Ayana Young  Hello For The Wild community. This week we are excited to continue our collaboration with UC Berkeley's Othering and Belonging Institute to bring you a conversation from The Othering and Belonging Conference in Berlin, Germany.

This conversation is introduced by Monica Jiang, is moderated by Cecilie Surasky and features the voices of Udi Raz and Yasmeen Daher. Speaking on the theme “Turning Towards Each Other, Not Against Each Other: Bridging in Times of Crisis” the panelists address what it means to build towards co-liberation in difficult times – especially in the context of the war on Gaza. Since this conversation was recorded on November 14, 2023, the genocide in Gaza has continued and worsened, and the loss of so many lives is tragic and incomprehensible. The words offered here aim to make space to honor pain and simultaneously to explore generative forms of allyship in the face of such violence. We hope you find this conversation meaningful. Thank you for listening.

Cecilie Surasky  So I discovered, there's only one antidote to when you are in fear and that is to go to who your other is. That is to go to where your fear is, that is to be in community with the people and to learn the history, to understand and accompany and find a place of shared experience, shared life, shared grief.

Monika Jiang  So since October 7, we've witnessed unbearable, unspeakable violence and really too many lives lost in Palestine, Israel, and Gaza. And we've seen communities around the world polarized and fragment over profound questions about whose lives are grievable and whose are not, and who is able to speak up, and who is not able to speak up. So in the following panel Turning Towards Each Other and Not Against Each Other, Bridging in Times of Crisis, we really hope to open space where we can honor each other's pain, where we find ways of bridging, despite that groups are pitted against one another right now and explored generative forms of allyship and collaboration. So with that, I'd love to welcome the moderator of this panel, Cecilie Surasky, who's the Communications Director at OBI, and who's been working on a range of justice and equity issues of the past decades, including building the largest progressive Jewish grassroots organization in the United States, Jewish Voice for Peace. So welcome, Cecilie.

Cecilie Surasky  Thank you so much. and thank you, Monica, for reminding us that we have bodies. We have breath. We have heartbeats... that we are connected to the earth and the land and this planet, and that we belong to it, and that we are connected to each other and we belong to each other. One of the features of othering is to paraphrase Judith Butler, because you can't have a conference like this without paraphrasing Judith Butler, is this idea of drawing a line between those who are grievable and those who are not. And so there are questions about who draws the line or what institutions draw those lines. Are we actually drawing the lines that we find within our bodies? What is non negotiable for us is there should be no line ever. Everyone is grievable. Everyone belongs. Every life is precious. We are life affirming. We are life affirming in our vision of belonging for everyone. And this is an extraordinary moment in time and I want to ask for your grace, your patience, your love and care especially for our incredible guests. We pulled this together. Thank you, Sara, thank you....many people in this room. We pulled this together in just a couple of days and Yasmeen and Udi are absolutely extraordinary human beings. We are so lucky to have them in conversation. And it is really important to me because this is such an incredibly painful and emotional time in a way that reverberates I think, for people throughout the world. We've seen fragmentation happening in our schools, in our workplaces, in our families, in our communities because of this question, in part about grievability. 

People might be surprised to know, I know I was when I first started reading headlines that Jews and Israeli-Jews were moving back to Berlin about 10-15 years ago, it was a bit of a scandal and shocking and also kind of amazing. I mean, almost unimaginable. Folks may also be surprised to know that Berlin has one of the largest Palestinian communities outside of the Middle East–something like 30 to 40,000 people–significantly larger even than the Jewish and Israeli community that's here. And while there are individuals who are in deep pain and grieving all throughout our communities, there is an incredible asymmetry in power. And then, who can demonstrate publicly their sympathy for Palestinians versus the state, and how it connects to an idea of grief with Israelis. 

