The Campus Protesters Explain Themselves

[0] From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily.

[1] I'm a student here.

[2] I'm in English major.

[3] Please, don't fail us.

[4] Don't fail us.

[5] Over the past month, protests over the war in Gaza have rocked college campuses across the country.

[6] Watch out!

[7] Let's see!

[8] Long -distance vision for the future.

[9] Now.

[10] I know that there's a lot going on in the world right now.

[11] now, and there are many places to express your views, including other places in the Coliseum.

[12] But today is a day when we're celebrating our graduates.

[13] As students graduate and go home for the summer, my daily colleagues and I talk to three of them about why they got involved, what they wanted to say, and how they ended up facing off against each other.

[14] It's Friday, May 17th.

[15] Hello.

[16] Hi, is this Mustafa?

[17] Yes.

[18] How are y 'all doing?

[19] Good.

[20] This is Sabrina and Lindsay is also on the line with us.

[21] Lindsay Garrison, my colleague.

[22] Hi, nice to talk with you.

[23] Nice to meet you, Lindsay.

[24] Thank you for having me. My name is Mustafa Yao.

[25] I'm 20 years old, and I study at the University of Texas at Austin.

[26] I study civil engineering.

[27] I'm a third year.

[28] Mustafa, tell me where you grew up.

[29] Got you, yeah.

[30] I'm from Irving, Texas.

[31] My dad's from Shurban, Texas.

[32] My dad's from Shurban.

[33] Irman, Texas.

[34] And my mother's from Nabas, Felostin.

[35] I went to school in the United States my entire life.

[36] I was born in the United States, but I've always traveled back and forth from here to Palestine.

[37] It's a second home to me, but my roots are in the United States.

[38] And what was it like growing up in Irving, Texas?

[39] It was fine.

[40] I mean, we grew up in a house.

[41] We were in by no means.

[42] We were in by no means.

[43] It's poor, but only my dad worked and...

[44] What was his job?

[45] Truck driver, a tanker.

[46] But we had air conditioning, the bills were paid.

[47] You know, I had guitars, my dad buy me guitars, so I was comfortable.

[48] But I didn't really have a lot, I didn't know any Arabs.

[49] I knew very few other Arabs.

[50] My school was mostly Hispanic and African American.

[51] It wasn't, weren't a lot of white kids and no Arabs or anything like.

[52] that.

[53] And your mom, did she speak Arabic with you?

[54] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[55] I speak like a broken Arabic with an accent, but yeah, we all speak Arabic.

[56] Was it part of your identity?

[57] Was it part of how you thought of yourself?

[58] For sure, always, yeah, definitely part of my culture.

[59] And it's unique to be able to go spend a summer in a totally different country environment.

[60] You know, I always love being Palestinian.

[61] I love my family over there.

[62] I always enjoy it.

[63] Always more of a community.

[64] I felt a lot more tight -knit than the United States where you just don't have that close -knit of a community as over there.

[65] Do you have a memory of what that felt like?

[66] For sure, yeah.

[67] Just waking up in the morning going to my grandma's house and my grandmother, my grandfather had 13 kids.

[68] My mom was the ninth one.

[69] So There's people going in and out of her house, and everyone's just around.

[70] And it would always smell like, you know, rice and vegetables, whatever dish they were making.

[71] Lamb, Gusha.

[72] Got the TV going.

[73] That were a crazy show they're watching.

[74] Dramatic soap opera.

[75] Because the city's small, it's meant for walking.

[76] So I just walk around and just...

[77] Going around, seeing the city with my cousins, just following them around, hanging out.

[78] I would go outside the start of the day, and I wouldn't come back in until I go to bed.

[79] Was it beautiful?

[80] Yeah.

[81] I would sit at my grandma's apartment building and look down at the city from the top, give the mountain, and take it in.

[82] Nabitz is just a valley, two big mountains, and then everything in between.

[83] It's like a cereal bowl.

[84] You want to think of it like that.

[85] And then the stars are a lot clearer.

[86] The cool wind is blowing at night.

[87] It's beautiful.

[88] 60 -some, 70 -some degrees.

[89] I'll be in a sweater.

[90] Just looking down at the city, looking at the mountains, trying to notice details, trying to see where I walked that day, trying to map out the path and recognizing buildings, that sort of thing.

