Marine: Hey everyone.
Today I am with Laura Schleiffer on my channel.
Thank you so much for joining me.
We’ve been talking about this video for
a long time.
We’re finally in the same place and we can
shoot it.
So Laura Schleiffer is a pro-intersectional
vegan activist.
She’s also a Palestinian solidarity activist,
a theater artist, and an educator.
Laura taught a course at Wesleyan Green Street
Art Center on a three-thousand year history
of Palestine, Israel, and the middle east,
right?Laura: Mhmm (in agreement)Marine: And
so she is going to talk about a whole lot
of things on my channel: about Palestine,
about veganism, about intersectionality, and
Laura is actually speaking at a conference.
It’s a conference held by Collectively Free
at Hunter College next week that is called
Bloody Bodies, Slaughtered Souls: How the
Animal Exploitation Industries Capitalize
on the Human Underclass to Satiate Society’s
Compulsion to Kill.
So that title should…Laura: …nice light
subject matter(Laughter)Marine: Yeah exactly.
So let’s just jump right in because we have
so much to talk about.
First I want to ask you how you got involved
in the Palestinian liberation movement and
sort of talk about your whole history and
journey with that.Laura: Yes, okay, so I will
start by saying that actually I am of Jewish
heritage.
So, that was kind of always, I guess you could
say, a factor that I was aware of Israel and
obviously its relevance to Jews.
I will say that I was not raised with any
sort of heavy religious upbringing.
It was reformed Jewish.
But, that was always something that I was
aware of and it was always within the context
of Jews are the persecuted people of the world
and they, of course, need this kind of safe
haven and that they’re still under persecution
in the Middle East.
That was kind of always the framework that
I was familiar with that I think most people
in this country are familiar with.
At the same time I always also felt that something
didn’t quite sit right about that explanation
because I knew that there had been this other
country called Palestine that was there “before”
and that it just sort of like became Israel
and that the Palestinians were obviously very
unhappy about that and, so that just always
kind of seemed to me like that was really
off because clearly that was their land, that
was their country, and it wasn’t right that
it should be taken from them and given to
these other people.
So, I always kind of questioned that but it
was very, very difficult to find any sort
of clear story on what was going on and I
always had this idea of there being like “two
sides” and I didn’t really know which
one to believe and I really started looking
into it after the Second Initifada which is
the Palestinian uprising around 2002.
But, again, it’s very hard to find information
and I was reading things out of context so
it was confusing.
What ended up happening was that I was very,
very involved in the issue of sanctions on
Iraq and I wanted to go to Iraq with this
organization called Circus 2 Iraq that does
performances for Iraqi children and I approached
the organization and I said I wanted to go
and they said “well actually, it’s too
dangerous to go to Iraq now,” because it
was really at the height of the war and they
said “but, we’re going to Palestine,”
and of course, my first reaction was like,
“Oh, Palestine?”Because I was, you know,
Jewish, and you know, Palestine seems like
kind of “fraternizing with the enemy.”
And so I was hesitant, but I didn’t feel
that way personally.
I was kind of concerned about what other people
think but in my heart I felt, I really want
to see what is actually going on over there
and this is a chance to do that and it is
also a chance to show Palestinians that there
are Jewish people that want to really know
what they have been through and that was very
important to me so I was like, I’m going
to go and I’m going to see what is really
going on over there and I did and once I saw,
there was absolutely no turning back.
I absolutely had to stand in solidarity with
them and I’ve never looked back since.Marine:
Thank you.
So, can you describe the basic situation there?
Obviously we don’t have the time or the
resources to talk through everything especially,
I mean, Laura knows so much about the history
and can go back three-thousand years but just,
basic situation for the people who might not
exactly know where to start.Laura: (nodding)
Yeah, okay so basically…Marine: Yeah, I
actually have on my clipboard also written:
“what is meant by the occupation when people
say it’s an occupation?
What is meant by the term apartheid?”Laura:
(nodding) Right.