One of the things we're going to complicate, and I just want to remind people is governments are not people. We are incredibly complex. John said something yesterday: the other is an illusion; a dangerous one, but the other is an illusion. And it's so interesting to me, and you know, in Western culture, we think in terms of these profound dualities, you know, black and white and male and female and tall and short. And the foundational duality that we all often refer to without even thinking about it.... the irreconcilable opposition is often Israeli-Palestinian, and I hear people talk about it all the time. And it and in my own life as a Jewish person, I had to make a decision about the person and the people who I was told by the culture at large, and by these narratives was my other, and we know that when you project onto another you feel fear when you encounter them, even in the mind, especially in the mind, maybe only in the mind. You feel it in your solar plexus. You feel anxiety. You feel all of these things that we're all feeling right now, especially when we're co created by Twitter and the news and the way that it is triggering aspects of us, our own fear and manipulating that fear. I learned that the only antidote to that kind of perpetual misery and I'd also say loneliness… Those of us who are Jewish know, we were raised, you know, the world, not all of us, but there is a sense of the world hates us. And we were raised with this idea. And when you hear that enough, you start to internalize it, right? We tell stories, enough, long enough, those stories start to tell us. And it's not a fun place to be when you think that and it also when you are in fear, it gives permission to cause deep and profound harm as a form of defense. So I discovered there's only one antidote to that. And that is to go to who your other is. That is to go to where your fear is. That is to be in community with the people and to learn the history, to understand and accompany and find a place of shared experience, shared life, shared grief. 

I'm going to share two stories before we bring our guests on. John told a lot of stories yesterday. So I'm going to take that as permission because they're beautiful stories. The first time I went to the West Bank, I went with a Palestinian friend of mine and there are a few of us and we were in Ramallah for the week. And I had an extraordinary week, she just pulled out all the stops, and we met friends, people doing fascinating, amazing work, we would go I remember going to a restaurant like a family restaurant where there---and those of you who are Palestinian know this---like, almost like a Jeopardy game every night and everybody comes out and and, and people are playing games and their contests and, and I just, I was so enlivened by the humans that I met. As I was leaving, I was going through the checkpoint back to Jerusalem and there was a young soldier named Yosef. I still remember his name. And he probably was not more than 18 years old. He appeared to be Ethiopian Jewish. He looked at me and he saw my suitcase and he asked me, What do you have a suitcase? I said, Oh, I've just been in Ramallah for the week. And he looked at me and he said, Ramallah, Ramallah is garbage. Why are you in Ramallah? Go to Jerusalem. And in that moment, I understood there was an entire extraordinary beautiful world right in front of him, literally five feet away, that he could not see. That he had been raised with such fear that he was incapable and it is scary. You have an 18 year hold old gun, you tell... you no, it is it is a very scary situation for human beings nd these are kids. And he could not see the world around him. 

And I realized what I've.. we're all Yosef. We all are, we all have these profound blind spots in our lives and in our world that have been created by fear, created by the state, created by education, all kinds of things. And so to encounter each other is often the most profound thing we can do. And so the other thing I want to say is, I'm an illusion, I look like one person, but actually there are many people who have co-created me. And I've had many conversations over the last few days, and our colleagues and Basima and Hossein and Ramon and Sarah and John, many of us in deep conversation. I do want to say that there should be more people on this stage, but they do not feel safe to be on this stage. And we're going to talk about that... the political circumstances what it means to not only be humans together, but to have a thriving democracy. requires that we all be able to grieve that we all be able to show up but there are people both from the United States and definitely Germany who have asked that I not mention their names and who who I would love to have on the on the stage with us and they can't so I want us to hold that in our hearts. I'm gonna bring on our incredible, folks. Yasmeen Daher, would you come up? Huge round of applause huge, huge huge huge huge, and Udi  Raz. Yeah, it's yeah. It's bright, up here. 

Yasmeen Daher  It is bright.

Cecilie Surasky   I'm gonna read the bios, the short bios that Yasmeen and Udi gave us but I want to say that the thing that's most important and moving to me is not only that, in just a few days, time, both of you dropped what you were doing and said, with very little preparation, "This is important and it matters, and we are happy to do this." You did it with significant courage. This is an extraordinary emotional time and so for us to even make this request of you is I want to recognize that and the sacredness of that choice you've made. And I want to say you're both I mean Sarah and I had breakfast with you the other day and we just fell in love with you and thought how lucky are we to have you? So just as humans, I just want to say that.

Yasmeen Daher  Thank you so much.

Udi Raz  Thank you. 

