Headlines for DemocracyNow!
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!
December 01, 2023
Dozens of Palestinians Killed in Renewed Israeli Attacks as Weeklong Gaza Truce Expires
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!
December 01, 2023
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed after Israel resumed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, ending a weeklong pause to facilitate the exchange of captives. Hamas responded by firing a salvo of rockets toward southern Israel. The U.N. says the resumption of violence puts thousands of innocent lives at risk. Since October 7, the Israeli bombardment has killed over 15,000 Palestinians, including 6,100 children. Israel has expanded its military campaign to target southern areas of Gaza, where Israeli planes have been dropping leaflets warning people to evacuate areas around Khan Younis, warning the city was now a “dangerous battle zone.” Israel previously expelled hundreds of thousands of people from the northern Gaza Strip to the south. Just hours before the truce was set to expire, residents of Khan Younis searched through the rubble of their former homes for any personal items they could salvage.
Dalal Masoud: “The end of the calm today feels like our execution. They are telling us that today is the last day of the ceasefire, and we have 24 hours before we return to a life of sheltering in schools in squalor, with the hardship of life without water, electricity or proper shelter. We want a complete truce, not being told every day there is a truce, only to have it breached.”
Freed Palestinian Prisoners Say They Faced Torture and Rape in Israeli Jails
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!
December 01, 2023
Israel’s renewed assault on Gaza came after Israel and Hamas completed a seventh exchange of captives. On Thursday, eight Israelis held by Hamas were released, while 30 Palestinians were freed from Israeli jails. Israel’s government says it believes Hamas still holds 137 hostages kidnapped during the October 7 attacks. Newly freed Palestinians report suffering torture and sexual assault. This is Baraah Abo Ramouz, a Palestinian journalist who spoke after his release from an Israeli jail Thursday.
Baraah Abo Ramouz: “The situation in the prisons is devastating. The prisoners are abused. They are being constantly beaten. They’re being sexually assaulted. They are being raped. I’m not exaggerating. The prisoners are being raped.”
Earlier this week, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for an investigation into reports of sexual violence committed by Hamas on October 7.
NYT: Israel Had Hamas Battle Plan More Than a Year Ago But Failed to Prevent Oct. 7 Attacks
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!
December 01, 2023
Israeli government officials knew Hamas was planning a large-scale attack on Israel more than a year ago, but failed to respond to specific warnings about the plot after dismissing it as “aspirational.” That’s according to an explosive report in The New York Times, which says Israeli officials intercepted a 40-page battle plan by Hamas detailing how its attack would play out — a blueprint Hamas closely followed on October 7.
Meanwhile, another explosive new report by +972 Magazine details how Israel is using artificial intelligence to draw up targets in Gaza, and how Israel has loosened its constraints on attacks likely to kill civilians. One former intelligence officer described the plan as a “mass assassination factory.” After headlines, we’ll go to Jerusalem to speak with Israeli investigative reporter Yuval Abraham, who broke the story.
Arizona Police Arrest Protesters and Journalist Covering Blockade of Raytheon Building
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!
December 01, 2023
In Arizona, 26 people were arrested Thursday as protesters peacefully blockaded a Raytheon manufacturing hub in Tucson, demanding an end to U.S. arms transfers to Israel. One protester said, “We are outraged that more than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed, while companies like Raytheon continue to fill their coffers with blood money.” Among those arrested was journalist Alisa Reznick of public radio station KJZZ. She was arrested by Pima County Sheriff’s deputies even as she carried recording equipment and repeatedly identified herself as press.
MSNBC Cancels “The Mehdi Hasan Show,” Sparking Uproar
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!
December 01, 2023
MSNBC is facing a torrent of backlash after announcing it’s canceling “The Mehdi Hasan Show.” The British-born journalist is known for holding powerful figures to account and is one of the most powerful Muslim voices on American television.
Following the news, Congressmember Ilhan Omar said, “It is deeply troubling that MSNBC is cancelling his show amid a rampant rise of anti-Muslim bigotry and suppression of Muslim voices.” Journalist Ryan Grim said, “Mehdi’s style of confrontational interviews, in which he doesn’t let public figures get away with lies or half true talking points, turned him into a celebrated journalist in the UK. His show’s cancellation is such a pathetic indictment of the U.S. media.”
Mehdi Hasan’s show has been welcomed as one of the few on a mainstream network to question Israel’s narrative over its attacks on Gaza. Last month, Hasan interviewed Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Mehdi Hasan: “I have seen lots of children with my own lying eyes being pulled from the rubble. So” —
Mark Regev: “Now, because they’re the pictures Hamas wants you to see. Exactly my point, Mehdi.”
