Fighting the War at Home | Asheville chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace

Jewish Voice for Peace is a nonprofit with chapters in Asheville and around the U.S. and beyond. Except for the name of the organization, you won’t find much about Judaism on their website or in their talking points.** They're focused on peace in the Middle East and, to JVP, that means the liberation of Palestinians.

My guests are Anne Craig, Rebecca Croog and Said Abdallah from the Asheville chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. You’ll learn about their varied backgrounds and what led them to this cause.

We dig into JVP’s mission and how my guests reacted to Hamas’ attack on Israel last Oct. 7, along with how they frame their Judaism through a lens of Palestinian advocacy. We also get into why they believe local activism is important on an issue taking place on the other side of the world and what their hopes are around what is seemingly an intractable stalemate.

** NOTE: After publication, I was made aware of two pages on the JVP website that initially eluded me, focused more specifically on Judaism. Here are links:
Rabbinical Council • Havurah Network

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Chapters

• 0:00 OVK Jewish Voice interview
• 7:06 START EPISODE HERE

Transcript

Matt Peiken: Why did you find your way into an organization that has Jewish in the [00:06:00] first name, the Jewish Voice for Peace? How did you find your way into that organization? 

Said Abdallah: I found myself Aware of Jewish Voice for Peace and initial thoughts were that they were speaking on behalf of the Palestinians or trying to tell the Palestinian story. Until I attended one of their conferences in 2016, I believe, or 2017 in Chicago, and I realized they just offered a platform for the Palestinians to tell their story, besides their solidarity with the Palestinians and their just cause. 

Matt Peiken: It's interesting to me that you found your way to Jewish Voice for Peace through their opening as a platform for Palestinian voices. Where was the Judaism in the Jewish Voice for Peace from your entryway? It just seems to me that's interesting because I don't, I'm not hearing at least from your entry that it was [00:07:00] anything involving Judaism, really? It was as a Palestinian voice. 

Said Abdallah: I initially, my affiliation with with struggle in Palestine was with the socialist groups who believed in one state where Jews and Muslims and Christians lived together in one state. This was back in the sixties and seventies. I always had this vision that we are all in this together. 

Matt Peiken: And, how long ago did you move to Asheville? 

Said Abdallah: I came to Asheville in 2013. 

Matt Peiken: Okay. What brought you here? I'm just curious. 

Said Abdallah: It's a long story. But I was on a cross country road trip and my Volkswagen bus broke down and I end up here.

Matt Peiken: I hear those stories about how people end up here often, that people are on a cross country driver hiking around the country and they somehow came here. Now when you came here, obviously this town doesn't have a large Jewish population. It has an even smaller Middle Eastern population. Where [00:08:00] did you find your sense of community here? 

Said Abdallah: I have come across some people who were active and Anne is one of them, I believe at the time. And I was always I've been always an activist ever since, once you're a Palestinian, like you said earlier, if you're a Jewish, you must have something to do with the cause or with the conflict.

And it's the same with me ever since I was 12 years old when the first war broke out in 1967. And then in 69, it was September, Black September, and 73, it was the october war, so I had lived through three wars before I was 18 years old. 

Matt Peiken: You're obviously coming from the Palestinian vantage. Was it difficult for you to even trust and find a bridge to build with Jewish people who might have been sympathetic and might've been allies, but was it very difficult for you [00:09:00] to even begin trusting anybody who was associated with Judaism?

Said Abdallah: No, not at all. Growing up, I know there was Jewish people acknowledging the just cause of the Palestinian on the wrongdoing of the Zionist and the land of Palestine. So I knew that not all Jews are pro Israelis, just actually I knew that a lot of Jews were a big instrument in South Africa liberation.

And in the Vietnam War, so I knew there was a majority of Jews outside Israel are involved in just cause other than the Palestinian cause. So I being Jewish did not really impact My view of the person. What impacts it is their stand on the justice and human rights. 

Matt Peiken: You brought up something that I think cuts to the core. I think a lot of people conflate and confuse The state of Israel versus being a [00:10:00] resident of Israel, being Jewish being a, quote, Zionist. There's a lot of these terms that get thrown around and I think it's easy to lump all of it together. And I guess I want to ask each of you about your position on, does Israel have a right to exist as a country?