Cecilie Surasky  Yasmeen? Yasmeen Daher is a feminist activist and a writer. She holds a doctorate degree from the Department of Philosophy University of Montreal, with a focus on ethics and political philosophy. She has taught previously in different institutions including Bir-Zeit University in Palestine, and Simone de Beauvour Institute in Canada. She is currently the CoDirector and Editorial Director of  Febrayer, a network for independent Arab media organizations based in Berlin. 

Udi is a Doctoral Fellow at the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim cultures and societies. There she investigates the contemporary self understanding of Germany as a nation state as it emerges through public attempts to regulate encounters between Muslims and Jews. Muslims and Jews, you can talk about that. She grew up in Haifa, between Tel Aviv and Beirut. Her work is shaped by local and global anti and decolonial, as well as queer liberation movements. She has lived in Berlin since 2010, where she first studied culture and history of the Middle East and then Islamic Studies at the Free University, Berlin. Raz is a board member of the Germany based organization, Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East. All right. 

So the first question I just want to ask is, how have you been for these weeks? What have these weeks been 

like for each of you? Yasmeen, may I start with you? 

Yasmeen Daher  Yeah. So thank you so much, Cecilie, thank you for the encouragement, and also the grace and for putting this quickly together. And I know that for me, it was a commitment in the past few years, but definitely in the past few weeks, that whenever there's an opportunity to speak about what's happening in Palestine, I'll take it. So it's been difficult. It's been very difficult weeks. I don't think I... there is an unprecedented amount of hatred towards the Palestinians, especially in the media and amongst international actors. And here, I would also reiterate the differentiation you made between the people and governments. So the amount, the discourse in the media against the Palestinians is scary. And there is a genocidal talk: "human animals," "human shields," "kill them all," etc. And I, I've been I mean, I'm Palestinian myself, and I've been active for several years and I don't think I ever felt that this is beyond the normal. There is... we're becoming at.. this is a point where our lives are disposable. And there's no value and we feel like we need to tell people, human beings we need to live in freedom, in dignity. And yeah, I mean, of course, we feel the solidarity also of populations of communities but living in Berlin is difficult recently, but maybe we talk about this as we continue the conversation.

Udi Raz  Yeah, well, I tried the same experience that they mentioned and the resolution by which we are now facing repression and oppression by the German state as such, is scary and it's frustrating. But in the same time, I must say in an on an optimistic note, that it also brings us together and the fact that we are allowed to speak here today with you and to share with you our perspective, it's became, in a way quite, almost a miracle in the democratic state which is mind blowing, to my understanding. I also want to share with you shortly why I'm here actually, because maybe it's important to say I was born and raised in Haifa. Does anybody know what is Haifa? Yeah? Could you drop the name of the area? How would you name it? Haifa right. Some people will name it Israel. Some people name it Palestine I grew up in Haifa. Haifa is famous, is known as a city where Palestinians and Jews live together. So as a young boy, it was already clear to me that the place where I'm living in has more than one name, and it was absolutely fine about me, it's still absolutely fine about me. But I also grew up to understand that my positionality as a Jewish person, within this geographical area also prescribes a certain of hegemonic positionality towards all other people who live in the same area who cannot claim Jewish identification. It was important for me and still very much important for me nowadays to raise a voice against such system that prescribes injustice by its very essence. But there are also people who are willing to resistance against such an oppressive system, to sacrifice the life and to kill other people. And it's true also to those who wish to maintain the current state of injustice on both sides of people like to try to understand the situation there. 