Mehdi Hasan: “And also because they’re dead, Mark. Also” —
Mark Regev: “They’re the pictures Hamas wants — no.”
Mehdi Hasan: “But they’re also people your government has killed. You accept that, right? You’ve killed children? Or do you deny that?”
Mark Regev: “No, I do not. I do not. I do not. First of all, you don’t know how those people died, those children.”
Mehdi Hasan: “Oh wow.”
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“Mass Assassination Factory”: Israel Using AI to Generate Targets in Gaza, Increasing Civilian Toll
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 01, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/1/ ... transcript
We look at a new report that reveals how Israel is using artificial intelligence to draw up targets in its military assault of Gaza. The report’s author, journalist Yuval Abraham, has found that the IDF’s increasing use of AI is partly a response to previous operations in Gaza when Israel quickly ran out of military targets, causing it to loosen its constraints on attacks that could kill civilians. In other words, the “civilian devastation that is happening right now in Gaza” is the result of a “war policy that has a very loose interpretation of what a military target is.” This targeting of private homes and residences to kill alleged combatants means that “when a child is killed in Gaza, it’s because somebody made a decision it was worth it.” It has turned the Israeli military into a “mass assassination factory,” with a “total disregard for Palestinian civil life,” continues Abraham, who also notes that, as an Israeli journalist, his reporting is still subject to military censors. We also discuss another recent report revealing that Israel may have received intelligence about Hamas’s planned attack more than a year in advance of October 7, but ignored it.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: [size=15\20]Israel has resumed airstrikes on Gaza after a weeklong truce ended. The strikes have reportedly killed at least 70 Palestinians. Israel is dropping leaflets ordering Palestinians in Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, to head further south toward Rafah.[/size] Since the October 7th Hamas attack, the Israeli bombardment has killed over 15,000 Palestinians, including 6,100 children. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has described the resumption of attacks as “very troubling.”
RAVINA SHAMDASANI: The resumption of hostilities in Gaza is catastrophic. We urge all parties and states with influence over them to redouble efforts immediately to ensure a ceasefire on humanitarian and human rights grounds. Recent comments by Israeli political and military leaders indicating that they are planning to expand and intensify the military offensive are very troubling.
AMY GOODMAN: Talks are reportedly continuing for a new truce and the release of more captives. Israel says it believes Hamas still holds 137 hostages kidnapped during the October 7th attacks.
We turn now to look at a stunning new exposé on how Israel is using artificial intelligence to draw up targets and how Israel has loosened its constraints on attacks that could kill civilians. One former intelligence officer says Israel has developed a, quote, “mass assassination factory.”
In one case, sources said the Israeli military approved an assassination strike on a single Hamas commander despite knowing the strike could kill hundreds of Palestinian civilians. Another source told +972 Magazine, quote, “Nothing happens by accident. When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. … Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every [home],” unquote.
+972 also reports the Israeli military knowingly attacked civilian targets, including apartment complexes, universities and banks, in an effort to exert, quote, “civil pressure” on Hamas.
We’re joined in Jerusalem by the Israeli investigative reporter Yuval Abraham. His latest report for +972 Magazine and Local Call is headlined “'A mass assassination factory': Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza.”
Yuval, thanks for joining us again from Jerusalem. If you can talk about who your sources are and what exactly they’re using — the Israeli military is using AI for? Explain this idea of a “mass assassination factory.”
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Sure, yeah. So, I’ll start by saying, Amy, that, you know, there are some things that I can say and other things that I cannot say. You know, we, as Israeli journalists, are subjected to the military censors, so everything that I have published had to be vetted by the military. And also my knowledge is partial.
So, I’ve spoken to seven Israeli intelligence officers, some of them current, some of them former intelligence officers. All of them took part in wars against Gaza, in bombing campaigns, whether right now or in 2021, 2022 and 2014. And the use of artificial intelligence is an increasing trend that the army is adopting to mark targets in Gaza.
And I think a good year to look at to understand its beginning with relation to Gaza is 2019, when the Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi introduced this new division in the military called the Targets Division. And its idea was to bring together hundreds of soldiers and basically start to develop these AI algorithms and automated software to accelerate the target creation for strikes with life-and-death consequences in Gaza. And, you know, a source that actually took part in this division center said that they were being judged not by the quality of the targets that they were producing, but by the quantity, that the idea here was that if you want to create a certain shock effect, if you are fighting against a guerrilla group, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and/or Hamas in Gaza — this is the source saying — then — so, the source said that this shock effect is the way Israel views its war tactic against these organizations, and [size=1w0]part of that is trying to accelerate the creation of targets.[/size]
Now, in 2014, which was the previous biggest Israeli assault on Gaza, according to sources that I’ve spoken with, the Israeli military ran out of targets after roughly three weeks. And that operation lasted for 50 days. And sources have described a sense that in previous operations, that the military just runs out of targets to bomb, and alongside that there is some political pressure or some need to continue the war, to create a victory image for the Israeli public, to work, you know, to apply more pressure. And I think this increasing use of artificial intelligence, this acceleration of target creation, in part, is a response to that problem, to running out of targets.