Where do you stand on that? Because I think that kind of helps give people an anchor point of where JVP comes in and where some of your, what you want to see happen from there. But I think that's probably root question. Does Israel as a nation have a right to exist? 

Anne Craig: What does that mean to you?

Matt Peiken: I'm not talking boundaries, I'm not talking anything about where a Palestinian state or a Jewish state begins or ends, but does Israel have the right to exist as a Jewish based state, Jewish based nation?

Rebecca Croog: I think the way I [00:11:00] think about this question is I immediately think of it in a historicized way.

I think of the history of its founding and how vexed and violent in so many ways it was. First and foremost for me in educating myself as a Jew of Eastern European descent, understanding the context of the pogroms, World War Two, the Holocaust, and really seeing this entire project of the creation of an Israeli state as an excuse for European nations who were perpetrators of structural, devastating antisemitism that has been deeply traumatizing for all of us as a Jewish people, this excuse of we're just going to create where we're going to put our political emphasis and might is in this creation of a state over here and [00:12:00] not deal with and really enact restorative justice here in the places where this anti Semitic violence and trauma took place. So that's how I tend to think about this question. 

Matt Peiken: But the two can coexist in the sense, where I can understand the feeling that anti semitism and the persecution of Jews has had gone on for millennia at that point. Finding some safe haven on this planet, some supposedly safe haven Somewhere would seem like a noble effort. 

At the same time, I don't think that absolves Any Eastern European country from its own role in perpetuating that anti Semitism and not cleaning house themselves of that kind of hate and persecution and violence to make their own countries more hospitable to Jews. I think both can happen at the same time and I don't know that in the [00:13:00] 1940s, post World War II, that There was any safe haven for Jews just because it was the end of the war, supposedly.

Look, there was fascism happening in the U. S. very deeply, all the way into Congress and in the U. S. Senate, there were outright fascists and Nazi sympathizers. Certainly, there had to be in, in Europe as well. Where could Jews go? I understand the basis for finding a homeland. That said, There's a lot of difference between even wanting to find a starting ground for this nation and then enacting it and how do you make that happen?

And it sounds correct me if your view of this is different, but there, in 1948, there was displacement happening just to create Israel, that there was a no-win situation, that if you're committed to creating a land, there a land, a territory that's going to be friendly to Jews and safe for Jews, in that part of the Middle [00:14:00] East, there were some people who were not going to be happy about it. 

Anne Craig: Some people not being happy about it is different than displacing and expelling an entire group of people, the Palestinians. Over 750, 000 Palestinians were expelled from their own country. They had their own national aspirations. We're talking about their villages destroyed, massacres happening. The folks that were trying to establish Israel as a Jewish supremacist, Jewish majority state, had their own terrorist organizations like the Irgun, and they were backed by the Western imperial powers, who had their own geopolitical interests for having a Europeanized, basically, colony in the Middle East. You have to look at like the, a [00:15:00] bigger picture. A lot of people, in my opinion, were pawns of a horrific Tragedy, historic anti Semitism, World War II, imperialism settler colonialism.

There's a lot of terms here, but I think people have to zoom out and see a bigger picture. Could the Jews have immigrated there and said, we want to be immigrants in this land that we some feel that they may have historic ties to, and we want to help create a country where all who live here, who've been here for generations, hundreds, thousands of years, and the new arrivals can work out a country that will respect the human rights of everyone?

Or do we want to basically have a state where One, I don't even know what you would call it, ethnic or religious [00:16:00] identified group has more rights and than anyone else who lives there.?

Matt Peiken: I guess, you look at everywhere that Jews have been, they've been the minority up until the founding of Israel.

There was no place, like, when you're talking about going into the Middle East or anywhere and saying, can we form a society where we're all here and not just From the get go have a Jewish primacy. I think their response probably would be, we've been such a deep minority everywhere we go that there's nowhere we could go to be safe unless we had power.

I can see coming out of the Holocaust and, you know, if they were saying here go home, quote unquote, to the Middle East, where it's a Muslim dominated part of the world. And, Jews, okay, great, how can we assure, ensure our safety here and how can we ensure that we will [00:17:00] be welcomed any more here than we were in Eastern Europe?

I can see where that would be an open question, had there not been land, I don't know how much land, but some lands given, saying, you can be based here and be safe here. I don't know how it would have happened for Jews. 