And to me, it was in certain time in my life, it was enough, I just wanted to go away. I felt like it is a warzone. And I was looking for a place where I could finally take deeper breath and connect to myself, to make new friendships, to understand who I am in this crazy war. But you can imagine that it was important for me to raise a voice also here in Germany against the oppression system that I saw over there. So you can imagine how surprising I was when I arriving in Berlin in Germany and sharing my own life experience with individuals who were socialized in the context of Germany. They would often argue I would be anti-semitic. The German kids, right? So what why does it come from this understanding that a Jew can so easily been marked as an anti-semitic? No. So somebody says correctly, I believe also the same way it has to do with German guilt. And the way that German politicians deal with this guilt has many forms. We saw it in migration laws, and restitutions, compensations. And there is also this attempt, ongoing attempt of siding with the State of Israel, doesn't matter what Israel is doing. For Palestinian people living in Israel Palestine, this means literally, they are deprived of basic human rights. In Germany, the fact that we are not allowed to talk about our life experiences as migrants, but also as Germans, some... many of us have the German citizenship. This underlines that while in Palestine-Israel, Palestinians are deprived of basic human rights. Here in Germany, Palestinians as such by, are deprived of basic civic rights. So let me make it very clear. If we assume that Palestinians and Jews share the same values as human beings from a German perspective, this is already an argument to frame you as an ant-semitic. So I'm happy to sit here on the stage with two amazing anti-Semites. But let me also... let me also make it clear that probably there was always this argument that you become anti-semitic to proximity to those who already speak anti-semitically, so those who sit in the first row, have something to inform you. And I believe within 40 minutes the people in the back will also join our circle.

Cecilie Surasky  Yasmeen, can you tell us some of the story that that is talking about from your perspective of, of the particularities? Well, there are many elements to the story that you raised. One might be from your perspective and your feminist perspective and Palestinian perspective, how you would call the governmental structure in Israel? And we talk about structures of othering and this idea of belonging, for you, where even your own personal and political sense of belonging in Israel. Or not? 

Yasmeen Daher  Yeah. So I grew up in Nazareth. I also think it's a city that many of you do know where it is, yeah, famous. So it's not far away from Haifa. And while we're speaking behind the scenes, we figured out that we both have another language. We spoke Hebrew in the backstage. And I studied in Tel Aviv University, and I actually left to do my PhD in Canada. And I think in the whole geography of Palestine, Israel, Palestine, 48, whatever you want to name it, the from the river to the sea, okay. It's, there is one entity that rules and that is Israel. So the details of the kind of treatment you are getting, it obviously varies between being a citizen of the state, but not getting your civic rights or being living in an open air prison like in Gaza, or being used as a cheap labor in Bantustans in the West Bank. So it varies, but it all maybe falls within the category that Hannah Arendt calls, like the the right to have rights. So we don't have the right to have rights. None of us in this whole area between the river and the sea as Palestinians living under the apartheid or the settler colonialism that Israel is enacting upon us for 75 years. 

So, I moved to to Germany, Berlin, and a year after many thousands of Syrians fled Syria because of the regime's repression and crimes. Because I was writing my PhD dissertation on the question of how do we live together? So I was thinking about all those political movements and instances where we come together and try to, to bring up something new to liberate ourselves and those around us. And I thought, okay, I wanted to be closer to this community and I wanted to belong. Also. I wanted to feel geographically closer to the area I grew up in, which is the Middle East, so Berlin felt way closer than Canada, but also there is emerging big community and anyway, Berlin as you as you mentioned, it has a lot of Palestinians. To my dismay, I was surprised. Also, although a knew a little bit, how much you do not have the right to speak as a Palestinian in the German context about any pain, grieving, suffering, occupation, nothing that you live through. People get extremely uncomfortable about it. But also, different institutions shut down from this discourse. They don't want this brought up. And and I think, recently, it's playing out also in, in some extreme and horrific instances where police is brutalizing people in the streets, demonstrations are banned. Any public speaking will have repercussions---people are thrown out of their jobs, losing funding for their projects, defunded, canceled, smear campaigns, etc, etc, etc. So the it's it's a moment where I mean, yeah, maybe I'll let you ask more questions, because I can just continue on.

Cecilie Surasky  No, that's, I think we're gonna keep circling and spiraling into these. And I have to say, part of me, thought cynically, "Oh, it sounds like the United States," in certain, in certain ways. But it's also very different. And we shouldn't conflate the two as the same experience. 

