good evening, everyone.

my name's colin robinson and am the publisher. all books and i want to welcome you to this event to. mark the publication of a book very proud to be publishing. understanding and why that matters. and before hand over to the excellent panel which includes two editors of the book. i just wanted to tell a little story about what happened with

this book week because it's kind of indicative of the problem that book attempts to tackle. so there's a bookstore in brentwood, california, in los angeles called books and it was previously owned by a couple progressive types who it over the summer i'm some i'm guessing here but i think they were probably responsible placing the order for this book but they did order it and it was put on front table of their bookstore. by one of their members of staff, possibly mischievous, we don't know. next, kamala harris's book book. the bookstore and now under

under new ownership it. didn't seem be aware that this book was on sale there. someone came the store saw the book freaked out. this is basically on video you can see it if you want to online and started shouting about how the bookstore was supporting terrorists terrorists. one of the staff members in the bookstore tried to have a discussion with the person who was yelling to not really any avail. the person was yelling, then started asking. there were no donald trump books on sale in the bookstore, which was. unanswered as a as a question question. indeed in the afternoon of that day, it was last week, a

demonstration gathered outside the bookstore between 30 and 60 people demand that the bookstore remove the book from sale and i think we can be reasonably confident because the book was still in the bookstore that none of the people outside demonstrating had actually read the book but nonetheless they wanted it taken off the table and unfortunately the bookstore acceded to their demands and said that because they were against hate speech and because of threats that they'd received to the staff who were working in the bookstore, they were longer going to sell it. so it was taken down by, taken out by the bookstore and that was that. so the point is really, i think pretty clear here, no one had read this book.

it's there is there is no hate in this book. it's a book about attempting understand what the parties involved in this conflict stand for for. and i think pretty clear that if you're going to resolve the conflict, you can't just brand people with slogans or derisory language and leave it at that. you have to get beneath the surface and find what the history and program and aspiration of these organizations are. he spoke explicitly does not endorse hamas it attempts to investigate what it is and as an organized ation of why why it should be taken seriously. so we wrote to penn the writers

organization and complained about what had happened with the book at bookstore. and they put out a statement saying that they were upset with had happened. so that was that was good. and we hope there are many bookstores around the united states that are going to be stocking this and putting on their tables and people to find out what the actual issues what the organizations who party to this conflict really for. and we're very proud to be publishing it in that endeavor and we're very proud to. have the editors of the here tonight. so just want to introduce david wildman, who's going to moderate the discussion and who will helena and rami. so i'm just going to introduce him using using i know that

helen has given me he's a distinguished lecturer. david david wildman is a distinguished lecturer in. the anti a leader in the anti. apartheid movement for south africa. a long time leader in the palestinian rights movement in us churches and society. he's currently the main rapture un of the global ministries of the united methodist church, and he's also the middle east liaison. and he's also now the co-chair of the ngo working on palestine and the united just before i pass it over to david i want to say a couple of thanks to people, especially to the francis kite club who host these

events for all books in their wonderful bar on avenue c we've got a whole program of events coming up and think there's a flier on the table but we've been running these events one or two a month and it's important for us to try and get progressive ideas out there in person as well as through our books online. so thanks very much to francis kite club for four for hosting this and i want to give shout out to juan diego who's selling the books at the front there. the sharp end of the business. and if you get a please do say hi to him. buy copy buy a copy for your friends you won't be disappointed with it. thanks very much. thanks so much, colin.

thanks to all the team of your books. so i don't know all the staff but i know this was a team effort so. thank you so much and for hosting it here. and thanks to all of you who are here and have taken time out of your evening to be together for this really important discussion. as colin mentioned, i'm david wildman. i'm staff with the united methodist church. all those long things are a way of saying i'm a bureaucrat, but i'm one who tries to be an activist in those positions. so it's nearly a year of. israeli genocide against, the palestinian people, an expanding war. there is already a regional war, but that's on top of over 57 years of military occupation and over 76 years of the nakba, ongoing nakba. so i think we need to acknowledge this is not new, but it's more urgent than ever to having discussions and to take a

little time away to dig deeper as this book has done. and i want most of the time to be with helena and rami being and then you being able to engage with some questions. so i'd like to introduce both of them in a minute but i want to just say a little bit about my own role in the united methodist church and why it's an honor for me be invited to moderate this discussion. in 1968, the united methodist church of to denominations coming together and when we had our general conference and we've we've been a church that's often been divided against each other. we adopted statement in 1968, a year after, the six-day war calling for an end to all transfers to the entire middle east. we affirmed, even if we disagreed on, other things that more arms is like trying to put a fire out with gasoline.

