so she described woman had grown up in the jim crow south and a woman who had grown up in apartheid south africa and what we saw resonated for all of them resonated for me in terms of the harassment and violence that was pretty routine and that our palestinian saw as pretty, pretty routine life under occupation, going through checkpoints, agents being, you know, harassed, just trying to go about your business. so what do we learn as readers in following of its dilemmas dilemma on that tragic day for, him as a dad looking for his child and you know, we get we get a sense of what that wall represents, what what occupation represents. and what that violence is about. so you want describe it a little bit more. and then, omar, i want to invite u.n. because you document it with a lot of ahmed salama. but tell us more.

yeah. so, you know, the book tells the story of abid salama. it's called a day in the life of abid salama, but it's actually about more than just a day it's the life of abid salama and it's the life of some of the other characters in this book. and one of the themes, i mean, we see in what transpires on that day, how abid learns of the accident, he rushes to the accident site, how he goes through, passes a checkpoint, get to the accident site and tries to flag down israeli soldiers who refuse to give him ride up to to the bus. how he arrives at scene of the accident and all of the kids have been removed. and he asks this crowd where are the kids. and he's told that some of them went to jerusalem hospitals, some of them went to the

military base just a minute up the road. some of them went to ramallah hospital, some even went to nablus. and he himself has a green west bank id, which doesn't him to go to most of the places that were named. certainly can't go to the israeli military. that's a minute up the road. he can't go to hospitals in east jerusalem or in west jerusalem where he is told the kids are located. so he goes to ramallah and and in ramallah, we follow him attempting to find his son and, sending his relatives. you know, these in the same you have people who have green ids, have people who have the blue jerusalem that does allow you to enter jerusalem. so he sends a relative to go to the jerusalem hospital and look for his son and following more than 36 hours of his life, we see the system in which he's in

trapped and how it works and what it actually means to be a green a blue id holder on the worst day of your life. and but what i wanted to say is that, you know, i think a deeper theme of the book is the degree to which the system reaches the most intimate details of these people's. and so when we learn of abed's back story, we learn that at one point he married, he chose a marriage partner based on the color her id because he was at risk of losing his job, a higher paying job in jerusalem like other fellow green id holders. and he chose a marriage partner just for the chance to get him himself, get a blue i.d. and able to retain his job and, work in jerusalem and provide for his family. and there are many other

examples. the book of of that degree of control. mm hmm. talking green ids and blue ids. you're sharing that, mike, with your friends. they share, but i want to ask omar. you know, you're the report you've done a number of reports, but the report in 2021 is particularly compelling and relevant now. and just hearing talk about that level of segregation reminds me of i mean, one of my big periods of activism was the anti-apartheid movement and hearing about the pass laws and knowing that people's lives were regulated, you know, down to the minute detail by, you know, whether they were, you know, had their past and what their past said they could do, where they could go, they could live, etc. so. so tell us about why, you know,

the regime in israel now is labeled apartheid. absolutely. let me start by saying what an honor is to be on my friend nathan. and i always tell people, if you read one, i mean, best thing i've read in years and i'm not just this because he's next to me is this book. so i highly encourage everybody to read it. and i think part the reason why it's so powerful is it it in narrative form lays out the daily reality of palestinians living under israeli rule. people in moments like today. think about the hot violence of carnage, slaughter, bloodshed, which is a part of the palestinian experience. but it's the cold violence of structural repression that the machinery of which has been operating for decades, that nathan's book powerfully speaks to. so let me start with the west bank, with what nathan laid out and sort of put in a little bit of human rights context and then sort of step back to to your question. the first thing to understand about the west bank is you have two population groups that live virtually side by side.