And so I want to Udi, if you can talk about, I had a conversation with with someone, my new friend, Pam, who is one of the attendees here, who said, you know, one of the reasons I'm here came from the United States is, we, as we know, have a deep and profound history of genocide and slavery in the United States, and to put it mildly, have not done a good job. In fact, right now, there's a political, very active political pressure opposing sort of educational recognition of our history. And from her perspective, she's like, well, you know, Germany has this profound history of genocide. But they have done things. They have a commitment to a kind of collective memory that, from our perspective, seems extraordinary. And I have to say that as you know, as a Jewish person, when I walk down the street, and I see stumbling stones, that tell me about actual human beings who lived in those homes---it's incredibly Jewish human beings who are taken from their homes and put into camps and so forth---it moves me deeply. And so I'm, but this so I don't want to I want to hear a little bit about that history of, of how that happened, and how it's also not a neutral political process. That what, Jasmeen, you're talking about is deeply related to this decision around what what collective history Germany can hold, and in fact, German identity itself. So if you could kind of explain that we have people from all over who may not understand some of this.

Udi Raz  I'm not sure why I should begin the historical inquiry, like, we've talked about this end of the Second World War from there. Why would you direct? 

Cecilie Surasky  Yeah, I suppose we could spend a week on this topic. Can you do that, to know the TLDR version? Or if you can, just briefly, I know that, for instance, there's a word of very long yet another very long German word that I can't pronounce that names, the process of coming to terms with the past that has become a linchpin of German national identity. Can you pronounce that word? And then explain that how about that. How about that?

Udi Raz  So the word is called [German language]. And it literally means what you said. I want to go or maybe if we talk about anti semitism and how Germany try nowadays, to combat this, I think this is one aspect of how Germans would feel coming to terms properly with the phenomenon of having Nazi history here. So if we look exactly at how Germany identifies what anti-semitism is, is what has been passed by a so-called international alliance that understand itself as IHRA or International Remembrance Holocaust Alliance, which is a coalition of Western European North American Christian countries and the State of Israel. And this coalition published or passed 2015, what they call a working definition of anti semitism. According to this working definition of anti semitism, which is accompanied by 11 examples. One of the examples says that if you talk about the state of Israel as the racist project, you are an anti-semitic, which is a fair argument, but in fact, Israel is a racist state, right? So you cannot name reality by its name and once you do this, you are becoming part of the problem actually. 2017, the German bond government adopts this definition as working definition of anti semitism, and even extends it to specifies the special relationship between the German state and the Israeli state and how this bond should not be questionable. 

And since then, to my understanding, things become really terrible, not only for Palestinians, for Muslims in general, but also for Jews, and namely, Jews who do not understand the necessity of having a racist state as their own representative. Jews like myself who wish to understand or to explore possibilities of actually living together. And every time we do this, literally, every time we do this, the German--Germanyor its representatives, either German politicians, representative of institutions of the state, you name it--they come to us, cut off our budget, put sanctions on us, exclude us from whatever institution we're at, and reminds us that what we are doing is unacceptable. Literally, Germany, is not only not allowing space for such encounters, but it's fighting against such encounters.

Yasmeen Daher  And if I may add to that, I think that it seems that there is something very threatening to the German state or maybe the modern German state in this type and this type of communities coming together. And namely, here, I'm talking about Muslim Jews, Arabs, who are coming in solidarity for Palestine and against state repression here or in Israel, or the Israeli government, I mean. There is something threatening because it's, it's that they were designed that of the German state was to, we can make peace with you, if with only in terms of separation. So we separate the Jews, and then we're fine with the State of Israel. But maybe this community reminds them, again, this group, and again, this group, which is in power, which is the elite, which is the political politicians or political parties. Not necessarily  a sentiment that's shared with all Germans, for sure not. It reminds them of the past trajedies, as all trajedies could have been avoided. And maybe it shakes the grounds of the future. It shows that of the future and of the present, it shows that there is a possibility of something different that they are not interested in having. They are not interested in this community being empowered, having a voice and showing that there... is we can come together and show our own way of togetherness, of living together, of creating open space for us. 

So it's not... I don't know if they call it… if it's cynicism or paradoxical I'm looking for the word where, like a chairman would come to a Jew telling him you're an antisemite or telling us that this is this is racist when we what we are fighting against is actually racism. And then the.. in the recent week we have been hearing the government clearly talking about expelling or the what's the word? Yeah. So revoking the citizenship of immigrants if they do not agree to this line of understanding both of how they define semitism and antisemitism, how they relate to the State of Israel, and its importance to the raison d'etre of the German state.