Rebecca Croog: What I want to say at this point is we've established the tragically violent in so many ways origin story of this state and this situation and I think what JVP is trying to do now is understand that context and really see where it's ended up in the present moment, which is in this like absolutely horrific bombardment of the Palestinian people. The 10th, 11th, 12th in this series of moments of violent oppression and settlement and displacement.

And so right now, we want to interrupt what is really a human rights [00:18:00] emergency and call for the U. S. to stop arming Israel at this time, and I've spoken with Said a bit about how what he's seen is the maintaining and managing of the occupation rather than ending the occupation and building some sort of coexistent model that we as peace activists, as believers in humanity believe is possible.

So I've been really inspired by that perspective. 

Said Abdallah: The first thing I want to address is your question, does Israel have the right to exist? This question is not asked by any other country other than Israel.

Why is that the case? Is there a doubt within the Israeli government that they have the right to exist? 

Matt Peiken: I don't think it's the only question. Right now Russia is trying to eradicate Ukraine and people are asking does Ukraine have a right to exist?

So I don't know that's totally true. I think when certain peoples who are associated [00:19:00] with a country are targeted and their very existence is maybe in peril, I think That question gets asked. 

Said Abdallah: Yeah. I disagree with you on the Ukraine comparison. Sure. I see people use that as a question, this Ukraine, but nobody says occupation is wrong.

When Russia does it or when Israel does it, nobody talks about that. So there's a double standard between when we look at the two situations. Russia could have demolished Ukraine like we did in Iraq. It was a special operation to protect some of their people there. We might disagree on the reasons why Russia was involved, but that's another subject for another day. 

You say you wanted to find a safe home for the Jews, but How many Jews feel safe now? 75 years later. Was that a good idea? Should we [00:20:00] forget what Belfort said after the declaration of the establishment of Israel? Two months later, he says, this is a good way to get rid of the Jews from Europe, entire Europe.

So it was not for the sake of the Jews. They wanted to find a state. It was for the sake of the Europeans to get rid of the Jews. Anti Semitism was not in Palestine. It was in Europe. The Jews problem with anti Semitism was in Europe. It was not in Palestine.

The Jews who lived in Palestine and the Jews who lived among the Muslims and the Arab world, that was the golden age for the Hebrews when they lived among the Palestinians. It was the safest place for them to be. And if you look at the Hebrew encyclopedia, you will find that is the case. The Jews were the safest when they lived among the Arabs and the Muslims.

Matt Peiken: Now [00:21:00] JVP, what was the response from your vantage to October 7th? How did you feel and what was JVP's voice on October 8th?

Anne Craig: It was horrifying. It was a very tragic event. And I have to admit I Did not recently Look at the national JVP website. Do you recall any statements that were made about october 7th. 

Rebecca Croog: I wasn't organizing with JVP at the time. I was new to Asheville. I think that's something we could look up if that's one of those. Okay things. 

Matt Peiken: That's okay I looked on the website. There was nothing about it. There is nothing About october 7th on the national JVP website anywhere. No, so i'm just curious how you felt. That's all. i'm just 

Rebecca Croog: yeah I can speak to that and speak to like i've definitely heard in JVP spaces a condemnation of that violence and grief and mourning.

I mean, it wasn't JVP [00:22:00] specific, but the first action I went to in Asheville was a public mourner's Kaddish. So organized by Jewish anti Zionists and allies a mourner's Kaddish, of course, is a Jewish prayer. And it was For the dead, prayer for the dead. Yes, for the dead, that named The victims of the Hamas attacks and the victims of the ongoing, at that point, bombardment of Gaza and the Palestinian people by the Israeli military.

So I know in framings that is how they approach that. I'll say personally, like Anne was starting to say on October 7th, it was very horrifying. I have Family in Israel, and there was a mad rush to find out if everyone was okay, and they were, in fact, okay. And the most deeply they've been impacted is that one of my cousins got called up to the military.

. And then, I think [00:23:00] those of us who know the history and how things unfolded were terrified by the attacks themselves and then terrified about what the Israeli military's response would be. 

Matt Peiken: And Said, can you tell me, how did you respond to what happened on October 7th? What were your feelings? 