you have excluding even east jerusalem. you have nearly half a million jewish israelis settlers who are living in settlements. settlements are war crimes under international humanitarian law because of the transfer of one civilian population to territory acquired by war or occupied by war, living side by side around, you know, 2.5 million palestinians. now, these two people, they might live across the street as they do in some areas, they're governed different bodies of law. okay. so if a jewish israeli in a palestine, leon, commits the very same offense, they're tried in different courts, they have different due process. or to be more accurate, jewish israelis have due process. palestinians do not. and they could receive. different sentences for the very same offense. jewish israelis are citizens, israel. so they have the same idea. they can move back and forth freely. they can vote in elections. they are governed under israeli civil law. palestine indians are under a

brutal military occupation. they have green ids, which i'll explain more about in a second. they have limited freedom of movement. they cannot vote in elections for the government that effectively rules over their lives. and it's not just about the dual regimes they live a reality of enforced segregation. so settlements which are built on export of palestinian land, more than one third of the west bank expropriate it. palestinians cannot enter except as laborers bearing special. and so there's enforced segregation. there's these dual of law and with it you have systematic repression in all its manifestations. right depending on what metric you go on. so movement. nathan talked a lot about the different freedom of movement so jewish israelis can move back and forth east jerusalem into israel proper palestinians, on the other hand, need difficult to obtain permits to enter east jerusalem and to enter israel proper. so just to put that in perspective, probably most everybody in this room could today get on an flight it to

ben-gurion, go to the occupied, go to the old city of jerusalem. but the palestinian who might live three kilometers away can't do that, doesn't have the right based on who they are, even they get that permit. they have to go through hundreds, checkpoints, largely built between palestinian communities that can turn a short commute to, work to school into an hours long humiliating ordeal. and as they pointed out, there's also a separation barrier that israel built largely on palestine, indian land that separates thousands palestinians from their communities, hospitals, etc., beyond movement land. it's not just that israel stole the land and gave it for illegal. it has palestinians to live living in what nathan describes as these different enclaves. so basically the west bank has become bunch of, you know, territorial bantustans or enclaves surrounded by the large settlements and not only that, you know, not only is the israeli government expropriated the land, given it to settlers,

but even the resources that there are controlled by the israeli government, received by palestinians on a on a discriminatory basis. and even beyond that, the palestinians who live there, the majority, the west bank, it's effectively impossible to get a building permit. the we did showed between 2016 and 2018, the israeli in the majority of the west under its exclusive control, issued 100 times more demolition orders than building permits for palestinians. all the while, while the illegal settlements expanded and they have demolish every year hundreds of homes, schools, businesses for lacking that nearly impossible to obtain building permit in addition, palestinians live under a brutal military occupation, so killings arbitrary arrest. i mean, this gathering, if we were having this gathering in, ramallah, it would be illegal and all of us, if we were palestinian, would be subjected to ten year jail sentence under draconian military law for gathering is more than ten people without a and possible to

obtain a permit from the army east jerusalem, even though israel is annexed, it has many of these same dynamic. and to give but one example if you're a jerusalem id holder, so you have the coveted blue id that nathan spoke about, even that id, you're a stateless person, you don't have nationality, and you could lose that id card. if you study in the united states, if you marry somebody and move to a different of the west bank. right. so people have to make choices. and there is israeli law on the books. for more than two decades. it allows an israeli citizen or national to marry somebody from anywhere in the world virtually. and give them legal status to live them in israel, but not palestinian from the west bank or east jerusalem. although israel justified this formally under the name of security, our report documents, scores of statements by israeli saying that this is about. so just to come back to the question of apartheid this is a snapshot of just the west bank in east jerusalem. when i gave you just a snapshot, could do the same thing about gaza.

but israel proper. but that systematic we documented the report also talks about why it place. and the short answer is control of demographics and land. you know, basically underlying israeli government policy across israel and palestine is maximum land, minimum palestine. yes. so that systematic repression combined with what are very serious abuses with that intention we found meets the international legal for the crime against humanity apartheid which as it's a legal term, although defined in relation south africa treaties defined as a legal term that basically means systematic oppression by one group of people over another. when done with the intent to maintain a regime of domination by people over another, and when combined with inhumane acts so, basically inhumane acts, systematic oppression, intent to we found those elements there and that's human rights watch. and that's why there's a consensus in the human rights movement that israel's treatment of palestinian is amounts to