[91] And then the beautiful sound of the adan.

[92] It echoes through when you're up high.

[93] It's got that natural reverb, that natural delay, which is always cool.

[94] Breaking news now from the occupied West Bank.

[95] This has turned into one of the deadliest days in years.

[96] Palestinian leaders say Israeli forces have killed at least nine Palestinians during an arrest raid in a flashpoint area.

[97] They protested what they say is the rising wave of violent attacks.

[98] by extremist Jewish settlers.

[99] And Mustafa, Noblis is, of course, a city in the West Bank.

[100] Was there a sense of the problems between Palestinians and Israel?

[101] What was your sense of that as a kid?

[102] Yeah, it's kind of nature there.

[103] It goes without saying, you know, there is this enemy.

[104] I mean, that's how my family got there.

[105] You know, my grandparents were from Yaffa, which is a part of Israel now, and they were forced in the Navas, their refugees in Navas.

[106] There would be conflicts or the IDF would come in and arrest somebody or something, and it would be throwing rocks and it would be chaos.

[107] And I was too young to comprehend it.

[108] And then I saw a raid and IDF raid up close, and you could go.

[109] after they left, you go look at the door that they blew off with the grenade and like this big metal door mangled and twisted and as obviously the idea of driving off people throwing rocks.

[110] Did your cousins ever talk about it?

[111] Do you remember as a kid, grownups at the dinner table talking about it?

[112] That's the thing.

[113] It was never like somebody was like, hey, this is what's happening.

[114] It was just, that's just reality.

[115] It's like you don't remember learning that the sky is blue.

[116] You don't remember.

[117] learning that airplanes exist.

[118] So to answer your question, no, because like I said, every single day, that's a reality for them.

[119] Did you see Israelis?

[120] Was that part of your family's life there?

[121] Well, yeah.

[122] So actually, it's changed a lot.

[123] So before you just see them through the bridge, so there's Israeli soldiers at the Israeli checkpoint.

[124] They got their big machine guns and their fancy hats.

[125] But recently, when I was in high school, more and more illegal settlements in the West Bank and Israel just taking over all the highway systems and travel systems there, you do see traveling city to city.

[126] The car had the yellow license plate than it's Israeli settlers.

[127] Was it changing from summer to summers you were growing up?

[128] Yeah, every summer was different.

[129] Yeah, every summer, more settlements.

[130] You know, billboards of a, like a young Jewish family.

[131] family, young man, young woman holding their young Jewish baby and something in Hebrew kind of advertising, like, this is a settlement, call this number, encouraging Israelis to move there all across the highway.

[132] You see that more and more.

[133] Like, I remember having a conversation.

[134] My uncle was delivering maybe chlorine.

[135] I forget what he was delivering, but we drove to Jericho.

[136] We're seeing all the billboards and the tanks driving by us and the yellow license.

[137] place in the settlements.

[138] I remember talking to him about what Israel's end goal is and like what in his mind and the Palestinian's mind.

[139] What do we want?

[140] Like what's the ideal situation from us practically, practically what could happen?

[141] He spoke of it as if I asked them what the weather was.

[142] He explained that the cities can't expand so they want to again move us out of Palestinian land into Jordan or into Egypt and to have us as refugees but uh he talked about how most Palestinians want the the West Bank and Gaza they want that two -state solution and not be annexed by Israel like they are now and it's scary to think about because obviously that's the other half of my family and you know that's why I'm so invested in it here because It matters so much.

[143] So you go to Austin, Texas, to go to University of Texas.

[144] How was your experience on campus?

[145] I mean, were you friends with Arab students, Arab American students?

[146] Definitely, yeah, Palestinians and Arabs in general.

[147] I'd meet them around campus here and there, and I knew about the Palestinian Solidarity community.

[148] I knew about Arab Student Association.

[149] But I wasn't active in until last fall.

[150] After October 7th, there was some increased Palestinian demonization or like it's racism, if you want to call it.

[151] There were a couple of things in West Campus.

[152] Somebody, like a Muslim guy, got stabbed by a, it wasn't a Jewish guy, just a white guy.

[153] And then there was a Palestinian Saudi Committee meeting.