Cecilie Surasky  Yeah. There's so much in in what you just said and shared. And one thought is that there isn't... I'd imagine there's a narrative of German identity of repair with the Jews, like a kind of reparations and repair. And so, so Palestinians don't fit into that narrative. That, in fact, the experience of Palestinians is deeply unsettling to a narrative of this sort of settled, we've got rid... you know, we moved Jews to this other place. I mean, we know this that early European support for, you know, Zionist colonization was Balfour was antisemitic, right? Like there was this desire to move Jews elsewhere. And so Palestinians are can counter to that sense of self. Is that part of what this dynamic is that sense of we've done our work?

Yasmeen Daher  Do you want to answer?

Udi Raz  The... How can Palestinian as can be imagined as part of Germany, if I may take it in this direction? It's a brilliant question. I will even complicate this understanding or the difficulty of this idea even more, because the problem has never been Palestinians, the problem is Germany. It's that Germany that needs us to be in a state of enmity in order to justify its existence, but who is excluded from within body of national project? [Clapping] Thank you. Who is as excluded from this understanding of this national self? Surprisingly, are a lot of Jews. Think about it that half of the population of the Jewish... half of the Jewish population nowadays in Palestine Israel are Jews originated from Muslim Arab countries, right. So what is their role? In the justification process of Germany of itself, right? They're completely neglected. If you look in on historical schoolbooks, there is no mentioning for Jews living in Iraq, in Egypt, in Morocco. Jewish experience is located in Europe. And this is one of the problem that characterizes the idea of Germany. It excludes anything that cannot reassure the legitimacy of Europe as a neutral natural project.

Cecilie Surasky  John said something yesterday about oh he's talking about fascism, but it's also Democratic leaders. Anyone really is... they tell you they care about you, but they don't mean it. And that is such a deep experience that I hear... that there's this love there's a love that is crushing.

Yasmeen Daher  So the... or this to actually... for us as people who live in Berlin in Germany to believe that they there has been real, coming to terms with history and with memory and learning anything... this does not show up in our realities and our experiences. I'm speaking here both as a Palestinian but also as an activist in part of these communities, and again, especially the communities where that brings together Palestinians and Jews and Muslims and Arabs and because for us, it's like, no more killing, or no more racism, no more exclusion. But it's not the... which we do not see it happening in our lives. We see Germany trying to protect one kind of people. So it's what they think is grievable and matters. But also, as Udi said, they have a very flattened, flattened idea of what the Jewish identity is and how it should act and how it should belong and where it should belong and to whom it should, and or with whom it should live. And it's not with the Palestinians. 

And now looking at the political discourse that you hear it from Schultz and other personas in the, in the government. Where they back Israel, the current fascist government, in Israel, the far right government that has settlers who, you know, disseminate weapons to individuals in settlements, this is their activity. So they are backed by... Germany is backing this kind of government and allowing it to do whatever it wants now in Gaza, and it's not asking for the bare minimum that if you are watching the news, we'd say, "Oh, I would expect the German government to say ceasefire, no?" Peace." It's not in the discourse. It's really weird, awkward, scary that you will look at these governments, Germany, France, United States, the United Kingdom, and there is no talk about ceasefire. So you would think that actually Germany is backing the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and from the northern of Gaza to the south, maybe Sinai or Egypt. And, and the... it's as if they cannot imagine they cannot fathom a future where the two people can live together. And the same thing that happens there is is brought up here and maybe in obviously, in different scale and in different methods, but there is a suspicion towards this community and crushing to this community that actually shows if we believe in liberty, and if we work towards liberty and freedom then, yeah, we can live together. We can find the ways.