Said Abdallah: To start with, I'm against the killing of civilians in any way or form, whether it's a Palestinian or whether it was Israeli. Yeah. The facts were not in place at the time how everything has taken place and who killed who, but it was said that 1, 400 civilians were killed. And as of last week, the Haaretz newspaper has Published that the majority of the civilians have been killed by Israelis. 

Matt Peiken: Since then, I'm just saying on October 7th, I'm just curious about October 7th itself. I'm not talking about, because I want, I'm going to get into the aftermath and how Israel has waged its response, but just [00:24:00] October 7th itself. I was curious if you were surprised, angry, what did you feel? 

Said Abdallah: I was, surprised not totally surprised. I was surprised of the efficiency of the operation. You know that they had this intelligence to do this and attack three Military bases without Israel knowing anything about it, what was that was the surprise and at the surprise that the oppressed has Risen up and they decided to fight their oppressor.

That was always there. I know that Sooner or later the Palestinians will rise. There is so much pressure you can put on a group of people before they Do something about it.

Matt Peiken: Let me ask you, since you grew up there and it wasn't a surprise to you. Did you think what happened on October 7th, would that ultimately help the cause of the Palestinians or ultimately set them back in terms of having liberation from the Israeli state and any sense of [00:25:00] their own independence.

When you heard about what happened on October 7th, did you think that was ultimately going to be a positive for the Palestinians or a negative? 

Said Abdallah: Oh, it's definitely a positive, not a negative. 

Matt Peiken: Why do you feel that way? 

Said Abdallah: Palestinians have the international right to resist occupation in any form, whether it's peaceful or armed struggle.

They have the right. Any occupied people have the right to resist the occupier. So the Palestinians worked within their rights against the occupation. 

Matt Peiken: So you feel even to this day. That it's going to be because of October 7th, palestinians will be in a better place. Ultimately. Yeah, interesting. Anne, tell me your thoughts about october 7th.

Anne Craig: Oh, man i'm just always Heartbroken when any human group feels So desperate that violence is don't, I can't talk. I don't [00:26:00] know. I can't answer you. I'm a old anti war activist and I see what happened on October 7th similar to Attica, the prison uprising, and I think it was the early 70s, where the people in the prison were so maltreated that and they had expressed their concerns for such a long time that the prisoners And what fell on a deaf ear were treated barbarically in Attica, that they rose up, they took hostages and then they were met with massive retaliation from the state.

And I just think that the human tendency to oppress other people and think that there's never going to be a response is just totally foolhardy. And I think the cost in incredible trauma, loss of life, destruction of the environment, it is completely [00:27:00] antithetical to what we need to be doing for humanity to survive on this planet.

Rebecca Croog: I think Said and Anne are very importantly naming like the power dynamics here, and on the topic of JVP, part of the reason I'm drawn to JVP is because Jewish safety is part of our mission. Like true Jewish safety, not the illusion of Jewish safety that the state of Israel propagates, and not a Jewish safety that is predicated on the violent displacement and killing of an entire group of people. I feel that in the core of the movement work that we're doing, and it's why I'm part of it. 

Matt Peiken: Let's get to the local element of JVP. What role do local people have in a conflict that's happening on the other side of the planet? Talk about your own involvement and how you think being involved to the extent that you are locally makes a difference.

Rebecca Croog: I can [00:28:00] start and then pass this on to Anne, who has been such a leader in the local fight in a very concrete way, which is that we have been hard at work trying to get a local ceasefire resolution passed by city council. This started back in the early winter doing a lot of research to put that proposal together.

And I believe it was backed by 2000 signatures we were able to gain. Anne was the main writer, the main crafter of that proposal and we've been going, you know monthly by monthly to city council meetings to Make public comment in support of that. That's one really concrete way. 

Matt Peiken: A lot of people might ask from a distance what difference does a local resolution make in a conflict that's happening in israel?

Even a local resolution if it happened in new york city or a major city, and here we are a city of 90,000 people, What difference do you [00:29:00] think it makes on a practical level or a symbolic level?

Anne Craig: It helps to build momentum toward a certain point of view. Since most of us are US taxpayers and our government is funding and supplying the weapons that are being used to decimate the Gaza and is providing the quote, diplomatic cover so that the U. N. Doesn't seem to have be able to have any teeth in stopping this conflict, there's an obligation I feel on U. S. Citizens to know what's being done in their name with their tax money. And that is actually supported by a professor of government at Georgetown who the reporter for the Citizen Times who wrote an article on the decision by the mayor not to entertain a ceasefire resolution.