[154] And there were two IDF soldiers that infiltrated the campus building and, like, harassed the people outside of the meeting.

[155] I'm not going to be violence.

[156] I'm just saying you are fucking terrorists.

[157] No violence.

[158] Don't get two colors.

[159] No, no, no, no violence.

[160] It's just you're fucking terrorists, that you're fucking terrorists.

[161] No violence.

[162] We're not asking that you just don't go into the room where...

[163] I'm not going into the room.

[164] I'm not going to need to do you know Israel?

[165] What is Palestine?

[166] What is fucking Palestine?

[167] It's not even a police.

[168] You don't even know what the government.

[169] Like, Israeli army soldiers at University of Texas?

[170] I guess former IDS soldier, grown men, right?

[171] Grown, trained military men, they come in and harassing people outside telling them, we're going to do this, we're going to do that.

[172] I remember their words exactly.

[173] Were you there?

[174] I was not there, no. It was the fact that I wasn't there that that made me really feel the need to be more present in the community.

[175] I had a kind of fire in my body that you should have been there.

[176] When you're in a tight -knit community, you feel bigger, you feel more fulfilled.

[177] And for me to not be there was made me feel small.

[178] So I participated in the protests through downtown Austin.

[179] And I saw the stuff on it for social media or on social media.

[180] So I walk from campus to the Capitol.

[181] And then I come into the Capitol, whatever part of the Capitol along it was, and just see this huge crowd.

[182] Wow.

[183] Just the giant mass of people taking up the entire road.

[184] And then holding signs, chanting people with their kids.

[185] And then you look up at the parking garages and buildings.

[186] You've got people waving Palestinian flags.

[187] I've never seen anything like that in America before.

[188] Had you ever been to a protest before?

[189] No. And to see it, it's totally different than what you can imagine.

[190] It's like I show you a picture of the beach, and you're like, yeah, it's going to be nice.

[191] And then you go there and then you see the beach.

[192] You're not surprised it's pretty.

[193] But, you know, it still means something when you actually go see it.

[194] That was before campus protests began, but within the Palestinian Solidarity Committee, we held more events, more teaching events.

[195] And then a march to the tower with more channing, and that was a few hundred people, students, all students.

[196] I remember talking to it with my era of friends, how we were surprised.

[197] that it wasn't just Arabs and it wasn't just Muslims at the process.

[198] It was like regular students we saw, you know, regular white guys that could have been in a frat or they got on their coats and their backpacks and they just, they don't look like they're part of any group that would have already been conscious of the situation.

[199] And it was very surprising to see that, see that many people take the time out of their day.

[200] It's heard to be that important to them.

[201] Like it is important to me is definitely meaningful.

[202] And what did that mean to you?

[203] It meant so much because optimism, optimism that I never had before.

[204] Kind of one of the reasons that I wasn't as present in the Arab communities, kind of like how I described back in Navas, the Israeli occupation is just reality.

[205] But to have this reaction, it felt like this caused.

[206] It's not hopeless.

[207] It was like all of your life, it had just been this fact.

[208] Exactly right.

[209] Yeah.

[210] It was hopeless before.

[211] Like you're screaming at a brick wall.

[212] But now, yeah, you feel big when everybody's yelling the same thing you are.

[213] And are they continuing to organize in plan protests?

[214] What's happening now?

[215] Right now.

[216] So every day this week, there's been sitting, teaching, lunch, studying going on on the South Tower lawn.

[217] What's the mood like?

[218] It's peaceful.

[219] It's nice.

[220] Sometimes you'll have the Zionists come in and the counter protest or something like that.

[221] But generally, it's been fine.

[222] Not very much tension.

[223] Mustafa, who are the Zionists?

[224] When you say Zionists, who are you talking about?

[225] You mean like the definition of a Zionist?

[226] Zionist is someone who believes that the entire land should be the state of Israel and is their God -given right.

[227] And that is how the illegal occupation, illegal settlements, that's how all that is justified.

[228] It's the idea of Zionism.

[229] So it will be people pulling Israeli for, flags and their intention there is to show their support for Israel and kind of be Israel's voice in this situation.

[230] You can go up there and talk to them and that sort of thing.

[231] I would show up to the other side's protests with my Israeli flag because it was very important to me, even in the face of hate, to not be bullied or scared off campus.