apartheid. thank you. i encourage people to the report if you haven't. it's two years old now, but it's still quite and quite relevant in this moment. so here we are, many, many miles from palestine, israel, many, many miles from gaza. but it's very relevant to as americans, as people living in the united states. it comes up in your book and it comes up in your report. can you speak to the billions that the us gives in passing and passing right now? either. either one of you. you whatever the billions that the us gives in support to israel and the degree to which you know us, complicity is allowing the injustice against the palestinians to continue. i think yeah. no, i think it's a really good question. look, i when you about the united states's role in

israel-palestine, there's often this idea of being a broker or of sort of using u.s. influence but the united states is much more that. i mean, the united states, according to a congressional research service report from earlier this year, has given more than $150 billion in military aid to israel since 1948, since the founding of the israeli state. the united states is probably the single global power with the real ability to dictate the outcome of events on the ground and throughout the history of the united states, regardless of administration or party, the united states government has, in effect, you given a green light to the israeli government and in some cases much more than that, to carry out the systematic repression and oppression of palestinian is often being done with us government weapons support and in all its manifestations. and i think what we've seen obviously in the trump was a more dramatic version of this, but in many cases was was much

more of a continuity with longstanding u.s. policy, a fundamental break from it. and i think what we're seen in the last couple of year, a couple years under the biden administration, even in the last month, has reinforced that basic idea. i mean, the most basic thing the united states does across the world when there is a crisis like this, is to call for respecting international law, ending unlawful attacks, condemning abuses when they take place, calling for accountability for those, calling for civilians to have to water electricity, medicine, food. i mean the basic sort of things that a, people need to survive. and the united states position has quite frankly been shameful. there's no real other word to use to describe it. and they have rightfully condemned the heinous hamas led attack on october seven. but you've not seen a similar condemnation issued the war crimes. and we'll talk about it more

that the israeli government has committed, is committing, is continuing to commit in the gaza strip and. human rights watch has had a very clear for a long time that all forms of complicity in the crime against humanity of apartheid and persecution should end. this includes military forms of military assistance and arms support and includes business engagement, bilateral engagement and many you might have seen or some of you may have seen that today. human rights watch issued a call for an arms embargo against the israeli, and that is premised on the real that us weapons will be to commit grave abuses. and there's a risk when it's done knowingly and, significantly of risking complicity and atrocities that are taking place right now. when add well, i actually was going to just add an anecdote related to what you had said

prior which was describing the vulnerability of people jerusalem palestinians in jerusalem of having their residency revoked and this comes up in in abbott's because within this walled off enclave half it was formally annexed by israel in 1967 and half of it was not but if you actually go inside of it as i did many times over the last several years, you can't tell the difference. the part that israel considers within its sovereign territory within annexed east jerusalem and the part that has not been annexed. it is one area of gross neglect. i mean, to give one example when i on the main road this the single thoroughfare running through this community of 130,000 people today the it is

not wide enough for my car to pass at the same time as a bus moving in the opposite direction, which causes enormous congestion. and i literally roll down my window and pull in my side mirror and inch around a bus in order to just pass. and this is how 130,000 people are living day in and day out. and what i wanted to mention about the jerusalem blue eyed and having your residency revoked is that, you know, members of this community, some members of the same family have green ids, some have blue ids. and one of one of abed's abed's brother is married to a he has a green id and he's married to a woman who has a blue i.d. and he

himself is not allowed inside municipal jerusalem. he has a green id, is not allowed to go in. and what they do is they maintain two apartments. they have one apartment that's formerly municipal jerusalem, the half of the enclave that's been formerly annexed because israel send inspectors to make sure that they actually residing within the borders of municipal jerusalem. though this enclave is totally neglected and the municipality basically doesn't go in except as a policing force. the one thing they will go do and check going to do is to check that he his is really residing this apartment. and as soon as they're come through the checkpoint people start calling one another on the phone and they recognize the car. they know what these look like and they say the inspectors are on the way and people rush to their other and they enter and

