping ground for the like a pressure release valve, if you will.

But now that they're aligned with the United States, now that they're actually aligned with Israel, they're like, they can't do that.

And Al Jazeera is like inciting the heck out of all of the audiences.

So yeah, it took them almost two years and they're like, oh, well, the French are leading this, so let's do it while the French are leading.

This is a French LED thing at the UN.

Contextually, they've just been waiting for the right setting.

They didn't hold an Arab League summit and decide to join form an Arab peacekeeping force and condemn Hamas like like they did in 91 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

No, so so that's number one.

I don't believe in the near future we can count on majority Arab or Muslim populations being publicly and openly moderate while the war is still going on, while the military occupation is still going on.

On the other hand, with number one in mind, I'm thinking that the real strategy right now for moderates and, and I, I use the word pragmatists like myself for, and there are many, there are many Palestinian pragmatists.

Much more, there are more Palestinian pragmatists than there are Arab and Muslim pragmatists.

Because for them Palestine is a social media cause.

It's a tick tock 'cause like it doesn't cause they see Hamas blowing up an Israeli tank and they're like, I love Hamas, I love resistance, kill all the Jews.

And like they don't know, they don't deal with the consequences.

They don't whatever.

So I consider the masses utterly irrelevant.

I similarly consider the masses here largely irrelevant, except in the Western world ignorant masses can cause a lot more damage than in the Arab.

World.

So with that in mind, the pragmatists need winds.

They need to be empowered by winds on the ground.

What the Israeli government did with the Palestinian Authority, which was almost by design, honestly, it was meant to radicalize the Palestinian society, is it showed that I don't care whether you're a Hamas jihadi or whether you're a nonviolent PA person.

I don't care.

We're going to spread the settlements.

We're going to clip your wings, Smoke Rich is going to cut off your funding, the minister cats and even you have Gallant before the PA.

They couldn't fight off Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Jenin in northern West Bank because they ran out of bullets.

They don't have the right equipment, all of which has been approved by the United States and is sitting and waiting in.

Jordan, by the way, as part of a joint security coordination mechanism.

So you get no means to enforce law and order.

You get no money.

We're going to walk all over you.

We're going to set up checkpoints.

We're going to take over more territory.

You're irrelevant, you're nothing.

We're going to humiliate you.

So why would people be pragmatists, even though many are still like, well, I'll still take fragile peace in the West Bank over what Hamas did in Gaza?

They're not.

They're doing it out of necessity, not out of love for Israel or any belief that peace is possible with Israel, Israelis, or Zionism.

So that's the disaster right now.

Now in Gaza.

What I'm hoping for, and I'll start wrapping up by just saying that my hope is that Gaza is not just my vision for Gaza.

It's not just to rebuild it, it's to reconstitute it.

It's to rejuvenate it.

It's to create something new, Something that can turn it into the pride it enjoys the Palestinian people.

Something that allows it to be what it should have begun being 20 years ago after the unilateral disengagement.

Something that shows that being a pragmatic realist pays off.

Something that allows people like myself, academics, journalists, business people, not oligarchs and corrupt PA officials, but real business people to come in and have a role in transforming the territory.

So that's where the strategy is right now is identifying ways in which I can come up with proposals, ideas, policies.

I can help empower other pragmatic moderate Palestinians, particularly younger ones in Gaza and create a new vision for away from the resistance narrative towards the nation building and coexistence narrative.

And if that is bolstered by.

Winds on the ground, changes on the ground.

That will be the ultimate success of Realign for Palestine.

Gaza becoming a role model for what an occupation free West Bank can and should look like.

But if Gaza.

Becomes space for new Jewish settlements in the north.

That will be the absolute end of any hope for peace and coexistence, perpetual occupation, insurgency.

And I genuinely think that'll be the beginning of the end.

Like Israel will exist, but it will never thrive because it will actually be a pariah state that is perpetually identified with never ending colonial expansionism, which I just think will be bad for Israelis, terrible for Palestinians, and certainly for the United States.

I mean, right now, the current generation of U.S.

policy makers are struggling to hang on to continuing to support Israel militarily, politically, diplomatically and financially.

There still is overwhelming support, or I should say majority support.

It's no longer overwhelmingly majority support, but within a generation that could absolutely change.

May it happen like you said.

Inshallah.

That plan.

Yep.

And I think that's very pragmatic, and I hope that you can succeed.

That would be amazing.

And as you were saying, like to incentivize pragmatism, right?

We want to give these wins so that there's an incentive to be pragmatic because it pays off.

And I think it will also set the right example for the rest of the Arab world, much of which hates Jewish people, that if the new Palestine can be successful and vibrant, that there's something good about working together with Jews and Israelis, that it can be done.

I think it it would be the best scenario for sure.

And there was a time like you talked about, I didn't know that there was ever an airport in Gaza.

I flew into it in 99 and in 2000.