[232] And it was important to me as someone who felt confident and comfortable enough to do that, that I kind of acted as, you know, a voice for my peers around me who kind of were anxious and didn't want to be seen.

[233] We'll be right back.

[234] I consider myself as proud as Zionist as can be.

[235] And what that means very simply is that I believe in the Jewish people's right to a state in their historic homeland.

[236] And that's something that people misunderstand about Jews is that we're not just a religion.

[237] We are a people and we've always considered ourselves to be a people.

[238] The first covenant is with Abraham, I'll make you a great nation.

[239] My colleague, daily producer Jessica Chung, talked to Alicia Baker, a sophomore at Columbia University.

[240] I'm studying Middle East history and Arabic language.

[241] I also studied Hebrew my whole life, and I feel like as somebody who's studying the Middle East and wants to, for my life, participate in Middle East diplomacy and conversations about the future of the Middle East, it was necessary for me to both learn the history from new perspectives and learn Arabic language.

[242] And where did you grow up?

[243] I grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, right outside Boston.

[244] Yeah, when I went to Jewish Day School my entire life, growing up in Brookline was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I grew up in an observant, modern Orthodox Jewish community, but I went to pluralistic Jewish day school, which meant that at school, I was around Jews with all sorts of different backgrounds and, you know, different ways of practicing their religion.

[245] So bar mitzvah season was very fun for me because, you know, one week I was an Orthodox synagogue and the next week I was in a reform synagogue where they were playing guitar and drums.

[246] And that was very good for my, you know, my Jewish religious literacy.

[247] Can you tell me like a story from childhood about something that maybe happened to you that first got you to understand what it is to be a Jewish person?

[248] Yeah, that's such a good question.

[249] You know, I've literally, I have never been asked that question.

[250] So there was one year, I can't remember exactly what year, but in middle school, so every year we have a fast day.

[251] And it's, it's the thing from Yom Kippur, because Yom Kippur is about repentance, and it's also a fast day, but Kishabab is really a fast day of mourning.

[252] And it's a sad day.

[253] like the saddest day of the year.

[254] And so one of the things you're not allowed to do is, you know, watch a comedy or do things like for pleasure.

[255] You can't watch The Office on Kishabah as much as I love the office.

[256] So when I was younger, what that meant was watching movies about the Holocaust.

[257] And I remember in like sixth grade probably, I watched for the first time the boy in the striped pajamas.

[258] I'm Bruno.

[259] Schmole.

[260] Sorry.

[261] I'm schmool.

[262] Schmoo?

[263] No one's called schmoo.

[264] What happens is there's a Jewish boy in the striped pajamas who's in one of the death camps and a German general and a Nazi who lives near the death camps.

[265] And his son is the same age as the Jewish boy.

[266] And they kind of develop this thing, like this secret friendship or whatever.

[267] Are you not allowed out?

[268] Why?

[269] What have you done?

[270] I'm a Jew.

[271] And in the end, the Jewish boy sneaks the German boy into the camp and they end up in line for quote unquote the shower.

[272] And the German boy, they go into the gas chamber and the German general tries to get there in time to stop it and doesn't get there in time.

[273] And I was just bawling.

[274] At the end when you see his face through the window, the tiny little window of the gas chamber.

[275] And the German kid, who by the way, tragically dies as well because he follows his Jewish friend because he didn't understand the difference because he just saw him as a human being.

[276] And my God, did that stick with me and still has stuck with me in terms of just understanding how brutal And inhumane the Holocaust was?

[277] Well, certainly you grew up in an observant family, but did you grow up in a political family at all?

[278] Like, did your parents ever talk to you about the state of Israel or Palestine?

[279] And, like, did that ever come up?

[280] Definitely.

[281] I mean, I went in 10th grade and 11th grade.

[282] I was like, all right, I need to know about this conflict more than I already do.

[283] And I was like, you know, I know my people's history, and I would love to know their narrative.

[284] So I read Edward Saeed, the question of Palestine and Orientalism.

[285] I read Rashid Khalid's 100 years war in Palestine.

[286] I read Rashid Kalidi's Palestinian identity.

[287] I also read Dershowitz's book on called The Case for Israel and Yose Kline -Halevi's letters to my Palestinian neighbor and Daniel Gordas is Israel.