Okay, so basically, the idea to create the
Israeli state came from Europe in the nineteenth
century.
The founder of the movement, the movement
was actually called Zionism, so Zionism is
this idea that Jewish people should have a
homeland of their own.
Ideally in what is Palestine.
He came up with this idea because of European
anti-Semitism and through a series of events,
which I won’t go into now because it would
be too lengthy, but basically, in the aftermath
of World War II, and of course the Holocaust,
the Western nations backed these Zionists
to create this state.
Now, up until that point, a lot of European
Jews were coming to Palestine because prior
to that point, there was a sort of a “promise”
made by the British government that they were
going to back them up called the Balfour Declaration.
The Palestinians did NOT consent to the Balfour
Declaration.
They were never consulted about this and on
top of that, the British government actually
promised them as well that they were going
to help them have independence from the Ottoman
Empire that came before that after World War
I.
So the point is that there were a lot of Jewish
people that were coming from Europe into Palestine
and they were coming very much with the idea
that this was going to be their new Zionist
state.
So they weren’t just coming as immigrants
to kind of live in Palestine.
They were coming to essentially take over
Palestine and turn it into Israel which is
very important to understand in light of everything
that happened.
The other thing is that there was a Jewish
community in Palestine that had always traditionally
been there and there was no conflict between
the Muslim Palestinians, the Christian Palestinians,
because there was a Christian population too,
and the Jewish Palestinians.
They all got along just fine.
So there is no ancient conflict between Jews
and Muslims or between Jews and Palestinians.Marine:
(That’s) so important
Laura: Right, that came from the creation
of the state of Israel.
Now, what happened was after World War II
and the Zionists had been putting a lot of
pressure.
Actually, there was, believe it or not, when
you talk about terrorism, there was Zionist
terrorism to try to get Britain, which was
in control of Palestine at that time, to give
them Palestine for their new state.
And eventually there was a big bombing of
a hotel, of the King David hotel, and it was
British…
90 people died and they were just kind of
like, okay, you can have it.
So, what they did was they divided it (Palestine)
where it was supposed to be 52% for the Israelis
and 48% for the Palestinians and this was
in 1948 and something else they don’t tell
you is that leading up to that there was what’s
called the Nakba which is Arabic for “the
catastrophe” and the Zionists basically
wanted to clear out the Palestinians so they
did a lot of terrible things.
They basically, there was a village called
Deir Yasmin where they killed six hundred
people.
Then they broadcast it all over Palestine,
on the radio, saying if you don’t leave,
this will happen to you next.
So a lot of Palestinians fled and what happened
was that a lot of them ended up… many of
them ended up permanent refugees and what
we have in the Palestinian diaspora, which
is Palestinians living in other parts of the
world, they permanently are refugees and they
can’t come back because Israel is controlling
all of that.
I’m just going to kind of quickly run through
the rest of it.
What happened was once Israel created its
state, the surrounding countries that were
allied with the Palestinians attacked and
so Israel always says “oh, well we were
attacked right away” but of course they
don’t talk about the fact that they were
attacking before that.
After that happened, Israel won and originally
they were only supposed to have 52% of Palestine
but because they won, they started taking
more, and more, and more.
Between the years of 1949 and 1967, they had
acquired 78% of that land and what happened
was in 1967, so the Palestinians had the certain
areas that are now called “Gaza” and “the
West Bank” and “East Jerusalem” and
there was also another area called the “Golan
Heights” which was under the control of
Syria at that time, but the Palestinians had
Gaza, which was under the auspices of Egypt
and the West Bank that was under the auspices
of Jordan and East Jerusalem and there were
sort of these rumors going around that there
was going to be another attack on Israel until
Israel pre-emptively attacked and again one.
That’s the Six Day War that you hear about.
They won it in six days because there was
no attack that was actually planned on them
but at that time they then took over everything
so now they have control of the entire country
of what used to be Palestine but the thing
is what they had before 1967 is basically
what is actually known as “Israel proper.”