There was a time that people live differently, and it's a bummer that so much of that generation is now gone, and there are so many people born into a world where they live with checkpoints and with violence and with starvation that it's hard to recall that things used to be different.

But I hope that it can come.

What can Jews do to help?

Well, I think starting with what I shared about empathy and humanity, multiple things can be true.

You can.

And also, I know that like around the hunger and starvation narrative, like there's misinformation, there's all sorts of like, But amidst the cacophony of the information war, there is a core of truth, which is that large segments of the Palestinian people are quietly and slowly starving in Gaza unnecessarily So to realize that this war as it's being fought.

And I have spent time, I mean just this morning.

I spoke with one of the most.

Senior former U.S.

military officials who has a lot to share about this subject.

And there is overwhelming consensus that there is no strategy in Gaza right now.

There is no the Israeli military and government have no coherent counterinsurgency.

They don't know how to do it.

They have been told how to do it.

They have been given instructions, support, resources, ideas.

But a combination of hubris, arrogance, incompetence, political interference, Smotrich and Ben Veer.

This is when people are like, Oh no, Smotrich and Ben Veer don't have real power.

They have total power and influence over how this war has been going on.

Are you kidding me?

Stop the delusion.

So this war is going nowhere.

Like I want Hamas to be defeated.

I want Hamas to be over, but this war is going absolutely nowhere.

So like there needs to be a serious conversation within the Jewish community and like stop this cultist behavior of oh, we can't public, we can't criticize Israel.

Like this is the Alan Dershowitz school of thought, which is we can't Israel criticize Israel publicly because that actually it's betrayal.

The anti semites will use it to with our words no, let's do it in internally and within our JCCS and federations and send a letter to the embassy.

Yeah that like that's really going to that's really going to do no the Alan Dershowitz's of the world that still have dominion over Jewish institutions in America.

They have gotten us to where we're at right now where there is this cultish following to whatever Israel says.

We just, we blindly support it even though it is literally run by a group of thugs, a criminal, convicted thugs.

So my plea to the Jewish people, to the Zionist people, to the people of Israel, like we unfortunately, and I'm a believer in agency, but like we as Palestinians, we're not a free and a democratic society.

There was an election in 2006 and Hamas came on board with a totally different mandate.

It expired in 2010.

There's like Abu Mazen has overstayed it.

Like we haven't had elections since.

We don't have any democratic means to change that.

But like y'all do like the Jewish people do and like there's a bizarre parliamentary system.

That's why like Netanyahu's even a thing with this coalition.

So reclaim your Israel, like retake your nation.

Do not let Israel get to a place where 1020 years from now it becomes a Jewish Afghanistan and the brightest and the smartest have left and all you're left with are the far right folks who.

Don't serve in the Army.

Don't.

Provide to the state any in any tax revenue and don't do anything.

So again, I'm.

This is a.

Plea, I'm not telling you what to do, but I'm just this is so that's number one empathy for Palestinians and reclaim your state.

Understand that the war is going nowhere.

Number 2 is I think there's a way in which there can be, just like Zionism from the diaspora helped build a state for the Jewish people, help build the institutions and the infrastructure that ultimately got Israel created.

I think the diaspora community have a major role and a major leverage in how Israel functions as a society, as a people, financially, politically and otherwise.

And it's time to start exercising that leverage, lest you want people in Congress and other governments exercising that leverage for you.

So I think there needs to be some kind of like a, an emergency like convening like of all Jewish organizations, Zionist mainstream, mainstream, not the the leftist, not the irrelevant ones to set like a five year plan to change course.

We have a bunch of losers working for those organizations, often because they pay 60K per year in New York.

Not the brightest, not the best and brightest work for those.

Also.

Cry.

Because this is so frustrating to.

Me, you're right, but the Jewish people like like a world like the 1897 Congress in castle when the Zionists were like, I think Israel is in is at an infliction point.

And this is beyond the in the acute crisis due to the war.

I think Israel is a is honestly at an infliction point beyond which like it's a nuclear state.

It's not going anywhere.

It and it's resilient and the Jewish people are resilient.

That's fine.

I'm talking about Israel as a nation state is at an infliction point and it needs saving from itself.

Honestly, the trajectory is not looking great even amongst Israel's own allies.

If I were a Jewish Zionist, I would think that Israel's worth protecting and saving from itself.

And part of that correction movement to save Israel from itself is acknowledging that the attempt to erase the Palestinian people, and I'm not talking about the rejectionist garbage crap of the Palestinian people, whatever you can deal with that.

I'm talking about the attempt to erase the Palestinian people and say, push them out of Gaza, annex the West Bank, make them disappear, and everything is just going to be fine and we'll just live by the power of the sword.

I, I genuinely think it's beyond just going to be a problem for you in the Middle East.

So like that's where I am hoping that those who are motivated by genuine love for Israel can actually like reclaim it.

And I'll leave you with this.

I've been talking to some futurist type people and I've seen people use the Israel 2048, which is, I mean, that's not that far away.

That's like 23 years away from now.