then they pretend that they've been sitting there for a long time. and the inspectors, the home and lift up towels and clothes and look dust and say, you really live here. and if and if they find that she doesn't really live there, they can take away her blue jerusalem id her to enter the rest of the city the heart of jerusalem to visit family who are on the other side of the wall. she could never see them again without to apply for a permit. so that is the kind of day in and day out of fear that all of these people are subjected to. when you're telling that story, it reminded me of one of my colleagues who went on the delegation that i mentioned as premier in madison, who's done work on the welfare rights. and reminds me of the kind of invasion of intimate spaces of social workers of of poor women, of color in this country who

know they would come in and see if husband is there, if a man is the house and, you know, rummage their things and all of that sort of to prove domesticity according to prescribed, you know, protocols. so you've mentioned ahmed salama again, and he was really supposed to be here with you. he was supposed to be. he was on part of the tour with you. and then the tragedy of october seventh happened. what does that relationship been like as you've written this about the pain, his life? what kind of trust was built? what did you learn and how have you grown in the journey? writing about this man's tragic day in jerusalem? so unfolds honestly for all of you. ahmed had to return home early. he had to cut the. he was on tour with. me. we were in the uk, in the us together and the in the west bank now and in his community is

reminiscent the second intifada communities are closed down. the mobility for palestinians is highly. there is a spike in settler violence in forced displacement of since the beginning of 2022 just prior to october 7th the un at the end of september put out a report saying since the beginning of 2022, over a thousand palestinians had been forcibly, largely by settler militias in the west bank. entire communities moved, and most of the press that describe this process called it a slow motion ethnic cleansing inside. the central strip of the west bank. and since october alone that was

already a huge number, a thousand in a little less than years since october 7th alone, more than 800 more have been forcibly in the west bank. so the old processes are being accelerated under the cover of this war in gaza and abed felt that he had to rush home, be with his family. nobody, you know, almost palestinian family in the west bank, every extended family is relying on higher paying jobs in israel in the settlements, including ahmed's family. and those jobs basically don't exist right now. the israeli employers aren't letting palestinians come to work and, even added son who works in ramallah for a palestinian employer was told by boss, you can't come to because

there's too much settler violence. it's unsafe for to drive on the roads right now. so ahmed felt that he couldn't he couldn't away from his family. you know, there are two exits of this community that he lives in, one at the top toward the rest of jerusalem for blue eyed others to go through. and one at the bottom that both green and blue id holders can exit through. and all it takes is, you know, two soldiers to put put up a gate or a roadblock at these two exits, and that's it. you've trapped 130,000 people and. it's like that throughout the west bank. and so ahmed returned to be with his family and couldn't with you tonight. but the process for me you know is it was a very very intimate process unlike any other reporting i've done. i spent much of the last four years of my life with ahmed and

it wasn't just a matter reporting, but, you know, grieving together. and i, you know, deeply grateful to him for trusting. and i have to say, you know, i was actually very nervous about how he would respond to the book. you know, it's it's very uncommon for writer of any nonfiction magazine article or book to share the work with the subject before it's published. it's basically never done. and in this particular case, because of how much abbott had shared with me, i really considering doing. and in end, i decided not to. i was to worried that i would compromise the work by having to litigate, you know, kinds of aspects of the book.

so i didn't share it with him until there was a hard cover at the end of august. and i had been losing sleep over how. he would respond to the book and he called about two days after receiving it and told me that had read just the first part and the first part deals mainly his love lives and he called and said, you know, everything here is true, but there are a lot more details than i thought there would be. and and he said, know everyone in this community is going to come after he's revealing. i've got a sister in law betrayed him and who he's never confronted in person who lives next door he's about the biggest

political in the west bank fatah and not so favorable term arms he's he's revealing many many intimate details of his life his family's life and and so i said to him, you know, i'm really sad, concerned to hear you say that, you know, please just finish the book and let's after you finished it and and so he did. and was i myself sleep for the next few nights and he called me back and he said, you know, ivan, i understand what you're doing with this book and and i, i i think it's important and. i accept i accept what you're doing? and i'm ready to face the consequences. you know, friends still friends.