[288] Kind of foundational texts on both sides of this.

[289] And I would come to the dinner table and be like, all right like well what the heck happened in 1948 you know whose fault was it that the pal that many Palestinians had to leave and at the end of the day like it is definitely clear that it's complicated so i came to columbia in search of a an academically serious environment with peers from different backgrounds who because of our different backgrounds we might learn so much from each other.

[290] But what I'm feeling right now is some of these people don't believe that I have a right to be at that table.

[291] I want to get to the protests and what's been happening on campus, but just to reel it back a little bit, what happened in the days after October 7th?

[292] Morning.

[293] Morning.

[294] It was a time for mourning and for being with our community.

[295] And then on October 12th, we found out that, students for justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, the token Jews who support anti -Semitic and violent rhetoric, they were planning an all -out for Palestine rally on October 12th.

[296] Wait a second.

[297] What the hell are you talking about?

[298] You're planning a rally at October 12th?

[299] Like, we were literally still bagging bodies in the South Israelis who were massacred.

[300] To me, that was like the most inhumane, unsensitive, it really just morally reprehensible thing that I had ever seen in my entire life, and it really, really pissed me off.

[301] From the river to the sea!

[302] From the river to the sea!

[303] I will be free!

[304] And as a Jewish community, we, you know, there was a conversation.

[305] What do we do about this?

[306] Everyone, we're gonna ask everyone to gather in a circle, so that we can sing together in a sign of Jewish unity and so that we can stand strong in front of the people who want to tear us down.

[307] They'll never tear us down.

[308] Come on.

[309] And we did 22 minutes of silence, which at that time was one second for each of the around 1 ,300 victims.

[310] And then got into a big circle and just sang songs of peace and unity and perseverance.

[311] It was really a moment for community and it was also so disheartening to see our peers celebrating October 7th.

[312] That was really, you know, that was a wake -up call to the fact that we have some real problems.

[313] But also, I would try and talk to people, and then sometimes the leaders would be like, you know, you're not allowed to talk to these guys with the Israeli flags.

[314] Once in a while, I'd be able to talk to somebody, and I was lucky enough that there was one person who was actually Palestinian and, you know, friendly enough to speak with me, and then, you know, we got to talking and ended up getting coffee.

[315] We spoke a lot, about narrative and the importance of narrative to history.

[316] And I would stress the importance of the Jewish story and be open to hearing obviously the Palestinian side.

[317] When the protests on Columbia's campus started, we were already hearing globalize the Intifada from New York to Gaza.

[318] And this movement on campus continues to scream Intifada Revolution and there is only one solution, right?

[319] Intifada Revolution.

[320] Now, as somebody who knows the Jewish story and the Israeli story, I know what intifada is.

[321] It means violence against Jews.

[322] The second Intifada happened between 2000 and 2005.

[323] Over 1 ,000 Jews were killed.

[324] Thousands were injured.

[325] And it was basically a series of bus bombing, suicide bombings, stabbing, shootings perpetrated, perpetuated by Palestinian terrorists.

[326] So that's what I hear when I hear Intifada.

[327] It is a call for violence against Jews everywhere, very, very simply.

[328] So I raised that concern, and I said, please shut it down because this is a threat against Jews and it's going to normalize violence against Jews.

[329] And I was told, no, the Arabic root of Intifada is Nafada, which means shaking things up.

[330] And I said, well, you can't use etymological roots to reverse what the means.

[331] meaning has become.

[332] And I was told, well, we're not calling for violence.

[333] And I would say, well, what are you calling for?

[334] And there was never a concrete answer.

[335] We've had this conversation probably 10 times over lunch and passing.

[336] We're not going to agree.

[337] It is a call for violence against Jews.

[338] There is no way that any other minority could get his claims of discrimination denied by the use of an etymological root.

[339] everyone who has to go through DEI training is taught that a microaggression is something that you say, but you didn't mean to be racist, but maybe might come off as offensive.

[340] And we're taught that the impact of your words matters more than your intent when you say it.

[341] Now I'm saying, well, here's the impact of your words on me. Here's how I experience them as a Jew, as a minority.

[342] And I'm being told, no, no, no, the intent of the speaker matters more than the impact on you.