now, sadly, the u.s. government has been the greatest violator of united methodist principle in terms of war. is the way to solve problems. and so we're here today to say we've held that consistently throughout all these years of continuing to lift up to say arms are not the solution so way before the arms embargo. the call for an arms embargo that the grass roots around the world calling for now that humanitarian organization and human rights organizations activist organizations are all calling for an arms embargo to stop t slaughter. we've been there, too. we need to keep raising our voices until that day that the arms embargo forces the governments stop the slaughter. and i've been i listened to the security council meetings and every single security council meeting and there was quite a few. there was one today of the

states lift up condemning hamas as a whole as part of their speech before they get to the situation of palestine heroes who've had hospitals bombed, etc. and so to talk about understanding hamas, as this book suggests, and why that matters. it matters because so many have invoked name of hamas without the organization at all to justify incredible violence and slaughter and so i think that it's really important glad that you're taking the time also to dig into this conversation with helena and rami so with that brief little let me just say that helena cobban is a publisher a long time writer she did a weekly column for the christian science monitor many years and about 14 years ago, 2010, i think it was founded just world books to say that.

we need to do this digging deeper of getting things out there on palestine, israel, the middle east. and so there's been there's too many books to count. but this is the latest rami khouri and i'll introduce them both. and then turn it over to them. is a longtime journalist academic. i love that mix of like and in fact i found when he got to new york because i was listening to bbc on monday, it said live from new york, rami was offering his analysis. and i know you have family in beirut, in amman, in nazareth, in the galilee. and so know that this for you and i imagine for in the room this is also deeply personal. and so i think let's just before we turn it over to you just a brief moment of silence to remember all whose lives have been cut short, completely, unnecessarily and sadly, with the complicity of the us

government. thank you. so i want to just go to the title and helena, we'll start with and then we'll go to rami and say, understanding hamas and does this matter? so maybe you could just like answer that question. it comes out of a of webinars from last may. it's amazing the turnaround so maybe just why does this right now to have book and what's in it with the folks you interviewed. so first. okay. well, thank you so much, david, for with us. it's always a pleasure. be next to you on any panel. big thanks to colin and the rest of the team at all books for working us. i'm here in my capacity as the president of just world educational which is actually quite separate. the publishing company.

just world educational is a nonprofit devoted to public education with. a special emphasis on the affairs of the region of the world that. i call west asia. but i grew when i was growing up in england. we called it the middle east because we were eurocentric. so we did put on and romy is one of the eight distinguished board members of just world educational and back in march we decided you know there are a lot of people doing work on humanitarian things in gaza in particular and it's hard work and it it's emotionally wrenching to do that work and it's very but you're not to get an end to the suffering until there is a political agreement

which is is the short answer for why it matters to hamas. i mean i've worked the rwandan genocide example. i did a book about genocide in sub-saharan africa and. i remember there was somebody in uganda who was down the river from rwanda during the genocide and a journalist went and asked. so you know, what are you doing here? well, we're digging we're taking the bodies out of the river and burying them. but could you please do something in rwanda so that there are no more bodies? and that's the way that i look at the political education task that we're on with understanding hamas and why that matters? because david expressed that brilliantly that, you know, if if every political statement, every political actor, every political party asked to start off by condemning hamas, then

we're not going to get the ceasefire that we so desperately need. and it is very that actually our administration here in united states has been negotiated eating with hamas since november indirectly, but definitely negotiated and then negotiated as a four day ceasefire successfully in that was then extended for further two days and then a further one day for a seven day ceasefire and worked. hostages and political prisoners were released. there was a ceasefire and it could have been built upon for a much lasting ceasefire, instead of which our administration just let the carnage resume with the effect that we've seen today. so that's why it matters. i just want to say a few quick

things about the project from which the book arose so. we did decide in just world educational back in march that, you know, we because we're small and, agile and committed and, have strong principles and, we don't actually have a lot of resources. where do we focus? we focus them on the piece of the demonizing this organization, hamas. and as colin has said as we have written in the book, we said during the webinars, we are not there to build support for hamas we're not they're just mindlessly to oppose it and to demonize it. we want to understand it. so what we did, we invited world class on the movement most of

them have well-regarded books. we had dr. paola caridi who speaks a wonderful, rich italian accent. we invited dr. halid, her group. we invited somebody that i had never encountered called dr. yaron gunning, who's a dutch english professor who is one of the founders of. this intriguing new academic field called critical terrorism studies that seeks to interrogate the whole big, very funded field of terrorism study terrorism studies in the west. and then we invited moin rabbani, well known, very smart political and dr. azzam, who is a a senior figure in islam and

denmark chrissie movement who lives in london. so three of our experts are palestinians, two of them are european phds. and i'm really proud that we were able rami i co-hosted these webinars and you can them they're still on our youtube channel just world educate but you know looking at 6 hours of of videos some people love to it some people like to learn things through text and i'm more of a text person. i want to say. so we took the transcripts from these webinars and lightly edited them as anybody who's ever worked with transcripts knows, you to do that and and then we made the book with the help of all books and.