And then those other territories that they
got in 1967, so Gaza, the West Bank, and East
Jerusalem, that’s what is considered to
be the occupied territories.
The occupied Palestinian territory.
When we say “occupied territories,” this
is a military occupation.
The people who live in those territories,
they live under constant military occupation
all the time.
Israel controls every aspect of their lives.
They can’t even get in and out of their
own country.
If they leave… (from) Gaza they can’t
even leave at all.
And whether it’s Gaza or the West Bank,
if they leave without the permission of the
Israelis, they can’t ever come back to their
land.
That’s what’s going on with that.
The other thing that’s very important to
mention, well, two other things, actually,
in the West Bank, what they have are these,
you may have heard about the Israeli settlements,
you always hear about the settlements, I didn’t
really understand what this meant until I
went over there and I thought, you know, you
always hear about these Jewish settlements,
and I thought, “oh, you know, well, why
would the Palestinians have problems living
in a Jewish area, like, you know, do they
not like Jews or are they anti-Semitic?”
Well, that’s not at all the case of what’s
going on.
What’s going on is that first of all, these
are housing settlements that are for Jews
only, so they are completely segregated.
They’re guarded by the Israeli military
and very often they’re built on not only
Palestinian land, but they actually bulldoze
existing Palestinian homes to build this segregated
housing which is connected by segregated roads
and have segregated hospitals and segregated
schools and the whole nine yards.
That kind of answers your next question which
is about apartheid, right, I mean, this is
like, blatant apartheid.Marine: RightLaura:
So the Palestinians can’t go near any of
that even though it is actually their land.
And it is surrounded by Palestinians living
there but there are these walled fortresses
that are guarded by military in the occupied
Israeli occupied West Bank, Palestinian West
Bank, that are complete apartheid.
The other issue is that the Jewish settlers,
they’re not just coming to live among the
Palestinians.
What they’re there for, really, is that
they believe that this land was promised to
them by God.
If you go back through the three thousand
year history, this goes all the way back to
Abraham and the first monotheistic religion,
and the chosen people and the rest of it.
They believe that this is their land by “divine
right” and they’re actually coming there
to actively colonize that land which means
that they are actually in a lot of cases there
specifically doing things to make life miserable
for the Palestinians because they want, they
believe that it should be their land and the
Palestinians should leave.
That’s the situation in the West Bank.
That is the situation that I actually observed
for myself because I didn’t get to go to
Gaza.
It was blocked by the Israelis.
But I did get to go to the West Bank and I
did see what was going on there.
Just briefly, about, of course, Gaza, I’ve
never been there but I’ve certainly been
researching the situation and I talk to people
in Gaza all the time.
What’s happening there is that since the
year 2006, Israel has… so, they used to
have settlers in Gaza, but Israel withdrew
the settlers and everybody thought that that
(Israel’s withdrawal of settlers) was going
to be a good thing.
Because they thought, “oh, they’re going
to give Gaza to the Palestinians.
Isn’t that great?”
And, actually, it turned out that it was not
great at all because what happened was, you
may have heard of Yasser Arafat, he was the
leader of the Palestinians for many years.
When he died, they had a general election
and they voted in democratically the Hamas
government.
So when you hear that Hamas is a terrorist
organization, it is no more and certainly
much, much less of a terrorist organization
than the Israeli government because it is
a government that is, it’s not a terrorist
organization, it’s a government.
When that happened, Israel decided to punish
Gaza very harshly for voting in Hamas, so
they blocked off Gaza and they imposed this
unbelievable blockade on Gaza where they cut
them off from receiving medicine, from receiving
food, from receiving medical supplies, school
supplies, everything you can think of.
They literally calculated the number of calories
that each Gazan gets per day and they made
it juuuuust, - end of - to not be technically
“starving” or having famine, but obviously
we would certainly consider them to be starving.