And what we know now from sources is that target production using these programs — one of them is called “The Gospel,” and according to sources, it does facilitate this mass assassination factory that I can get into in a moment. But the rate of creating the targets is now faster than the rate that Israel is able to bomb the targets. And in this Targets Division, according to the army’s sources, already 12,000 targets were created during this war in this Targets Division, using these artificial intelligence tools, which is too much — two times as many targets as were bombed in the entirety of the 2014 war, which lasted for 51 days.
AMY GOODMAN: Yuval Abraham is a journalist based in Jerusalem who writes for +972 Magazine and Local Call. He’s just written a piece called “'A mass assassination factory': Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza.” We’ll be back in 30 seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Students at the Ramallah Friends School in the occupied West Bank singing a solidarity song for the children of Gaza with their teachers Safia Awad and Issa Jildeh. In just a moment, we’ll be speaking with Elizabeth Price, the mother of one of the three Palestinian college students in the United States who was shot in Burlington, Vermont, Saturday night. But right now we’re continuing with Yuval Abraham, journalist based in Jerusalem, who writes for +972 Magazine. His most recent piece”:https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/, “'A mass assassination factory.'” Yuval, explain what a power target is.
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Sure, yes. So, power targets is a concept that was developed, according to intelligence sources in the military, first in 2014. And the military defines power targets as residential high-rise buildings. So they have eight floors, 12 floors, 14 floors. And the official military’s claim is that in each of these buildings there is military target that merits, that legitimizes bombing down the entire building. However, according to three sources in Israeli intelligence that I’ve spoken with who have deep knowledge of this tactic, who have been involved with bombing power targets, they say that the idea of power targets is to purposely attack buildings that have all of these civilian apartments in them in order to put pressure on Palestinian civilian society in Gaza, which is then translated to pressure on Hamas, civilian pressure on Hamas. I’ve heard this term several times in my conversations with intelligence sources.
Now, in 2021, Amy, the Israeli military bombed the Al-Jalaa building in Gaza, which — you know, it caused an international uproar because this was a building that hosted the AP, AFP and Al Jazeera media outlets. It was one out of nine high-rises that were bombed in 2021. I have managed to confirm from sources within Israeli intelligence that this was, in fact, a power target. One source said that there was this idea that if we bomb the high-rises, it causes the civilians to feel like Hamas is not sovereign, like they have lost control. One source said that he felt this was a form of a terror tactic.
Now, very importantly, the sources that I’ve spoken with have dealt with these power targets before 2023, before the current Israeli assault in Gaza. So I know less about the specifics of power targets that are currently bombed; however, we do know from official army statements that Israel, during the first five days, so up until October 11th and October 12th, has bombed 1,329 power targets. The military says that half of the targets that were bombed were identified as power targets in the military.
Now, during these five days, we know, of course, that hundreds of children have been killed. We have managed to find indications of these buildings that were bombed without an evacuation protocol. And this is a very important point, because, according to sources that I’ve spoken with, in the past the internal protocol in the military was that you can only bomb power targets, which are high-rise buildings or governmental buildings inside neighborhoods, after you’ve evacuated all the families from the building. This was a principle that was in place in 2021, where they bombed nine high-rises, nine power targets. And no civilian Palestinians were killed, because they did put in place an evacuation protocol. They call, you know, the guard in the building. It’s quite horrific. You know, there is little missiles. But at the end of the day, the goal was to put pressure on civilians by destroying their apartments, from what I’ve heard from sources, and not by killing them.
Now, I don’t know — again, I haven’t spoken to sources that have bombed power targets in this operation, but there are clear indications that I am finding in Gaza — for example, the Al-Mohandessin Tower, which was bombed, on top of all the families inside of it, or Babel Tower or Al-Taj Tower — that they were bombed while the families were inside. And I think — I am assuming, since these are high-rises, and since the military has said that it bombed over a thousand power targets, that these were power targets. So this is a shift. I mean, the evidence suggests there is a shift here of not only striking targets that are primarily intended to cause civilian shock or to put civilian pressure on Hamas — again, according to intelligence sources — but, apparently, in some of the cases, the evidence suggests that such targets have also led to the killing of families.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking Thursday at a news conference in Tel Aviv.