they're very speedy turnaround. so the book will available on well-known international retailer us on october 8th. it's available in several bookstores doors and can be ordered through all books website. and you know, there many things that we learned through this process. so for me there's a little bit of a historical background. i grew up in england and you know, in an era of decolonization, when every week it seemed the a group that the british empire had previously denounced as nothing but a bunch ragtag terrorists and very primitive peoples. their leader would be, you know, suddenly president jomo kenyatta or, you know, president this president and the british governor-general would hold down the union jack and the other people who previously had maybe

been in jail two days earlier and, been hunted throughout the whole of this country in the global south, they would finally get their independence. so that's part of the background for me and support continuing support of anti-colonial movements and the other part of the background is after i came to this country, i came here after having worked as a journalist in beirut to write a book at harvard, and then at georgetown university there, a political study of the palestine liberation organization. now, it's hard to remember now, but back in the 1980s, you'd say the word plo and it was oh my lord terrorists. you know just memories of of the munich massacre and all this and you're just a terror lover and you're an anti and guess what?

you know, september 1993, there i was on the white house lawn when yasser arafat and, yitzhak rabin and, president clinton all clinched a political deal now that did not resolve the issue. but i'm just saying that putting people into boxes and demonizing them and dealing atomizing them doesn't actually get you anywhere unless can understand where movements come from and. this is a movement with, long history. it's gone through many developments and learned about many of those in our in our webinar series and presented those learnings in. the book we wanted to make both the webinar series and book very accessible to a non-specialist. so i hope that you read it you

will agree with that. we also included the back some vital documents because we think that you know there is so little known about the history of the movement we just put in six pieces of documentation we think will be helpful. so sorry went on a bit that day. you know that's that's it's good to know the background of how this came together and let me just say it's a great it's very conversational because draws out of those webinars i think it's i highly recommend it so but rami let's turn to you why this book now and why it matters why this book now? because helena called me up one day and said, rami got to do a book. i said, yes, ma'am. and knowing that she would do a great job leading the project, knowing that the five interviews are sessions we had with experts were outstanding in terms of providing credible research

based, sensitive and relevant knowledge, which is not something you get in the media here even. and some of the education systems, the public sphere, and certainly in the government sphere, you don't get that kind of insight. so once she suggested this, i said, yes, i would be happy to do it. and off went so and i must claim a little bit of credit for coming up with the most the title i think that was my she had some very complicated british colonial title that i quickly this abused her of that and but she's not colonial she's anti-colonial what but i just said look who are these people what is hamas why do we need to understand them? so the reasons i'll tell you

four points basically one hamas is the most prominent resistance movement in using military and other means. and whatever you think of them, they are the people, the the resistance. and and if we're trying to resolve this conflict, which i think we all are, the conflict between palestine and israel, which has grown into a conflict between israel, arab countries and israel and it started out just as a localized conflict between zionists. the pioneer zionist settlers who came in and the early 20th, very early, late 19th, early 20th century, and then around 20 you started to get the communal clashes between indigenous arabs and the settlers and that's the word they used themselves,

settlements and colonies. and then it became an act of conflict with the help of the british and. it then expanded to the rest of the arab world. so we want to resolve this conflict. i've spent my whole adult life. last 55 years of my life working on this. you know, on the side, i'm journalist by profession. i masquerade as an academic and then but basically i'm a journalist research i interview, i observe, i analyze and i write and i try to share with the public the that i gained from from my work and throughout my history and still today i've always involved with efforts to to resolve the palestine-israel conflict, not the sense that i'm a negotiator, but in my work as a journalist to help inform the public.

and this started very, very suddenly one day in 1966, after the june war i, a freshman at the university upstate new york, and the war happened. israel won. there's a quite, you know, decisive victory, shock the arab world brought great joy to israel and many -- and and and suddenly i saw a scene i had never experienced in my life, which was thousands of people out in the main part of the university where i was demonstrating happily dancing, giving money to israel. i've never seen anything like that and i didn't quite know how to react to it. i have not never been very politically ill in high school in the sense even though my sentiments clear.

but what happened was immediately people started holding debates and discussions and, panel discussions and tv interviews, and when they saw that i was a palestine journalist, they said, grab this guy, he must able to do this. so i started doing debates and and panel discussion with the hillel students under my breath students at the university and then the local tv stations and that was my entry into this world. and i realized very quickly that mainstream united states thinking, remember this in 1966, mainstream united states perceptions of this conflict were 95% wrong based on narratives that were either lies or fiction, exaggeration or distortion or diversion, you know, get away from the main point and just talk about other issues and the palestinians