They put this horrible blockade on Gaza with
the idea that the Gazans would supposedly
rise up and overthrow Hamas.
This blockade has been on Gaza for the last
ten years.
They’ve been living like this and they can’t
leave because it’s completely blocked off.
It’s referred to as one giant concentration
camp, basically.
Another thing is that if Gazans try to get
their own food, like if they try to, for the
vegans out there, they have farms that grow
fruits and vegetables.
On the boarder between Gaza and Israel, there
are, of course, Israeli soldiers guarding
that border and if the Gazan-Palestinians
try to pick their own fruits and vegetables
off their own land, the soldiers will shot
at them.
It’s obviously a horrifying situation and
just as a little aside, something that the
settlers have often done as one of the ways
that they make life unlivable for the Palestinians
in the Israeli occupied West Bank is they
will burn their food supplies, they will destroy
their food supplies, they will set their olive
trees on fire.
They will do all kinds of horrible things
where that’s concerned.
Actually, among other things, for vegans to
want to do food justice work, this is a huge
food justice issue.
It’s a horrifying food injustice.
And then, of course, the other issue is that
they intermittently bomb them from time to
time and there are, you hear about the massive
bombing campaigns but they won in 2009, they
had one in 2014, they bombed actually there
one and only power plant.
They’ve had no electricity since 2014.Marine:
Wow.Laura: Yeah.
But they also bomb them all the time where
we don’t hear about it and this is just
something that the Palestinians just have
to put up with all the time.
This is basically the basic situation and
it’s pretty bad, obviously.Marine: Yeah,
thank you so much.
So, one comment that I got a lot on my old
video that’s just something you hear a lot
is that Arabs living within Israel are actually
living such better lives than they were living
in other Arab countries that Israel is the
only democracy in the middle east so this
is a huge topic, but if you just want to say
a few sentences about that…Laura: Okay,
so basically, I first want to talk about the
issue of Palestinians and their citizenship
because what you have is you have some Palestinians
that were not actually, it’s, when I was
talking about that period where Israel was
taking more land and taking more land and
taking more land, there were Palestinians
of course living in that land and so when
Israel kind of swept through, they ended up
getting Israeli citizenship in the end.
Their situation is very bad within Israel,
but they do have citizenship which means that
they actually do have SOME legal rights.
And they call them the “Israeli Arabs”
and this is a way of erasing the existence
of Palestine.
I mean, if you talk to Zionists, they will
say “what is… there’s no such thing
as a Palestinian, what’s Palestine?
There’s no such country.
There was never a country.”
They literally are trying to re-write history.
That’s a way of erasing them.
They don’t even call the Jews that were
traditionally there Palestinian Jews, they
call them “Sabra Jews.”
That hummus that people buy, Sabra hummus,
yeah…Marine: Don’t buy it.Laura: Yeah,
don’t buy Sabra.
We have this saying: “don’t support Israeli
apartheid, boycott Sabra and Tribe.”
Those are the two brands you need to boycott.
We’ll talk more about that later, but anyway,
they don’t have the full rights of Israeli
Jews.
But they do have some rights.
Now, Palestinians on the other hand, who live
in the occupied territories: Gaza, the West
Bank they have no (rights)…Marine: We ran
out of space.Laura: Right.
I was saying that the Palestinians that live
in the Israeli occupied territories: Gaza
and the West bank, they have no legal rights
under Israeli law.
Israel can basically do whatever it wants
to them and be accountable to no one.
The other thing is that the Palestinians have
no military of their own.
They’re living under foreign military occupation.
They have no defense and no rights.
It’s kind of like, the worst of everything.
Marine: RightLaura: I just want to quickly
add.
Remember that I mentioned that the Israelis
had 77% of the land prior to 1967 and then
they occupied that other 23%.
When they talk about the “two-state solution,”
they’re talking about the Israelis keeping
that 77% and the Palestinians having 23% and
of that 23%, of course, there are also the
settlements and the whole nine yards with
that.