so that's a good segue way to invite you to read a small section from the book, if you will. yeah. you know, nathan is a wonderful writer, too, so. so the part i'm going to read is at the scene of the crash where one woman, her name is huda de boer. she's a doctor and she works for the un refugee agency for palestinians. unwra, and she has been helping to rescue many children from. this burning bus. and there is another character who's mentioned here is a teacher named ola, who together with a man named salim, the two of them went inside this burning

bus repeatedly pulled kids out. so i'll i'll begin here. nearly 20 minutes had passed since huda and her staff had come upon the burning bus. flames and smoke were pouring from the smashed windows. who driver abu faraj was directing traffic, keeping an open path for the evacuees, and telling drivers of cars to turn back. the crowd had grown so large that huda could no longer see the driver and the teacher she salim had pulled from the front the bus. she was focused, the children gently carrying them with one of the u.n. nurses to the cars that had stopped at the accident site. many of the drivers had volunteer to transport burn victims and stood ready to race to the nearest hospital, which for most of them was in ramallah. the hospitals in jerusalem far

better, but only those with blue ids could reach them. a few of the drivers did have blue ids and some took off in the direction of hadassah at mount scopus in jerusalem. the majority those green ids went in the opposite along the flooded road to ramallah. nearly all the children have been brought off the bus. salim, who had who had by now gone in and out of the flames several times, saw that ola, the teacher and his partner and the rescue was trapped beneath the front seat and her leg was burning. but by the time he got to her, it was too late. she was gone. he carried a ruler from the bus and placed her on the ground. her nephew, sadi, watched in the rain well and covered her with his coat. in all of this, salim had felt nothing not even as someone in the crowd grabbed at his arm and pinched him. one of who? the nurses yelled to him that

his jacket was on fire. he shouted back that it was not the nurse put it out. he went to climb back into the bus. the few children still inside were no longer alive. the last boy, salim, pulled out, facing down, crouched behind the frame of a seat. he was still wearing a which salim held. pick the boy up, stepping out of the bus for the final. salim broke out, weeping shouting that he should have saved more somehow. not a on his head was burned. abu faraj stood unmoving in shock, as if mesmerized raised by the flames. who to turn to the nurse beside her and saw that her face was black and streaked by rain. she realized, must look the same. they were soaked in weary, and there was nothing more for them to do. when a palestinian ambulance finally arrived, most of the injured children had already

been evacuated. huda didn't even notice it. the bus was still crackling with flames and there was much shouting and commotion. not a single firefighter, officer or soldier had come. huda wanted to follow the children. she found her team and they returned to the unwra van dam. the pregnant pharmacist was still inside. inconsolable abu faraj started dropping off everyone at home as huda called around and confirmed that most of the children were in ramallah. then she phoned her. unrwa's. he didn't understand. the magnitude of the accident and demanded that the team turn and go to channel ahmar, where he would cut their pay. huda refused and he should cut just her salary. no one else's. after stopping for a quick shower, who set off for the hospital taking the clinic's worker with her? when they got there, word

spread. huda had been at the crash. a great many parents and other relatives sought her out, asking whether she had seen a boy with a spiderman backpack. a girl with her hair in yellow ribbons who had told them all the same thing. the children had been covered in soot and she couldn't tell what they were wearing. going from room to room, huda checked on the injured children, soothing them. since leaving the bus, she had felt something nagging at her. she was sure the kindergartners had been silent, at least early in their ordeal. now, at the bed of one girl who to asked her why that was. why she had heard no sound. we were so scared. the girl said. when we saw the flames, we thought we had died. we thought we were in hell. so very, very powerful. particularly when we think of

tragedies happening to children. i think that is a segway to what's happening right now in gaza. right. so. you know, the of october seven were tragic and lives were lost in the us media told us some of the stories of children who were killed. young people who were at a music festival who were killed. but we don't get the full humanity of palestinians who are now being bombed and ethnically cleansed in gaza who are being forced to leave their homes and. then the pathways by which they leave are being bombed. and half the people in gaza are children. children like. abed, son so tell us a little bit about. how we make sense of the siege