Matt Peiken: Mayor Manheimer, you're saying? 

Anne Craig: Yeah, Mayor [00:30:00] Manheimer. This professor Nadia Brown said that one ceasefire resolution doesn't have any teeth to create a ceasefire in Gaza, but she says it is the beauty of what our founders wanted for us when they set up federalism, people that are closest to those that they represent should be acting in the interests of those that they represent.

And if their constituents are saying that they want to take a stand, that they want to be able to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with their national government's handling of this international affair, they have every right to do so, and they are exercising that right. 

Matt Peiken: So you said the city council didn't take that up, at least not yet.

What other things are you involved in locally around not just directly related to what's happening in Israel and Palestine right now, but just on a [00:31:00] larger pulling back macro level, what are your larger goals? What are you working toward? 

Said Abdallah: Our goals are to create awareness and the community, our community, where we can influence people to let them know what the truth is.

And the resolution for the City Council is a test of Do you represent us? Or do you represent the funders of this massacre? This is at least we will have a statement to make regarding what is going on. But if our voice is not heard by being canceled by the mayor, that's a different story.

When the elections come next time, every one of those 2000 people know who to vote for. 

Matt Peiken: I imagine JVP has also seen some growth in its local membership. Where do you stand now? How many people are members, whether they're paid or otherwise, but just get your newsletters? Do you have a sense of that? 

Rebecca Croog: Yeah, I think it's about 40 to 50 people who have [00:32:00] Signed up, emailed us to be members.

It's about 20 to 25 that come to our monthly pod meetings. And this is where I can speak to what we're up to in the pod. As I've been pretty involved in this iteration and learning from Said and Anne about the initial iteration of creating a chapter here. And like drawing from that momentum and those lessons to, to really make something happen here.

So I think at this point. What our pod is doing is trying to create a Jewish Voice for Peace presence locally. That's where we're at. And so, to give you a bit of the history of it, I didn't know that there were many like me, but I emailed after the bombardment started. I emailed the JVP triangle branch, that was the closest branch I could find, and asked about is there a JVP presence in Asheville?

I thought this was just a one off thing. I didn't hear from them for a while. Turns out I didn't hear from them because they were getting so many emails like that from, Asheville, Ashevillians and like others in [00:33:00] smaller towns across North Carolina. And so all of a sudden I get this email like, Hey, we're putting you on a Signal thread.

Signal is the chatting app that we use. There are a bunch of people who want to get something going there. And it was so inspiring. We had our first meeting at a farm in Fairview and it was just a bunch of Jews and allies who were grieving, who were motivated, who were upset and committed and wanted to get something going here.

And we were really intentional, really diligent. I think we spent the subsequent Two next meetings just studying JVP, studying their principles and actually coming to a consensus around if we wanted to affiliate.

Matt Peiken: That's interesting. So to just get the timeline straight, JVP didn't actually have an Asheville chapter until after October 7th. Is that correct? 

Rebecca Croog: So there was a chapter. 

Anne Craig: A few years ago. Said and I went to the national meeting in 2017 in Chicago. [00:34:00] Our interest in JVP grew out of, I had been a member, but it grew out of a discussion group that we had for several years of Palestinians and Jews talking just about the situation and when we had reached the end of our Ability to talk, some of us wanted to form a JVP chapter. 

Matt Peiken: Let me ask you so you're still 25 very active, 50 who've shown interest that's not a huge number.

It's growing. And even though Asheville doesn't have a large Jewish population, it's by multiples much larger than 50. And I'm curious, what feedback have you received from Jews who belong to Beth Israel and HaTephila and, other, congregants around here? What interaction do you have with them? And what feedback have you received? 

Rebecca Croog: Yeah well, I've been a congregant at one of those synagogues. I'm not an active member at this time. I'm going to answer your question, but I want to speak to what you were saying about how 50 in the grand scheme of things isn't a large number.

Matt Peiken: [00:35:00] And I'm not denigrating that. Oh no, this is. I'm just giving, putting scale to it, that's all. 

Said Abdallah: There are many Jews who are members of JVP who don't attend the, who are not among the 25 who meet on a monthly basis. There's probably, if not hundreds, there's more than that. I met so many people myself. 