That’s why there’s a lot of conflict over
that.Marine: Quickly, can you tell us what
the difference is between anti-Semitism and
anti-Zionism?Laura: Yes, if you couldn’t
tell enough, by now…Marine: …we hear it
all the time and it is something that especially
on my first video with Zavi, as is to be expected,
we got so much criticism about that.Laura:
Right.
I mean, of course I kind of really gave you
a major overview of the situation and I hope
from that that you can see that this is an
issue of clear racial apartheid, colonialism,
militarism, military occupation.
To say that this is on top of everything else,
like I said, there’s no history at all of
animosity between Jewish people and Muslims
or between Jewish people and specifically
Palestinians even to the extent that, for
example, during World War II, actually, a
lot of the Muslim countries had an open door
policy for Jewish refugees to come there.
There is no history of that (conflict) and
really, anybody that understands this situation
very much knows that this is not about hating
Jews.
That is pretty clear-cut.
I also want to mention that a lot of Jewish
people including some Israeli Jewish people,
but a lot of Jewish people have been speaking
out against this situation.
I could certainly mention many names.
I could talk about A Jewish Voice For Peace.
I could talk about Norman Finkelstein.
Of course, I could talk about Noam Chomsky.
I could talk about also, I want to mention
some Holocaust survivors that became very
active in supporting Palestine.
Hedy Epstein, her name is, she is a German-Jewish
Holocaust survivor.
Hajo Meyer, he just passed away recently but
he was very, very outspoken.
It’s funny because there was a flotilla
boat that tried to kind of break the sanctions
that was put on Gaza and Hedy Epstein was
on this boat and she was arrested by the Israelis.
And the other thing I want to say is that
there was actually a solidarity statement
that was signed by 347 Holocaust survivors
and their descendants against the occupation,
against the sanctions on Gaza, against the
settlements.
And just as a little aside, by the way, Palestinians
ARE semites because Arabs are Semites so if
anything, Zionism is anti-Semitism, not anti-Zionism.
Marine: Okay.
I also know that you are a very passionate
activist; animal rights activist, vegan activist.
I wanted you to talk about that a little bit
in the context of Palestinian solidarity.Laura.
Right.Marine: I have some notes of questions
that we wrote down together but I feel like
you’re so great at talking…Laura: I guess
I’ll start with the Israeli vegan movement.
Of course, people have heard a lot about Israeli
being this (progressive, vegan place)…Marine:
It’s like one of the first things that I
hear when I say I’m vegan is “oh, you
should go to Israel, you would love it there.”Laura:
Basically, Israel has this history of kind
of “using” progressive issues to make
themselves look progressive and to kind of
hide that little Palestinian occupation situation
in the background.
They’ve done this with women’s rights,
kind of promoting themselves as this “only
Western democracy,” that respects women
unlike these other Muslim countries.
It (Israel) really did it with gay rights.
You may have…Marine: Pinkwashing…Laura:
Right.
There’s a term for that.
They call it “pinkwashing” because gay
activists started realizing that they were
being used to make Israeli look good and to
cover up what they were doing to the Palestinians
and not just to the Palestinians but also,
I haven’t even gotten into this, but for
example, how they treat African refugees who
come there and Ethiopian Jews who come there.
There’s a whole racial apartheid system
and even Arab Jews, what they call Mizrahi
Jews, there’s a definite racial hierarchy
even amongst Jewish people within Israel.
To cover all of that up, they like to present
themselves as progressive, liberal, modern,
etc. and they use these other causes and now
they have a new one and it’s called veganism
and animal rights!
Just to give you an idea of how the mainstream
vegan Israeli movement is sort of using this
to kind of “vegan-wash” their human rights
crimes.
They’re saying “oh well, we have the world’s
first vegan army.
We offer berets that are not made out of wool
and non-leather boots and we serve vegan meals
to the soldiers.”
This is not like, activist or vegans on the
grassroots level.