of gaza today and and we can also say what's happening in of voices being raised all over the world. thousands of people from sydney, london to dc to new york. but but us an insight if will. yeah. when? when. rabbi rosen opened and sort of mentioned how we about this event and you know as as we have all rang the alarm bell if a month ago you had told me we'd be seeing a reality. 10,000 people in gaza killed, 4000 children killed. the scale of devastation in that we've seen. i would not have been able to fathom that. so when you talk about the reality in gaza, i mean, it's it's just hard to even describe in words. so you have to point to million people caged in a 25 by seven mile open air.

prison 16 years that there's been a ban on movement nobody in nobody out unless you fall within a narrow band of humanitarian exemptions. so of gaza's population has never left gaza because the majority actually at half are children. the majority are have lived all or most of their under this crushing closure. so you have a situation in small area where israeli government has relented mostly for one month consists cently been dropping heavy aerial bombs, heavy artillery on the population. you have no safe place go in gaza and no safe way to get anywhere. this bombing reduced and we've seen this an interviews, we've done video footage. we satellite imagery. we've looked at reduced entire blocks and, large parts of neighborhoods to rubble. you talk to people in gaza, they tell you whether i live is

purely deprived of chance because. that's the scale of bombardment. 10,000 people killed, more than 4000 kids. hospitals have been struck. schools have struck. refugee camps have been struck. you have a situation in which beyond just the scale, human rights watch, we've documented the use of white phosphorus and an incendiary material that is inherently indiscriminate would dropped in populated areas because it causes lifelong suffer rank and excruciating burns to people in the surrounding area beyond the use of white phosphorus. have these conventional bombs that have been dropped and beyond just the bombardment bombardment which is difficult enough to fathom which has led to 1.5 million people being displaced, the majority gaza residents, nearly half the homes have been destroyed or damaged. in addition to that, the israeli government has cut electricity

and water to the entire civilian population and fuel for point 2 million people. israel could flick the switch right now and electricity and water to the population but it's denying it to an entire civilian population for the acts carried out heinous acts carried out again by hamas led fighters. is collective punishment that is a war crime under international law. it is also blocked all but a trickle of humanitarian aid, food from reaching the civilian population. that is also war crime. international law allows you to monitor but to entirely block aid starvation as a weapon of war is also a war crime. so you have a population that has been without electricity, without water, without food, medicine, under relentless bombardment. in addition, the israeli government ordered. 1.1 million people, all of north gaza, to leave their homes. no place to go, no safe place to get anywhere. and they, in essence, have

treated the areas that remain like the jabalya refugee camp as a free fire zone. in essence, there are people and we've documented this, we published a report last week about people with who aren't able to evacuate or who, you know, patients at hospitals, older people and they can't evacuate. but israel's saying you don't evacuate, we're going to treat you as a combatant. and their actions suggest that they're following that policy. all of this doesn't in isolation. the israeli government has said they have article ated that they are punishing, that there should be accountability for happened on october 7th because those were heinous crimes. but that's not what the israeli government is talking. they're talking about revenge. they're talking about punishing the entire population and holding them responsible. from israel's president to defense minister, the government, they are signaling to the world their intent to, commit mass atrocities and. that's what we're seeing on the ground today. and when i think about the story

of ahmed salama and milad, his son and i, you know, hear about the spiderman backpack and i and i and you think about that story. i about the 4000 kids who also had backpacks, people who were found in the rubble. by the way, israel's also apparently cut to telecommunications and i want you to imagine what this means just for a second. there are hundreds people buried under the rubble, including. when you cut telecommunication lines, it means a phone call can't be made to a first responder that may be able to pull a kid out of the rubble so kids die because of this. apparently deliberate policy. that what we're dealing with as we speak today. it is difficult to even fathom and as bad as ugly as it is, there are signs that there are further mass atrocities to the world must act.