Matt Peiken: In town here?

Said Abdallah: In town here. As Okay. That they said they were members of JVP. They didn't know they have a chapter here. Oh, okay. That's at the time we had a chapter. So there's plenty of that. 

Matt Peiken: Okay. 

Rebecca Croog: Where we're at right now as a JVP pod, and I, this like jargon around a pod versus a chapter, I'm going to quickly explain that. JVP receiving all of this interest, they wanted to create a structure in which people who wanted to join the movement didn't need to fill out the full infrastructure of a chapter.

So they created this pod. It's just a more nimble way to gather as a local JVP presence. So we are officially the JVP Asheville pod. And while we are trying to establish ourselves as a local [00:36:00] Jewish Voice for Peace structure, we have a number of teams working on a number of issues. Where our attention and mine in particular has started to turn is toward coalitional work with other Palestinian liberation and peace organizations and movements here, knowing that wow, what we've created is small and mighty, but if we want to really have an impact, coalition is the way to go for strategic reasons, for moral reasons, for solidarity reasons. 

Matt Peiken: Give me a sense of what other groups are part of this fledgling coalition. 

Rebecca Croog: Yeah, so you were at the Gaza fundraiser and film screening of Hebron. So I think that gives a really good sense of the cross section of the coalition we're building. So one organization that in fact is Hosting an event in collaboration with Reject Raytheon is a local Palestinian led liberation collective called the Samud Collective.

And we have been invited to table at a film screening they're holding and Reject [00:37:00] Raytheon is another organization working toward peace and really getting us to understand how the military industrial complex exists. There's a note of it right here in Asheville. Those are two of the main groups. Asheville being like not the most organized town I think there's also just a lot of individuals who are drawn to this work who aren't yet specifically affiliated.

Matt Peiken: Yeah, so tell me you were you were a member or were a member of a congregation here. I'm just curious about any interactions you two in particular have had and Rebecca with Jews? And is there kismet? Has there been sympathizing? Or is there a real wall of separation between people who feel What happened in October 7th was a holocaust level attack and they are pro Israel in fighting back against that and people who are coming from your vantage and still identify as Jews.

So tell me what feedback and conversations you've had. 

Rebecca Croog: Yeah, at this time, we don't have [00:38:00] any formal relationships with synagogue leadership here in Asheville. We are very excited and optimistic and really doing our due diligence around an event we want to have. That as of now, we're toying with the title of where's my Jewish home.

We're very interested in engaging with Jewish people, like inviting Jewish people in who are maybe starting to question their relationship to the state of Israel and host and facilitate those sorts of difficult emotional conversations. So that's one way we're engaging what I would call the mainstream Jewish community.

And I will say at this point that for me as an observant Jew, it has been really disappointing to see generally the mainstream Jewish community really double down on their unconditional support for the Israeli military at this time. And for me personally, [00:39:00] who wants to find a congregation and was doing that when I first moved here, and not feeling like there is a space for me to be both a human rights activist, a Palestinian liberation activist, and a deeply prideful and observant Jew.

Matt Peiken: And you felt that even before October 7th? 

Rebecca Croog: Yes, yeah, and I felt it my whole adult life and I'm not alone in this and in fact, it's why JVP has a part of the movement and knowing that it's not applicable to all participants, a part of this movement, and one we are taking up locally, is creating Jewish spaces, like alternative Jewish spaces for us to worship, for us to be observant as who we are as Jews.

We're talking in so many different directions, but getting also back to the topic of what the presence we're having locally. So our pod meets monthly for strategy and planning meetings, as well as meets monthly for Shabbat [00:40:00] observance on Friday nights in various public spaces.

We hosted a Passover Seder and So we're working that end of trying to create spaces where Jews can feel welcome.

Matt Peiken: You all have spoken to a ceasefire as the bottom line or baseline JVP goal at least You know among other goals, but a ceasefire being the most immediately pressing.

What do you want to see happen, ultimately? Whether it's temporary or not, what happens after a ceasefire? What do you want to see happen?

Said Abdallah: The question to your answer, where do we go from here?