This is the actual Israeli government saying
“oh look, we’re a vegan country” and
“look, our occupation is vegan!”(Laughter)Marine:
and “very humane!”Laura: Well they don’t
even want anybody to know about the occupation,
but they’re like “look, our military is
vegan, our occupation is vegan.”
It’s complete vegan-washing.
It is so cynical.
I could even say that they’ve used Jews
in many ways of the Jewish history of persecution
to kind of make themselves look like what
they’re doing is legitimate.
They’ll use anything they can get and veganism
is kind of their latest manipulation tool.
Something I wanted to talk about as well:
Gary Yourofsky.
Gary Yourofsky has become the vegan celebrity
of Israel.
If anybody’s been watching Marine’s other
videos, you may have noticed that there are
some problems with Gary Yourofsky and he’s
not terribly respectful of human rights but
just to speak specifically about his issue
with Israel and Palestine.
Gary Yourofsky actually spoke at a settlement
in the Israeli occupied West Bank.
Now, remember I mentioned the settlements.
They are racially segregated.
It’s for Jews only etc.
But this settlement is really one of the worst.
The settlers at this settlement actually were
caught torturing Palestinian children.
I’m not going into details but let’s just
say that it would be very triggering for anybody
that has trauma out there that’s listening
because it was horrifying.
Obviously, torturing children, to say more
than that, it was really, really extreme.
It was so extreme that actual Israelis, so
Israeli artists, Israeli public figures, boycotted
Ariel settlement.
They would not go and speak or appear at Ariel
settlement because this was so bad.
But Gary Yourofsky went to Ariel settlement
and the Israeli media actually went to him,
it’s a magazine called +972 Magazine.
They write very honestly.
They’re an Israeli magazine but they write
very, very honestly about the occupation and
the apartheid and the rest of it so they went
to him and they said (paraphrasing) “well
you know, why are you speaking here.
Haven’t you heard about the boycott?”
And his response was (paraphrasing) “well,
you know, I don’t care about humans and
their petty little follies and animals are
the only true beings that are suffering on
Earth and human suffering is a joke.”
That’s basically the…
I don’t know if people have seen he made
that video about “Blacks, Palestinians,
and other hypocrites” where he goes into
this full-blown racist rant on Palestinians,
calling them the “most insane” people
on the planet.
He’s ranted against Palestinians on his
Facebook page, so he may claim to be politically
neutral but clearly that is not at all the
case.
Clearly, he has another agenda.
The other thing I want to mention about the
Israeli vegan movement and then I want to
talk a little bit about the Palestinian vegan
movement because, believe it or not, there
is one.
The other thing is that the Israeli vegan
movement that we don’t hear about are the
Israeli vegans of conscience who are also
anti-occupation, who are anti-Zionist, who
are in solidarity with the Palestinians.
There’s a great organization called Anarchists
Against The Wall and that is an organization
that is vegan anarchist, very much in solidarity
with Palestine.
And by the way, Against The Wall is because
Israel has built this enormous wall separating
themselves from the Palestinian territories
that they occupy.
They’re a great organization.
Also, a lot of the refuseniks, or what they
call the Shministim, they are also ethical
vegans and they are actually the Israeli young
people who refuse to join the occupying army
and they are put in prison for that.
In fact, they can be in prison for up to ten
years…
Marine: Really?Laura: Yeah, and the way that
it works with that is that they don’t put
them in for a full ten years right away.
They put them in, to start off, with a short
term for maybe two or three weeks.
At the end of that sentence, they say “and
now are you ready to join?”
If they say “no,” (they go) back in prison
for an even longer time this time… and then
“are you ready to join?,” “no,” back
again… it’s this thing where it’s this
prison sentence that just builds up over time.
Another little horrifying detail, if you’re
willing to wear the Israeli vegan military
uniform in prison, then your prison term can
be a little shorter.