didn't exist back then. people, you know, they said this is all there's all these arab states, egypt, jordan, lebanon, they can all peace with israel and kept telling them, well, that's not the main issue. the main issue is the palestinians on the israelis. so i learned very quickly and clearly that there was a massive disjuncture between the knowledge, the public perceptions in the united states and the realities, the ground there. but i also realized very quickly that the most important thing for me personally and for anybody involved in this was to keep the discussion ongoing with the other side and. i quickly learned that it it was not very useful just to try to score a point, you know, like do on tv here or other public debates scoring or catching somebody know offline or something that's not very useful. this is not an entertainment

process. this is a serious issue that impacts millions and millions of people. so i learned that engaging with the other side was critically important, and i've done that ever since 1966 and through my journalism work i got involved with an official track to diplomacy meetings, you know, former officials and on both sides and then i would do research on my so i spent my whole adult life with israelis or pro-israeli americans and westerners including, you know, settlers and government people and all of people who i disagreed with. but needed to understand them. what do they want what are they afraid of what torments them? what it that drives them to be so vicious and against the

palestinians if they're israelis and they're americans, what drives them be so wildly prejudiced against palestine and for israel and? you know, to figure that out as a journalist and as a as an individual and. so i've spent my whole life doing this, and that's when this came up. i immediately they said, you know, we need to do to help people understand who these hamas people are, where they come from, what do they do? what do they want? how should we deal with them? so this is one reason we did this to help people who are interested to know accurately what hamas what are the do they do what they do and say they say and by understanding hamas a little bit better and they are the standing palestinian resistance group political

social religious military nationalist ideological in every dimension of life. the last act of serious resistance group and their name, by the way, hamas hierarchical empowerment, islamic hamas is an acronym in arabic for the islamic resistance. resistance is the operative word in their name, not islamic, not movement they're both important, but resistance. the important word and people need to understand what that means. and this is one way to do it. and it's important just to abstractly understand them, but to ultimately for people to engage with them, it doesn't mean you, you know, a letter of support or invite them to your home, but means that you engage with them. so you talk them like i talk to israelis and american pro-israeli zealots and to understand what it is that drove them so that we can figure out

where is the middle ground? where both of our rights could be achieved so the best i would give you is if the united states government had this attitude and engaged with and learned about the viet cong or the taliban early on, they would not wasted billions and billions of and hundreds of, thousands and millions of lives and destroyed the country as all that could have been avoided if people in the u.s. government had made the effort to understand what these people wanted. and here we have a case in palestine with hamas. and then lebanon with hezbollah as well. similarly, the second point is the book really gives you great insights by people who are scholars, serious research,

impartial analysts, even though some are palestinians, what their mind is, is the mind of a of a, you know, academic analyst, but also they're very clear about needing to present the facts honestly. and and this book, the interview their thoughts give you a really important insights into the whole of hamas's being how they came into when did they turn a political war. they started as a social they started as an islamist advocacy movement movement. they wanted to be people to be more islamic to live a life and to live a more decent life. they came out of the muslim brotherhood tradition, which started way back in the in the 1930s and the arab world. but they evolved. and this is one of the critical things about hamas, which people don't understand.

and hezbollah is similar. it's remarkable how similar they. but the evolution of hamas from its origins as an islam movement to one that focused heavily they had made a decision on that they're not going to get into politics. they're not going to have a military wing. they're going to do social justice, kindergartens, bakery is a women's literacy group. so whatever they were focused on the ground and this is, as you know, starting this was in the early 1980s, the late 1980s, when they came into being very focused on social side of of of life think that if we just strengthen the vitality and the integrity and the capabilities of our people we will achieve what is our right eventually. but eventually they turned to resistance because after first

intifada and the second intifada, they saw that they existing palestinian political under the plo, under yasser arafat was not doing real and was not achieving any serious national goals and was getting nowhere near a peace agreement that was beneficial for israelis and palestinians and what that hamas did was to strengthen its role both as a resistance movement. but they were also they saw themselves and they still today and they are as the repository of the consensus of palestinian rights and demands what the reason hamas is important to understand is because they reflect i think more accurately than any other group. the whole consensus among all palestinians.

we've had situations in the past where there was some kind of consensus within the plo but the plo out to be like most arab governments, not efficient, rather corrupt, self-centered and material slick. unlike the u.s. government as well. like many governments, not all. there are some good governments, but they turned to be not really very not very good at achieving palestinian rights. and they quickly gave to the pressure of the u.s. and israel and then the oslo agreements. and what came after that and things then fell apart and the settlements kept expanding after 1993, palestinians were jailed in the thousands. and so had this situation where there was nobody working for palestinian national rights. and hamas felt that it needed to step in and do that they didn't expect to be ablhi rights in onl

swoop, but they felt that it their moral and political responsibility to to stand stand with the fund ornamental demands and rights of the palestinian people. and the consensus that was prevalent among all palestinians, including one of the most important constituencies. hamas is the palestinians in jail. there's now, about eight, 9000 palestinians in and israel, many of them with no or trials or anything under the jail palace. the prisoners are of critical constituency for hamas, for all palestinians. and in fact, many of the operations that they did when they kidnaped people, including part of the october seven aim to take palestinian take israeli soldiers prisoner and then trade