[343] What kind of double standard is that?

[344] You mentioned earlier this phrase token Jew.

[345] Who are the token Jews?

[346] To me, I think it's really sad.

[347] There are some Jewish people who identify, I guess, as Jewish, but reject the existence of the state of Israel.

[348] And what's happening is that they're saying, oh, you know, I'm Jewish and I'm anti -Zionist, so therefore anti -Zionism is not anti -Semitism, or therefore this movement can't be anti -Semitic because I'm a part of it.

[349] That is textbook tokenization.

[350] And who are they?

[351] I don't know who they are.

[352] I don't know who they are.

[353] But I do know that they do not know the Jewish story.

[354] They just don't know it.

[355] They are signing statements and leading protests that are celebrating the murder of Israelis and of Jews.

[356] how in good conscience as a Jew could you possibly do that?

[357] Have you ever been called that, token Jew?

[358] Oh my God, I have been called a self -hating Jew.

[359] I've been told I want the extermination of Jewish people.

[360] I have not been directly called a token Jew, but I have definitely been things online that insinuate that myself and other Jewish people in this movement are.

[361] and it hurts.

[362] But I know it's not true.

[363] I know that it is not an accurate portrayal of me or my feelings, but that it is an accurate portrayal of other people's fear and desire for safety.

[364] I also want my people to be safe.

[365] But my desire for safety is not built on the idea that I have.

[366] has to come to someone else's expense.

[367] My name is Jasmine Jolly.

[368] I'm 25.

[369] I'm a student at Cal Poly Humbold.

[370] I'm a student of the Child Development Department.

[371] And I am at home in Arcata, California.

[372] I grew up in Sonoma County.

[373] I'm of Ashkenazi descent on my mom's side.

[374] My dad's a high school teacher, and my mom ran a daycare for years, and my parents were both activists, they took us to anti -war protests.

[375] Like, when Bush attacked Iraq, they had us at protests, and my mom made us all shirts.

[376] Like, I think mine said war is bad for toddlers.

[377] My sisters said war is bad for babies.

[378] Her said war is bad for moms.

[379] My dad said war is bad for dad.

[380] And what about your faith?

[381] Did they practice Judaism?

[382] Were your parents more culturally Jewish?

[383] My dad was raised Catholic, but I was raised really proudly, like, culturally Jewish.

[384] So we always had really big, like, family cedars, big Hanukkah parties.

[385] We celebrated Russia Shana together.

[386] I'm really openly Jewish.

[387] And I talk about it a lot.

[388] I talk about the values through, like, my understanding of Jewish tradition.

[389] And just, like, historically for me, holding on to that title of Jewish and being able to pass it on to my children one day is really, really important.

[390] so yeah like i'm raising jewish babies one day for sure but i have been i've been in a lot of spaces where i didn't feel jewish enough and i've also been told a lot throughout my life that i don't look jewish i look like the irish english goddish side of my family um so yeah like I don't in a lot of ways fit Jewish stereotypes, and I've never been targeted because of it.

[391] And that at least is like, I'm sure partially because of how I look.

[392] And then two, three years ago, I had been giving a lot of consideration to the idea of birthright.

[393] Birthright trip is a free trip that anyone who can prove Jewish ancestry is given to Israel.

[394] It's seen as a birthright of Jewish people.

[395] And then in my mid -late teenage years, I had read about people walking off of their birthright trip in protest.

[396] And that sort of sparked like a bit of a deeper dive beyond the honestly very little that I knew about the country previously.

[397] And I started reading about that.

[398] And I started reading about settler violence in the West Bank.

[399] And I, So looked at, like, historical maps and historical treaties.

[400] And I was like, there's things here that I wasn't, like, told that people didn't tell me. Like what?

[401] Like, about settler violence and this, like, pretty continuous push from Israeli people onto Palestinian land and then expulsion of Palestinians from their land.

[402] But that was a really big turning point for me. So you never went on the birthright trip.

[403] No, and I won't.

[404] And then mid -October, right around that time, there were the campus dialogues on race.

[405] And for a class, we were assigned to go to two of these and to write about our experience there.

[406] So one I went to was given by a Palestinian student on, I think they called it like Tadrides, like resistance embroidery.