Marine: Wow
Laura: Those are the Israeli vegans that we
should be supporting and they need the support
because on top of everything else, first of
all, they’re absolutely hated in that society
for standing up for what’s right.
Secondly, the ones that go to jail for refusing
to join the army, even after that, they never
get their full rights again.
It’s this permanent… you’re supposed
to get a military service card and if you
don’t do your service you don’t get that
card and that card is your ID card for jobs,
for housing…Marine: WowLaura: For… the
whole nine yards.
You basically live in a…Marine: …constant
state of disenfranchisement.Laura: Right.
Exactly.
Constant state of disenfranchisement is exactly
what it is.
They are the ones we should be supporting,
not the mainstream vegan-washing propaganda
movement.Marine: (Mhmm) Great.
Well, not great, but thank you.Marine: And,
to finish off, for people who are watching,
what can we do to support and stand in solidarity
with Palestinians, your thoughts on the BDS
movement and maybe how it relates also to
veganism and how they boycott animal products
as a form of activism.Laura: Right.
The first thing I want to say is just in case
you’re still kind of feeling this sense
of, “oh, but there’s two sides to this
conflict and what about the other side?”
First of all, I’ll mention that the word
apartheid actually was, it was Jimmy Carter
of all people who originally started terming
it (the occupation) that way, but actually,
there was a delegation of the leaders, many
of the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement
in South Africa and they came to occupied
Palestine and they were horrified by what
they saw.
Desmond Tutu was in that group.
I think Nelson Mandela might have even been.
I don’t know, but it was a group of very
influential (people) and they saw that and
they said this is so horrifying that it’s
actually maybe even worse than South African
apartheid was.
Basically what happened was from that, the
Palestinians had specifically, his name is
Omar Barghouti, he’s actually nominated
for a Nobel Prize as we speak, he found out
about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions
(BDS) movement that the South Africans had
used to topple the apartheid system there.
Again, if you’re going to say “two sides,”
well, do you want to hear the “two sides”
of the white Afrikaners that were enforcing
apartheid because that’s really what we’re
talking about here.
There really isn’t any other side.
Omar Barghouti got this idea to try to use
the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions model
to create a global movement in support of
Palestine and freedom for Palestine.
That is the movement that exists now.
It’s called the BDS movement for short but
it’s Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions
movement against apartheid Israel.
For anybody that says “oh well, we support
peace in the Middle East” and this sort
of thing, this IS the road to peace because
this has given Palestinians a way for the
world to hear them and see what they’re
going through without using violence.
If you’re against terrorism, if you’re
against violence, if you don’t want to see
suicide bombings and whatever, support BDS
because then they won’t have to use violence
because people will be listening.
Marine: Right.Laura: So, yes, you should definitely
get involved with BDS.
The website is bdsmovement.net and they will
tell you all about all the different products
that you should be boycotting and companies
that you should divest your money from.
Just because vegans use, again, a lot of hummus,
I’ll say boycott Sabra and Tribe.
(Repeat of aforementioned saying) “Don’t
support Israeli apartheid, boycott Sabra and
Tribe” hummus brands.
Another one is Medjool Dates.
A lot of those come from Israel.
They come from the occupied territories.
Those are Israeli companies making money off
of the occupied territories, so you want to
check and make sure that they’re not from
Israel.
There’s a bar code with the numbers 729
at the beginning.
Marine: Right
Laura; When you see that barcode, it’s a
product from Israel.
You want to boycott that.
Definitely get involved with the Boycott,
Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Share this video because it’s a really good
sort of brief overview and talk to people
that don’t know about this because most
Americans and people in the Western world
on a whole are clueless about what is going
on there.
So, you want to talk to people, you want to
share this, you want to check out a web site
called Electronic Intifada which is run by
a Palestinian named Ali Abunimah.
What’s really wonderful about them is not
only do they report on, obviously the truth
about what’s going on in Palestine, but
they are actually very outspoken against REAL
anti-Semitism.