So I don't know, there needs to be like a new movement and like a Zionism 2.0.

And I've just, and in similar, the reason why I'm thinking about that is that I'm thinking about of Gaza 2048.

I can't speak to the West Bank, but I am going to launch a project and I'm going to call it Gaza 2048.

What does Gaza look like in 2048 in the context of 100 years since 48, etc.

So anyway, I'm not trying to go on and on about this point, but I really think that that I speak to mainstream leadership of Jewish organizations, all of them, every organization, you name it.

I've spoken to members, the board and the leadership, and I am sensing paralysis across the board.

They're like, we don't know what to do.

We don't like Netanyahu, but we can't criticize them publicly.

We don't like the trajectory of Israel, but we have to keep quiet and keep it in the House.

We don't like what Israel is doing, but we need Congress and the West to support us.

We don't.

We're losing young people.

It's like I've been brought into a bunch of camps because they're like, we're losing young Jewish kids who are like the whole classical, like they've lied to me at Jewish camp about Israel and Zionism and I don't want anything to do.

And by the time they're in college, they're either anti Zionist or they're not religious or they're joining JVP and SJP.

And to their credit, some of these groups that are bringing me in, they're like, we want you to tell the students.

The truth like no holding back, yes, the crimes, the terrible things that Israel is doing, but talk about Hamas and talk about the future and let's talk about this and that.

Like like they're like we used to put surround our kids with bubble wrap and say like, oh, Israel's uncomfortable to talk about.

Let's not talk about it.

But that is not working anymore.

So there are there, there are like pockets of awakening that like something is broken.

And a big part of that brokenness is that, yes, a lot of the pro Palestine community have gone insane, but we need to act on our own accords of how are we going to deal with the Palestinian people, regardless of what the crazy pro Palestine people in the US behave.

Keep your side of the street clean.

I agree.

And as we wrap here, every guest gets to ask me and you any question you have about Jewish life or anything at all.

What's a question that you have for me?

How I always struggle with assuming or not assuming that someone keeps kosher or keeps Shabbat and engages on Saturday.

Like I've recently like gotten even this thing where apparently like it's considered rude to send messages to people on like, I don't know, Friday nights and Saturday if you're if I'm as a gorge sending messages.

But then it's like I've met very liberal presenting Jews that keep Shabbat and like, I don't know that they're keeping Shabbat.

And to me it's like, well, I have no life.

I work all the time.

I it's like, like, I don't know what's a culturally sensitive way.

First of all, is a is a polite understood that as a non Jewish person, Just let me send the message at any time or e-mail or calm and just they'll respond when they want to respond.

And if not, then what's 1 sensitive way to ascertain people's boundaries around Shabbat?

This is an interesting question because, I mean, what's the etiquette for regular people at work?

You're not supposed to send stuff over the weekend.

Is that like the rule of thumb?

Well, I could care less about that etiquette because I work a ton over the weekend, but like a couple of people specifically brought it to my attention regards exclusively to religious Jews.

OK, so usually when I communicate with religious Jews, I try not to send stuff when it would fall on Shabbat.

That means up till sundown I can send you stuff.

It's your prerogative whether you read it or read it after Shabbat.

What I've seen before people do that works really well.

I see this at work is a little disclaimer either at the bottom of the message or somewhere that says like I work crazy hours.

If you receive this message at a crazy time when you do not work, please feel free not to respond until it's your hours.

And that is the safest way to handle that.

That doesn't matter who they are.

But how about like WhatsApp notifications and messages which is like like 70% of my comms?

Then you could start with saying hey I'm sending this to you now but feel free to address later, blah blah blah blah blah.

Is it safe to assume anyone who wears A keepa keeps Shabbat?

Like on a publicly like where's keepa?

Like that's where I that's where like I don't want to assume.

Oh, I don't know.

I it's safe to assume yes, but most there will be some that even though they were a keeper, do not keep Shabbat.

But it is safe to use that as a heuristic, because you're better off assuming they do and then being wrong than assuming they don't and being wrong.

Roger that.

OK, OK, same question.

Yeah, no, I just, I was like etiquette for but like, I don't know, like I mean, I even try to Google it and it took me down a rabbit hole on Reddit and I was like, Nope, Nope.

I will not go down the Reddit rabbit hole.

The exit exit because I started seeing like emojis all over responses and I just I couldn't handle it.

Yeah, OK.

Thank you so much for doing this.

How can people connect with you and learn more about your work?

So I'm easy to find on social media, on Twitter, I have the same handle, a Alpha F Foxtrot Al Khatib, my last name, AFL KHATIBAFL Khatib.

That's on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

And from there, you'll be easily able to find Realign for Palestine some of my recent works, as well as some of my work with the Atlantic Council.

Thank you so much for doing this.

This gave me so much energy and hope and I just feel like, Oh my gosh, somebody with common sense, How crazy.

Really appreciate the opportunity and yeah, thank you for having me speak to your community.

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