Cecilie Surasky  I want to ask you about this question of, of building power for change and how we define radical, what that means. And is there a way to define or redefine? Is there a need to redefine what radical means? Is there a need to talk about relationship, the power of relationality with each other, within our communities? What it takes to be in these struggles for change, what it means to build a world where everyone belongs, all of the tools that are involved? Right now this fragmenting is happening all over the world in very intense ways. I'm fielding phone calls now from reporters asking about UC Berkeley where we're from. And, the kind of fissures that are developing and the open hostility. I personally have to limit my exposure to Twitter, because it's not only increasingly traumatic content, but it looks like a world in which we take one side or another and we have to dehumanize the other side. To some degree, there is very little algorithmic support for the world you are describing and that you live in and that we live in. And so, what is called upon us as change agents, and you may call yourself an activist, you may be a teacher, you may be a neighbor, doesn't matter. We're all change agents in this work. We're all feeling it in our bodies. So not to ask you the answer to everything but. Yasmeen, if you could answer that, and then Udi, I would be deeply I think we'd all be deeply grateful to hear your thoughts.

Yasmeen Daher  I'm thinking about the terminology or the word you used, radical. And so my son, who's eight years old, and he, I mean, we got together in Palestine, but he never lived there. But he speaks Arabic and German. So he asked me, so "What do the people in Gaza want?" And for a moment, I was like, caught unprepared. It's, like, obvious, no? So I think radicalism at this moment, means for me, for someone who's not supported by the algorithm at all, that our story actually is crushed in the algorithm and everywhere. It's to really deeply, honestly, fully believe that Palestinians do have the right to exist, and exist in freedom, total, full freedom without confinement, without living somewhere far, without barriers without the Israelis looking and surveilling our lives and our bodies and our breath, and really believe that we deserve this fully, without remarks, without conditions. And that would mean that people in Gaza can drive to Nazareth, they can drive to Haifa. People in Haifa can drive together. It's like, I can totally imagine that space... open, inclusive... where Jews and Palestinians can live together, everywhere. So everyone who can imagine this world, or can't maybe start from understanding that Palestinians have the right to exist as human beings who are free, without any constraints from the State of Israel, who again, as I said in the beginning, the only power that controls that piece of land from the river to the sea, then we understand why Palestinans are calling for freedom. And that's for me, this is the radical stance. So believing in the Palestinians, right to exist in that land. And again, believing that all of the people who live on that land, both Jews and Palestinians can and should live together. And that's what everybody should push for, and not more violence or more control and oppression.

Udi Raz  I totally second you. I would like to add to that one personal wish. I really wish that my parents will live long enough to experience a state where non Jews are in power. Palestinians are in power. And to realize that Palestinians don't treat them the way that their own government now treats Palestinians. And on a macro level, perhaps a theoretical level, I would say, what is radical for me, from what my life story taught me is queerness. Its queerness, not only in the sense of gender constraints, but also of national constraints of how you describe the reality that unfolds in front of you, not by being dependent on categories that are already given to you in order to group you into us and them. But to understand who how you create a community, a safe space, that can start with a group of people and grow bigger and include eventually us all. Because I think, in the base of all of it, we're all human beings. And this must be always the starting point for each conversation.

Cecilie Surasky  The sense I get in hearing you talk about relationships that you have here in Berlin. And this vision is... resonates with me very deeply. We talk about the illusions, the illusion of the other. And I would invite everyone who, for whom some of this conversation might be new or even challenging to you, to both talk to us, and go on a journey of learning and encounter and learning and seeing with your own eyes and encountering human beings and understanding histories. And how many times I think those of us, again, who were told as Jews that this thing is for you, it really wasn't, right? This thing that will make you safe, actually, for many of us hasn't. As we know, from these terrible, terrible weeks. This thing that will make you more human hasn't. And this is something... we can accept, analyze this. But I do want to note that so many of the dynamics we've been discussing have come up over and over again over the last two days. This is not exceptional. There are many people who have had experiences, every experience is distinct. But having government's promise us safety at the price of othering and other people, those of us from the United States know this very well. The ways that we have justified extraordinary, extraordinary numbers of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so forth. So I really invite us to actually weave this story into our other stories so we can have the broader vision and broader understanding of the relationships between European colonialism and white supremacy, and all of these structures, the military industrial complex, all of these things are deeply, deeply intertwined. This is not a separate story in that regard.

And with that our time is up. Thank you both so very much.

José Alejandro Rivera  Thank you for listening to this episode of For The Wild. The music you heard today is by Ariana Saraha and Amo Amo. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, Julia Jackson, Jackson Kroopf, Evan Tenenbaum, and José Alejandro Rivera.