Yeah. It's unfortunate that after 75 years of suffering for the Palestinians, only October 7 is the only thing that brings people attention. The loss of Jewish human life is the only thing that brought that. In 1978, israeli war and Lebanon, there was 2800 Palestinians massacred in Sabra and [00:41:00] Shatila within 48 hours, and that's not being discussed. The Palestinians go through October 7 almost on daily basis. Maybe it's not the same amount, but has anyone told you that there's 9000 Palestinian has been taken out of their homes, captives, beside the 6000 Palestinian who are political prisoners? Nobody talks about that. We talk about that hostages. I called captives. It was the only weapon for the Palestinians to get their people, their 5000 at the time, out. But now there is 14 15, 000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons with no charges.

The majority of them have no charges. We'll go back to the question. Where do we go from here? We need to deal with the cause of the problem, not manage the problem by that like the Israeli, the zionist plans are. We go mow the lawn every two years in Gaza. This is their management of the occupation.

They don't look [00:42:00] to find out a soluble solution, creating a state for everyone to live in with equal rights. It's not going to be resolved by managing the problem. We all know that. As long as we turn our face away to what the real cause of the problem, it's not going to be solved.

Matt Peiken: Tell me, so is the real cause the very existence of a Jewish led, a designated Jewish territory in the Middle East?

Said Abdallah: The Mormons were established in New York. I don't see any Mormons saying, we must insist on a Mormon state, 

Matt Peiken: they have Utah. 

Said Abdallah: Well, okay. They can have Uganda or somewhere else, or they can go to Bavaria in Germany, so this is where they can establish a state there if they think that's a safe place.

Matt Peiken: I'm just trying to interpret what you're telling me. So unless we undo the root cause and I'm interpreting the root cause is the very notion that any land designated there in the Middle East that is [00:43:00] designated as Jewish led rather than purely democratic, all people's voting that anything short of that is that is not answering the cause.

Said Abdallah: Exactly. Yeah. A Jewish state is not going to solve the problem for the Jews or the Palestinians. 

Matt Peiken: We can't solve this, but I'm just drawn to questions like, could we dismantle every settlement? Yes. Could we, or at least turn it over back into Palestinian hands? Yes. Would the Israeli government self dissolve? No, I don't know how that would ever happen. So you're saying just the very existence of Israel as we know it, as long as there is that existence, we are always going to be having this threat and this problem. 

Said Abdallah: As long as Israel exists in the form that it's in, a rogue state. That's not going to solve the problem. 

Matt Peiken: Do you think a two state solution, when Ehud Olmert was prime minister, and there are other previous prime ministers in Israel who were sympathetic or at least having talks to a two state [00:44:00] solution, do you think that would have been an answer, a pragmatic answer back in the 70s and 80s?

Said Abdallah: The only person who agreed to start or establish a Palestinian state was Yitzhak Rabin, and we know what happened to him. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah, he was assassinated. 

Said Abdallah: So even in the Oslo agreement that the Palestinians have agreed on, the West Bank was divided into three sections. I don't know if I'm going to go into those details, but the ABC, the A is areas, disconnected areas for the Palestinians. In order to go from this A in Ramallah to this A in Nablus, you have to go through Israeli territory and so the structure of the peace plan of the Israelis is not to have a Palestinian state.

Biden says we'll talk about it. There'll be a road for Palestinian state. The Israelis said, no, there's not going to be a Palestinian state. 

Matt Peiken: Certainly not [00:45:00] under Netanyahu, no way. 

Said Abdallah: Netanyahu before him, and they all talk about it. And Netanyahu said, when he first came in, when he talked about Palestinian state, he says if anything, they might get two-and-a-half percent of the West Bank, not the historic Palestine. He was saying, all we're doing is buying time. We bought 10 years, we can buy 10 more years. This is in 2003, I can buy 10 more years. We just like I said, managing, kicking the can forward until it becomes The reality on the ground.

This is what they believe, we build more settlements. It becomes a reality. They say that these settlements are not going anywhere. They started with the 180, 000 settlers in the West Bank. Now they're close to a million settlers. 

Matt Peiken: Let me ask you. So, you know, JVP, the very existence of it is based on a hope, right?

That there's a hope. I won't say optimism. That's different than a hope. But you tell me, How [00:46:00] do you maintain your sense of hope and positive forward thinking when, Anne, you've lived your adult life in fighting for and being an anti war activist and being Nonviolent advocate and Rebecca, you're attempting to hold on and celebrate your Judaism at a time when it's hard to be, at least in this country, Jewish and anti Zionist and, as it's framed, and fight for Palestinian rights.