[407] And at that point, I was watching Israel's retaliation.

[408] Now, more than 12 ,700 Palestinians have been killed.

[409] I watched the numbers of the dead go up, and I watched family lines being wiped out, people being pushed out of their homes.

[410] Families are burying their dead in mass with little time.

[411] I've seen hundreds and hundreds of images of dead children and dead families and bodies and mass graves.

[412] Gaza becoming a graveyard for children, the UN chief says.

[413] And all I could see in that was this parallel to how my family was treated in Eastern Europe.

[414] And that was when the severity sunk in.

[415] I come from a people who are historically expelled.

[416] And I felt like I was watching Israel do what was done to my family.

[417] And that was the end.

[418] of any way I could support that country for me. I felt like I was watching them enact to vengeance out of fear.

[419] And I know exactly where that fear of, like, exile and extermination comes from in Jewish people because I feel it for my family when they had to leave Eastern Europe or for the few who went to Western Europe instead of the U .S. when they had to leave France and when they died.

[420] And the lesson I learned, I feel like from my history is that I have a voice that is powerful.

[421] I feel like my Jewish family especially teaches me to ask questions, and that is what I am trying to do.

[422] So I thought that if there was any way that my voice could influence an end to violence, I would try to make it loud.

[423] So we had a couple of vigils for people who have died in Ghana, where we read testimonies of their stories or some of their words.

[424] That was when I got more involved with Humble for Palestine up here.

[425] And eventually we shifted to being at the Eureka courthouse on Friday.

[426] and we have been there every Friday ever since.

[427] And what was your sign that you made?

[428] Mine said in honor of my Jewish ancestors, I stand with Palestine.

[429] Jasmine, during these protests, I wanted to ask you if you ever felt hostility toward you because of your Jewishness?

[430] No, nothing that has like ever made me feel excluded.

[431] I'm sure you've seen some of these comparisons of like Nazis and IDS or people compare Netanyahu to Hitler.

[432] And once we had a person show up to one of our regular protests with an Israeli flag, but instead of the Star of David, it had a swastika on it.

[433] And that I was immediately uncomfortable with.

[434] I will not stand with a swastika.

[435] I will not stand next to a swastika.

[436] I will not stand in the same group as a swastika.

[437] I, like, adamantly refused.

[438] I cannot do that.

[439] I will not stand here with any Nazi symbolism.

[440] Like, this is going to bring more violence and vitrile aimed in our direction.

[441] We already get coffee cups there in the dust.

[442] We already get spit at and yell that.

[443] And in order to keep the people that we are inviting to these protests safe, we knew that that was not the time and place for it.

[444] So there's this chant Intifada Revolution is the only solution.

[445] What does that mean to you?

[446] so intifada has come to represent uprising but it means literally to shake off and it is the word that has been used to label a number of violent uprisings of different Palestinian groups against Israeli occupation does that seem like a fair like actual like official definition of it to you yeah I wanted to ask you if you yourself had chanted intifada revolution in the course of the protests yeah i have and what did that feel like um it definitely the first time i heard it i was uncomfortable why uh whoa this is a call for violence i don't like that but then i thought about the word i read multiple definitions i read jewish takes on the word i read muslim takes on the word i read miriam webster And I realized the similarity in that call of there is only one solution, empty father revolution, I realize the similarity to if we don't get no justice, they don't get no peace, no justice, no peace.

[447] When people are occupied, resistance is justified.

[448] And yes, it is still a word that means these like specific actions that were taken against Israel.

[449] and a lot of them harmed civilians and that is sad but it is also a word that inspires people it is also a word that makes people feel like they might be capable of change and and yeah I will use it thoughtfully what do you mean by thoughtfully in like where I time it with other chance Oh, what do you mean?

[450] I have like a list and they are all classified by like genre.

[451] So we have the financial ones and we have the Arabic chance and we have the chance talking about people who have died and how we are all interconnected.

[452] And we have the chance about occupation being a crime.

[453] And I try to put it with the no justice, no peace ones.

[454] Were there any other times where you felt tested by protesters?

[455] You felt perhaps different from them, again, because of your Jewishness?

[456] No. I feel like there's people who feel like Zionism is Judaism, you know, or that to be Jewish, you must be Zionist.