them for the palestine lands, which is exactly what these negotiate actions are all about. and the if there is a ceasefire, it will include release of thousands of palestinian prisoners and the release of all the hostages. but this something they saw was important to to do. they also evolved over the years and this is another important aspect of, hamas, which people don't appreciate. again, are you them? you don't like them. that's your right. but you should understand them to be able to decide accurately if you like them or don't like them, if you hear joe scarborough say something on and you make a decision, then you are in trouble. you need help, you know, politically and you can't, you know, listen to tv and listen the united states who say things like about hamas or arabs, muslims or whatever, and make a decision, you yourself to get the information and see that of

the things that defines these movements is that they evolve time. so when hamas started their initial charter had phrases that were clearly anti-semitic or that people were anti-semitic and didn't particularly care, maybe they didn't understand. well, maybe that was their way of fighting, saying, you're going to occupy me and kill. well, here's take this. but they well, they realize this was not effective a thing to do. i don't know why they put in. i'm just speculating. but they changed when they renewed their charter in 2017. they out those phrases that seen as anti-semitic and they clearly agreed to a two state resolution israeli jewish state and within a 67 borders and a jewish majority israeli state about 20% arab including my family in nazareth and, 80% jewish and.

then a palestinian state in the west bank, gaza and east jerusalem with a certain made for the refugees, would be agreed by by both sides. so this was an important change. the third the third point i wanted to make was that. hamas has since around let me think since around 1990 or so they have made 11 ceasefire and peacemaking proposals. the israelis, sheikh yassin, the first leader of hamas, made an offer of the head of their military wing way back 20 years ago, made an offer to rabin. they were in direct talks that happened in the nineties and 2000. hamas has continuously explored the possibility of a negotiated

resolution. the conflict with israel. if the palestinians up their now the terms they laid out are often unacceptable to the israelis but so are the israeli terms mostly unacceptable to us. but this is how negotiations happen so the fact that they changed their charter that continuously made offers of coexist stance and negotiated a long term peaceful coexistence is significant and need to explore that more to see is it serious? is it realistic? it really move us somewhere somewhere good. and these decisions, by the way, another thing about hamas that is so important and is explains partly why its success for is that all of its decisions are collective made you know that

the now here talks yassin were the head of the new head of hamas saying oh he's a radical militant and he's going to do this and do the people who write stuff or what on tv or on the internet. no idea of how decisions happen in hamas. it's one of the most it's that's not democrat but most consultative organizations decision making national political decision making in the arab world, maybe in the whole global south. and they make decisions only after extensive consultations including with the prisoners and the israeli who have their own consultations and share them. so when make a decision it a decision that is ratified, the whole group which reflects back to my first point the reflects the whole national palestinian consensus. so i'm going to finish 2

minutes. yes. no, sorry about the the last point i'd make is they are a resistance movement. they are the most. pure and, let's say, dynamic or active. i'm trying to use adjectives that are not judgmental but just descriptive. they're very active and they're very they stick to their guns. they're very pure in and resisting. and the thing to understand about resistance movements is one that pertains not just to them but to all of these movements, especially today, hezbollah in lebanon. and what's going on with iran. and there's two words and two dates i want to give you to keep in your mind. this is not in the book. this is something i've been working on.

and we'll be writing up soon. the two words i want to remember are humility and resistance that when people are humiliated, for whatever reason, african americans, africans, algeria and france or, you know, all over the world and situations of colonialism or occupation or whatever humiliated people ultimately always resist in different ways. but to to resist effectively and achieve your goals whether through militant action, peaceful negotiations, or usually it's both, like south africa as, an example, you start with militant actions, then eventually negotiate. you have to have legitimacy. so humiliation leads resistance and resistance done with legitimacy can often succeed. if it's done well. the two dates i'll give you for you to keep in mind are if you're looking at hamas, but also the whole arab or middle

east region or 1917 and 1953, 1917 was the balfour declaration, where england said colonial england said to a great britain said they would support creation of a of a jewish home. palestine. palestine was 93% arab then, but is how colonialism works. and they succeeded the they got the they got their jewish state in 19 and 48 but 1917 was the. basis of the basis of that process of humiliation which the palestinians and, all arabs still feel today. right. last point here. and 1953. last point, 1953, as the iranian revolution did not revolution, the iranian overthrow of the elected government by, the u.s. and the uk. it's no surprise the u.s. and the uk did this. two humiliating feats in history