When somebody kind of tries to use the Palestinian
cause to promote an anti-Semitic agenda against
Jews, they will speak out against that.
They’re a very, very trustworthy site where
that’s concerned.
I would say absolutely you have to check out
A Jewish Voice For Peace.
They are the biggest Jewish organization in
solidarity with Palestinians.
Mondoweiss is another really good site.
It is Jewish-run.
I really would highly recommend reading Haaretz
newspaper and +972 Magazine.
Those are actual Israeli publications and
there’s a lot of stuff that comes out of
them that we don’t hear about that is in
the Israeli media and Gaza TV is definitely
something that you want to check out as well
and that’s news from Gaza.
There are others.
There’s the Palestinian Chronicle.
Ma’an News is another one that’s Middle
Eastern.
(There are) lots and lots of news sources
but those are a few to check out to start
off with.
Marine: Great.
Laura: I really want to…
Marine: …Oh yeah, your group!
Facebook group!Laura: Yes!
I have a Facebook group.
It’s called “Disrupt Zionism” and the
title comes from this whole idea of doing
disruptions.
Of course, you probably know of Direct Action
Everywhere as the one who started that idea
of disrupting the sort of normalization of
violence.
Definitely the Israeli occupation and apartheid
is violence that needs to be disrupted.
This Facebook group is specifically for vegans
to learn the truth about what is going on
there.
Of course, it is pro-Jewish but anti-Zionism
and obviously it’s very pro-Palestinian
as well.
It’s very strict (and) it’s also a safe
space.
We don’t tolerate any other type of oppressive
behavior.
Homophobia, transphobia, other forms of racism
because Zionism is a form of racism.
We don’t tolerate any of that there.
So, check that (group) out.
The last thing I want to say is I really wanted
to bring this message to vegans specifically
for two reasons.
The first, of course, is to, how could I forget?
Two other things I need to mention (that are)
really important: the Palestinian.
I mentioned there’s a vegan movement kind
of starting there.
There’s an organization you need to check
out.
It’s called the Palestinian Animal League.
They are amazing.
They are a Palestinian-run organization from
Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank,
so we’re not even talking about Palestinians
living in other parts of the world (the diaspora).
They’re living under military occupation,
under apartheid, and they have taken it upon
themselves to become animal rights activists
and vegans.
They recently went to a university and they
got them to start serving all-vegan lunches
there.
One of the founders opened the first vegan
café bakery in Ramallah, which is the main
city of the occupied West Bank and they’re
going to be speaking, actually, on June 10th
in New York City along with Bina Ahmad who
is an animal rights lawyer and human rights
lawyer and Palestinian solidary activist at
Bluestockings Café so you should definitely
check that out if you’re in the city.Marine:
I’ll be there, too!Laura: Yes, we’ll both
be there.
The other thing I wanted to say is I really
wanted to bring this message to vegans, of
course, to disrupt the vegan-washing but also
because I believe that vegans kind of already
have proven through being vegans that you
guys are not all talk and no action.
When you believe in something, you will take
action in your daily lives.
You’ll think about this every day.
You’ll think about it when it’s like,
“oh, which brand of hummus am I going to
buy?” or “am I going to buy those dates?”
or “what’s that barcode?” or whatever.
That’s something that I really value about
the vegan community and that is something
that I felt you could bring that sort of passion
and initiative to this issue as well.Marine:
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Great.
Thank you so, so, so much!Laura: Thank you!Marine:
This was so wonderful.
Laura: Thank you!Marine: I think it’s a
really, really important video for people
to see and I’m super honored that it’s
on my channel.
Laura: Thank you!Marine: Make sure to join,
make sure to talk about all the resources
that Laura talked about.
I will link all of those in the description
below.
Join the Facebook group Disrupt Zionism.
Come to the events that we mentioned as well
that will be going on next week and then two
weeks from now.Laura: Right.Marine: If you’re
in New York.
Thank you so much for watching!
Laura: Yes, thank you!(Together): Bye!