[457] But there's nothing that has come across to me as anti -Semitic.

[458] if you are able to pause and remember that Israel is not Jewish people and Zionism is not Jewish people.

[459] And what about from Jewish friends, do they question what you're doing?

[460] Do you ever feel some kind of people looking slightly askance at you?

[461] Yeah, I think, you know, my auntie made a comment once, like if you're Jewish right now, you have to support Israel.

[462] And I have definitely felt nervous about expressing some of my views in front of family.

[463] My grandfather and I, this was a couple months ago now, we were exchanging like 1 ,500 ,000 -word emails, asking each other questions about our opinions.

[464] He's a history professor.

[465] This is my Jewish grandfather.

[466] He was raised Labor Zionist.

[467] So I was asking about how he was raised and the ideologies that he was raised with.

[468] But he made a really good point.

[469] And if you have the time, I would like to try to find this line that he said and read it to you.

[470] Oh, please.

[471] Here it is.

[472] So he said, you have grown up in an era in which the deeper Israeli history is not part of your DNA.

[473] Jews have plenty of place in the world.

[474] Israel is an increasingly apartheid state.

[475] Most importantly, the existence of Israel has never really been under threat, nor have the most fundamental conditions of existence been an issue for Jews.

[476] Those things are not a part of your worldview as they are mine and my generation, and to a lesser extent, your parents.

[477] I do not imagine you can fathom the importance of Israel in the hearts of people of my generation, nor should you.

[478] I would not ask it.

[479] That would be an unfair burden.

[480] That said, here are the things which I believe we might both agree on, or at least, productively argue about.

[481] What did you think really of that point that your grandfather made?

[482] did it strike you?

[483] Did you feel like he was right that you didn't understand why Israel would be a safe haven for people of his generation?

[484] I think his point is that I can theoretically understand, but I cannot emotionally.

[485] I theoretically understand why Israel was created, why this idea of a Jewish state was considered a good idea for the safety of Jewish people right after a genocide.

[486] But emotionally, like he said, I have been safe.

[487] I have not been afraid for Jewish people's safety the way that I think people in other generations may have.

[488] So that comment, I do not imagine you could fathom the importance of Israel and the hearts of people of my generation, nor should you, I would not ask it.

[489] It would be an unfair burden.

[490] Really just hit my heart in a nice way in this, like, his understanding that I will have my own perspective and he will have his own that lead us both towards a place to, like, understanding each other better.

[491] We'll be right back.

[492] Here's what else you should know today.

[493] On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the way that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded, a decision that protects the agency from conservatives seeking to undermine it.

[494] In a seven to two ruling, the justice has found that the way that Congress chose to finance the Bureau is constitutional.

[495] Had the court ruled otherwise, it may have cast doubt on every regulation and action taken by the watchtog agency since it was created 13 years ago under former President Barack Obama.

[496] And during a second day of cross -examination, lawyers for Donald Trump sought to portray his former first.

[497] fixer, Michael Cohen, as a serial liar who constantly changes his story.

[498] Their goal was to undermine the credibility of Cohen's testimony so far, which is central to the prosecution's case in the hush money trial.

[499] In particular, defense lawyers seized on Cohen's claim in a different court case that he had lied under oath.

[500] Their suggestion is that Cohen might be willing to lie under oath again during this trial.

[501] Also, a reminder to catch the interview tomorrow, right here where you get the daily.

[502] This week on the show, David Marquesi talks with scientist Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson about why she thinks we can't give in to climate doom, even if we feel it.

[503] We went from like, okay, climate change, is this really happening to like how serious is this, to, oh God, it's so bad, let's just give up and sort of skipped this middle step of all hands on deck.

[504] Today's episode was reported and produced by Lindsay Garrison and Jessica Chung with help from Diana Winn, Oss the Chetervady and Claire Tennis Getter.

[505] It was edited by Michael Benoit with help from Ben Calhoun.

[506] Researched by Susan Lee contains original music by Chelsea Daniel, Dan Powell, Marianne Lozano, Alicia Bitu, Rowan Nemistow, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.

[507] Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.

[508] Special thanks to Rochelle Bonja and Jody Cantor.

[509] That's it for the Daily.

[510] I'm Sabrina Tavernisi.

[511] See you on Monday.