and led to resistance by the people and the u.s. and the uk too today are the most enthusiast supporters of the of israeli plausible genocide and the circle has to be broken. and one way to break it is to read about the actors and understand it better. we can all play our role. thank you and i'm sorry to go on that, sir. thank you, rami. let me just say i am with the violence of the timekeeper. so we're we'll try to get but. but thank you. i think you know what, rami when you said resistance and humiliation, it does seem to me the other side of is respect. and respect is not often confused with agreement that one can respect one's enemy, but not necessarily at all agree with them. and negotiations are not with your friends but with your

enemies the folks you disagree with. we have a dark strike going on and. it's not because the bosses, the unions agree with one another, but there needs be some respect. and so i like to hear a little more about that, but i also want to just go back to this question of terrorism that's so pervasive in u.s. media and u.s. government policy and frankly, in the policies of many of the european governments that are resistant. how do we respect the diversity of views of the palestinians struggle for self-determination, hamas as one, but only one, and the word, it seems, cuts off conversations. so, helena, i'd like to ask you you know, the new york times fox news, some of our they suddenly have this epiphany. they've been misleading people and. we need to what would it take for them to understand as the

media and then i'm going to ask each of you to be kind of brief and then i have a question for romney. so, you know, i worked for the london sunday times and the christian science monitor for many years. and the christian science monitor was a interesting newspaper when i was working for it because, it was not subject to commercial pressures. it was owned by the mother church of christ scientists, which. fairly well known in new england, terribly well known, you know outside of the united states, a specifically american small church that had a very strong mission for public education mission, founded by a woman, i'm glad to say i'm, but i had wonderful editors there and they would just press me.

helena, you know, go and interview this person, go and interview that person i was covering, you know, tumultuous love affairs during the beginning of the lebanese civil war, in which the plo and its member organized nations were a big part. so i interviewed a lot them and my editors would say know, just wait till, you get that last interview, you don't have to with the new york times to get a scoop, try to understand what the story is so. it was a great job to have and then i after, i stopped doing daily journalism. i to contribute irregular column to the christian science monitor global affairs. but almost overnight after they became reliant advertising they said, oh, helena, we don't want

your column anymore because. the advertisers were putting lot of pressure on them as they on national public radio and a lot of other news outlets that trying to present, you know, a more balanced view, especially on arab israeli issues. so that's fine. i didn't moved on and did other things. so i don't i'm i honestly am not holding my breath for the editorial board the new york times to suddenly have an epiphany. but were they to i would, first of all, read the book, understanding hamas. thank you. and why matters? because, you know, really, we we we delved into so many different issues. the history of hamas, the different between hamas and isis, you know, one thing that i hear from my some of my

relatives, england is like, but isn't hamas just like isis, you know? no, they're they're very different. but you need to understand those differences are i mean, some of the differences are on the woman issue. for example some of them are on the issue of parties in democratic elections and some of them are on the issue of risk for international law. there are so many differences. that's why we wanted to delve into this. so i'm not holding my breath for the for the editorial boards of the major corporate. but i do think that through public education and and public the progressive in this country and all political movements in this country that want to avoid war, want to see an emphasis on diplomacy. i want to make a couple of quick points about my main learnings

from this. these conversations had with five experts, one is that, you know, this idea that if you can destroy roi hamas militarily by wiping every single person in gaza that that solves the problem that does not solve the problem. hamas is not only in gaza gaza sits actually contains a broad range of people with a broad range of political ideas and ideologies but they work together on resistance. so you know, hamas is is the leading member in a very broad resistance coalition. it is not the only member. they have always said that they want to they don't want to govern on their own after they won the elections in which they

participated in good order and good faith. and 26 and 26 that were super sized, you know, by the monitored by it by the carter and by the eu and they were, you know, genuine elections that hamas won. ismail haniyeh, who who was then the leader who as we was brutally murdered by the israelis on july first, he said he doesn't want to to hamas to rule on its he wants to have a national government that has been attitude throughout that they want to be politically in and to be politically in included in. you know, whatever negotiations going on, there's a lot to work with. the other thing is that hamas is not just in gaza. hamas is in the west bank, hamas

is in the prisons hamas actually is wherever there are palestinians specifically in you, jordan and lebanon and syria and the gulf as there are other palestinian political trends you know, fatah still has the popular front for, the liberation of palestine has supporters. but if you're talking about the situation in gaza or the west bank today, they have joint operations, movements, sorry, joint operations rooms between the activist members of all of these organizations. so the situation is much more complex than what, you know, if if we're like a some ill informed senator up here and say, you know well, just got to support israel as. they as they demolish and destroy hamas in gaza you know that is just a recipe for the

continuation. what i i think having studied a lot of genocides around the world that is a genocide and you know the way to end this through getting an iron clad lasting ceasefire. thank you. so rami, i'm going to turn to you. you know, the other word you mentioned besides humiliation was resistance. and a word that's come up a lot in, the book, but also certainly as we've about in the media, is terrorism, as something that really cuts off negotiations, off conversations and i've looked at even today if there's a hospital, it's bombed if there's a school that's bombed, a refugee, six buildings, you know, in there's always a terrorist leader located there as the argument of why it's okay to do this disproportionate slaughter of civilians. so i'd like you to unpack for us