And you, Said, you've seen it from both ends. You grew up there, and you're here now, and the way you just painted the picture for me, if that is what the reality is, and I guess I want to close with this, and your thoughts on this. If that's the reality, we are a Jewish Voice for Peace, you are. If that's what it takes to find peace. Are you always going to be chasing that carrot? How do you maintain your hope? How do you maintain forward movement when that seems so difficult? [00:47:00] And that's an understatement to get to what you're talking about, Said. How do you do it? 

Anne Craig: It's hard, actually, for me to maintain a sense of hope. But, I have felt that My purpose right now as an older person frankly is to Be on the side of justice and liberation for the Palestinian people.

Because I feel it's almost a fulcrum issue for the direction humanity is going. Humanity is becoming more and more militarized, more and more depending on war to supposedly resolve conflict than diplomacy. And I know that the state of Israel and the military of Israel could not be doing what it's doing if it wasn't for the United States.

And so as an American citizen, I feel it's incumbent upon me to [00:48:00] express my dissatisfaction to my government that I want my government to stop enabling the oppression and occupation and murder of the Palestinian people and the destruction of Palestine and that's what I just feel I can do, whether or not I know that it will succeed, I don't.

Matt Peiken: It sounds like that you can't focus on that It's just more the mission and the ever present fight for that. 

Anne Craig: I think so. 

Matt Peiken: Okay rebecca,

Rebecca Croog: I want to echo Anne that It is hard and Imagining how hard it is for us Who are in? immediate safety just Comparing that scaling that up to the way it is hard for terrorized Gazans and Palestinian people right now. It is in fact too much to bear and I break down [00:49:00] regularly. I want to try to speak a bit actually in my answer to this question also to your previous question around thinking about a future, you know what happens next and I'm so glad Said is here to speak to that because what I believe and JVP's stance as well is that it's for those who are living on the land or have lived on the land to create that future world and to enact that and our duty right now is to address this human rights emergency and pull whatever lever of power we can to stop the killing. I also, though, I do get dreamy around the future and I think this is part of what gives me hope, is thinking of myself as part of a long lineage of Jewish people who believe in liberation and peace and freedom and a very active sort of justice.

You've probably heard of the concept of tikkun olam, [00:50:00] this Kabbalistic concept that we are tasked with repairing the broken world that we have encountered. And I think That there are so many incredible Jewish frameworks, both religious and just activists. I think of in Eastern Europe, this concept of doikite that a lot of the Jewish socialists took up, doikite meaning here ness in Yiddish, as an alternative to the there ness of Zionism, really seeing true Jewish safety as struggling in solidarity with other groups, Where we find ourselves in the places that we find ourselves. A few other frameworks that give me hope, Hesh bon ha nefesh how we are tasked as Jews with every day accounting for our souls in what way are we acting morally in the world. The concept of Lo ta'amod, and you don't have to include all of this but it's just to show that the list goes on and on to compel Jewish people To fight for peace. [00:51:00] Lo ta'amod, not standing idly by. Darchei Shalom, that the way to peace is the way to peace for all.

And these are the sorts of things that give me hope as well as comrades who have been in it for so long, like Said And Anne.

Matt Peiken: And Said, your sense of hope.

Said Abdallah: Yeah. What gives me hope is being away from the country during this massacre, six out of the eight people who contacted me were Jews to see if my family was okay.

And that gives me hope. I believe Anne and I talked almost every two weeks just to keep the solidarity going, just to stay in touch with what's going on here. She filled me on everything. The awareness that JVP has created in the United States is tremendous. It's amazing.

And not only in the United States, you look at Colombia, look at Bolivia, look at Chile. They cut ties with Israel. The masks has come off from [00:52:00] the face of the Israelis and their allies. People in England, look what they did. People in France, look what happened with the elections or what's going to happen very soon.

Yeah. So the awareness has been created and this is what JVP is doing, creating awareness in this country and anywhere they're present. And I have a lot of hope in that. And like I said, my goal is to see or to know that a country with people, Palestinians, Israelis and anybody who wants to live in there have equal rights and not have a rogue state.

They think that their security only happens when I'm insecure. I have a lot of hope, young people like Rebecca are my hope and this is what I said to you before. I will sit down with you if people like Rebecca is here.