a bit the foreign terrorist organization, the whole notion of terrorism and on the other, like how can we get past that two unlawful acts. so what happened october 7th? well, to the extent were civilians targeted by anybody and any civilians that was wrong that was an unlawful acts not an issue of terror. so like unpack a little bit and how the experts in the book talk about that. and the second thing though is in of resistance i think something that's surfaced and it's raised as one of the questions of the book is is there a too high a cost for resistance in given the suffering and just the massive numbers. you know gaza is flattened and are palestinians saying both hamas and just at large. is this too high a cost. but how does one continue that resistance in a variety of ways at this time? well thank you all.

answer this. you know, i'll tell you the short answer was, i took too much time before. but the for the answer. the second question is there are cases yes where resistance as to and failed not all resistance succeeds but all resistance that has the consensus support of people tends to succeed. but it takes a long time. the native americans. tried to resist the colonial invaders from europe couldn't. they just didn't have the means. the technology of the guns was too much for them and they and they're still trying to resist today, culturally and in other ways. but there's examples like that resistance simply didn't work. the gaza situation is an extreme example of the price that people pay some people say that there

has never been a national liberation movement, a de decolonization without a lot of death and bloodshed and suffering and that's true. but it's the people it's up to the in those movements to decide what's too much and what's what's sufficient. the the situation in and gaza is unprecedented we've never seen anything like this. equally unprecedented is near total consensus. the western world near total. there's a few countries, ireland and spain that don't go with it. but most of the west enthusiastically seems to go along with the u.s. british genocidal policies, give them the guns they stop any resolutions that u.n. don't do any on arms sales and try to neuter the icc and the icj.

and the most the western countries seem to go along. this it's one of the most perplexing and awful of this situation, which makes me sense that what the israelis are is not only exploiting pagers and telephones, they're exploding whole system of international law and rights that the western world developed after world war two. in response, the genocide against the -- and supreme ironies of this are supreme they're just awful. but this is what's going on, and we have to figure how to do it. so the change that i think, you know, the question was how would when will the media and others go and people change? we know from a shift from like the terrorism label that cuts off to do this unlawful acts that we can get any targeting of

civilians than just labeling of someone one group as terrorists. right. that's way too sophisticated an argument for anything in the public realm. that's where legal cases but it's it's an important distinction in the public realm. what happens is that the zionist movement with allies in the west that the various allies has been extremely successful and achieving its goals of a jewish and palestine, but also successful and promoting a narrative in the most of the west about the bad guys the palestinians and today they call them terrorists. they say they're like cadre like isis. but if you go back, as i've done over the last hundred years and you look at the propaganda and the public relations and the public narratives that designed this movement and the state of israel has actively pushed, it always tries to the foe of the

day, the enemy of the day is usually the palestinians to link them to the worst thing in the world. so used to be soviet union. do you remember that? right so that shows what used to be the soviet union used to be saddam hussein. it used to be alucarda. it used to be oil blackmailers, the bad guys in the world have evolved over the years and and the pro-israeli propaganda always links the palestinians with these bad guys which works well in many western societies only have superficial knowledge of that situation and most people who watch american tv or read the new york times don't know really much about the middle east. so what they read, they they accept. but the change happens not by anything that one can measure. like we did this and this happened. it happens over time. and you see it happening today so dramatically with the young people in the united states.

the progressive jewish movements, the progressive churches, some unions, black and hispanic and women's movements. there's all kinds of movements, and many of them have come together. the uncommitted vote movement. but this changes so strong and, visible among young people and because they rely on the mainstream media or politicians for their knowledge, they get from social media and some alternative media. the same thing happened. i remember. and those you old enough to remember the 1960s in vietnam, the protest started. they people were seen as a bunch of hippie kooks, troublemakers, but slowly slowly, slowly, over time, more and more people realized that what was happening in vietnam was wrong or wasn't going to succeed. and the us finally out. but the change was going to happen more slowly here. but it is happening already see it in the polling evidence.

see it among the the age differences the media and there's other other examples where this is happening and it needs information. we keep feeding knowledge into it. people go and visit and they see. but it's the social media that has shown people and their telephones what the state of israel is doing in real terms. and this is causing a great reaction. israel thanks. romney we're running of time and we want to make sure folks have time, buy books and to have informal conversation. but i'd like to just up something you said, romney, and just offer you both a chance for some closing comments. but you know you lifted up how important the prisoners for hamas and for palestinians more and i certainly learned that in terms of meeting with some of the i think the palestinian authority even has a minister for the prisoners and the us is

certainly with the highest incarceration incarceration incarcerated a population has might learn something from palestinians on this point. but you know in south africa, mandela and others, the african national congress described, robben island as the university, that it was a place that folks whether they were there for a weeks or many, many years or decades. and so with that, i'd love for each of you to say, as you had these conversations, these five experts and also the experi ence you both bring in terms of years studying and meeting, engaging with folks, hamas and and broader issues that you've raised around resistance, liberation. what surprised you most? what like one thing that surprised you in the conversations that led into this book that you want to share with everybody and would folks to kind of.

get the book right away and read it tonight. so first, rami, what surprised you. gosh that, that's a big question because i've done lot of prep work for these conversations. you know, having conversations in a webinar is doesn't just happen. so we had a lot of preparatory conversations. i think one of the things that struck me was i it was dr. hallett do i'm going to say two or three things that that struck me. dr. farid said that hamas he's he's looked a lot of political movements in the area of palestine or maybe in levant more broadly and in, in his estimation hamas, the movement that has never had splits.

i mean as we know fatah had a lot of splits. the popular front became, you know, the popular democratic front in the popular front for the popular front general command. and they all split and they split. but he also looked at the israeli political system and he said, know the old labor parties split in so many ways and likud in so many ways, and he, i think, attributed. it has to be noted that dr. who is, you know, his own politics are not islamist pro hamas politics, but he's a good analog. and he was trying to understand, you know why it has had this kind of stable this this long longevity. i think the other thing that really struck me was hearing doctor your own talk about critical terror ism studies and

the way that fixing this label of terrorist to a resistance both in a sort of anti-colonial context or in an anti occupation context. it's a very common move by repressive powers that seek to use that label in order to justify an their own massive use of violence up to the level of genocide. and rami, what surprised or challenged you the most in this process? i think two points. one was the incessant attempts and insistence by hamas to be part of a national consensus, to forge that consensus when it didn't exist or to repair it when it was broken. they didn't want to rule

palestine. they wanted to be part of a national government that represented palestinians and if need be made on some points. but they agreed those compromises and they constantly work to do that. when fatah, under mahmoud. and under u.s. pressure, israeli pressure, didn't do that then fatah, then hamas just, you know, ruled gaza on own and had no no other. the second point that surprised me was the amount of consultation that took place within hamas's constituencies to achieve the the position it took. and that's why positions that it took remained constant and clear, and they wouldn't budge. the the americans, the jordanians, the fatah, everybody

tried to induce them to just this and do this and and we'll give you this. and they wouldn't do. they just stuck to their guns there. they're such a pure of pure resistance because they feel that what they are aspiring for is their. they're not trying to kill -- or, take their land away or this. they're just asking their rights internationally. rights. and that's why they have such confidence and what they're doing. and the prisoners issue is fascinating because it was the prisoners in prison about 15, 20 years ago. the trust came up with a national consensus document. it was the prisoners document about, the positions that any palestinian should take. and with or talking the u.s. or europe or israel or whoever.

and there's there's so much for the prisoners. these are people who who who risk their lives and often lost their lives for fighting, for the rights of the palestinian people. so they have inordinately high amounts of respect among palestinians and they will play huge role once. they come out of prison and and reengage in national political life. so point of this doesn't reflect the terrorism issue versus the legitimate. you know, my view on this always been we can if we should discuss, any terror act by any party and we should not hesitate to to criticize it to demonize it, to put it on trial. if anybody does terrorism. but we can't do that if only do it for one party in a conflict,

because terrorism, accountability like justice to be indivisible and universal it has no meaning if you just say this is a terrorist act and certainly arab have carried out many terrorism acts. and if you measure terrorism by the number of innocent people who die in a political contest the western imperial powers have way more to account for than we do. but that's a separate accounting that'll be done later. but for the arab-israeli if unless we judge both sides according to the same moral and legal standard, we are being criminal, dishonest, hypocrites and that's why this discussion usually goes nowhere. one of the things that would good is for people like the various church groups and others, the social groups, to convene discussions, not public

things on cnn. but, you know rational discussions among experts to look at this issue and and decide, you know who's doing bad things and. how can we stop that? because this is going to be one of the ways to lead to a breakthrough. thank you, rami. and let's let's give both helena and rami a hand. thank you so much for this evening. but more importantly, thank for doing this book and this journey, as it were, and inviting all of us to be a part of that journey. so now i want to everybody else to have a chance to talk informally, meet our authors here and rami, but also by books. and i want to just say that tonight, any books that are purchased tonight here, 10% of the proceeds will go to the organization heal palestine that is working to support the community in gaza. so there's an opportunity to

make a difference really. but also i you will find the studies as colin mentioned in terms of the banning of books or have a book study group use this book to do your own webinars in person, not just online, to have the tough conversation. and this book will challenge and surprise you as well. and so rami and helena, once again, thank you so much for this evening and this work. and thank you all for coming tonight tonight. wo