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Israel has the most sophisticated — one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world. It is capable of neutralizing the threat posed by Hamas while minimizing harm to innocent men, women and children. And it has an obligation to do so. … The way Israel defends itself matters. It’s imperative that Israel act in accordance with international humanitarian law and the laws of war.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Yuval Abraham, if you can respond to what Blinken is saying? You know, at the beginning, after the October 7th attack, President Biden said that the support for Israel was unconditional, they could do anything they wanted. Now, clearly, with massive pushback in the United States with protests of people all over the country and around the world, you have both Biden and Blinken stepping back and saying you have to protect civilians. One of your sources suggested that the scale of this attack, with an unprecedented number of civilian casualties in Gaza, has to do in part with the Israeli military’s wish to redeem itself after the catastrophic failures of October 7th. And now you have this big New York Times exposé that Israel clearly knew a year ago the blueprint for this attack. And there are other reports, in Haaretz and other places, that say — I think they were called — the women surveillance soldiers along the Gaza border, I think they’re called spotters, were repeatedly telling their supervisors in the last weeks, in the last months, “We see this escalation here. It looks like Hamas is about to attack.” And they would be told they’d be brought up on insubordination charges if they kept pushing this issue. Yuval?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: Yes, Amy. It’s very important for me to respond to Blinken’s statements. And I have three things that I really want to say, and I really want people to listen to them.
The first is that the very real war crimes that Hamas has committed, you know, killing people — some of them I knew — massacring people, do not justify Israeli war crimes in Gaza that are being committed. That’s number one.
Number two, this idea that the military is doing whatever it can to keep civilians in Gaza safe or that it is using its technology to not harm civilians in Gaza is false. It’s not true. And I know this not only from looking at the catastrophic killing of so many civilians in Gaza, but also by speaking to intelligence sources who have told me that now all of the previous restrictions, that were already permissive, into harming civilians have been dramatically loosened. For example, one source spoke about how you get sort of this approximation of where a target is, and it’s not pinpointed. And yet soldiers will still strike it, knowingly killing families and civilians, to save time, to save time in getting a more accurate pinpointing of the target. It’s very important that people understand that — and this according to five sources that I’ve spoken with in Israeli intelligence — in all of the target files that Israel is bombing right now, the amount of civilians that are likely to be killed is written down. So, again, it’s not a mistake. As you’ve quoted in the beginning of the piece, in the beginning of the narration, Amy, when a child is killed in Gaza, it’s because somebody made a decision that this killing was worth it to hit another target. And there are internal regulations that the army has created that regulate this. And so it’s very clear to me that after October 7th there is a total disregard for Palestinian civilian life, even when hitting targets that are either not distinctly military in nature.
The third and final thing — and this goes back to the idea of a mass assassination factory — is that there is a systematic policy, according to sources, of targeting private residential homes of Hamas or jihadi operatives when they are in these private homes, when they are in these buildings or private residences. And just so you understand, I mean, what this means is that the military is knowingly dropping a bomb, that weighs a ton, or often more, on a residential building in order to assassinate one person, knowingly killing that person’s family and neighbors in the process, when, according to sources, in the vast majority of cases, these buildings are not places where there is military activity that is being conducted. It is an assassination against somebody who is in Hamas or Jihad’s military brigades, but they are not in a military place. One source who was particularly critical of this policy said that he thought it was like if Israel would bomb — sorry, if a Palestinian militant group would bomb the homes of Israelis, not when they are wearing their army uniform, but when they are going back home in the weekend, and essentially assassinating them through the bodies of their families or their neighbors, and then saying that they use those families as human shields.
Now, I think that we’ve talked about these power targets, and we’ve talked about these assassination targets, and, of course, there are many different types of targets that could be considered, under international law, more legitimate — for example, militant cells, for example, ammo warehouses, for example, you know, rocket launcher pits. And I think that to look at the civilian devastation that is happening right now in Gaza, you have to understand that it’s a consequence of a particular Israeli war policy. It is a war policy that has a very loose interpretation of what a military target is, also attacking people in civilian spaces. It is a war policy that centers on deterrents and hitting these power targets that are intended to place civilian pressure on Hamas. And it is a war policy that is increasingly being helped by the use of big data, automation software and AI. And again, I don’t know everything; I’ve only spoken to several sources. But my evidence suggests that many, many of the civilians who are being killed in Gaza are being killed as a result of these policies, that I do not think are justifiable policies. International law experts would call them war crimes. And that’s why I don’t think that what Blinken is saying is true, honestly.
AMY GOODMAN: And we’re going to talk more about war crimes later in the program. Yuval Abraham, I want to thank you for being with us, Israeli Jewish journalist based in Jerusalem, who writes for +972 Magazine and Local Call. We’ll link to your new piece, “'A mass assassination factory': Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza.”
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Resumed Bombing of Gaza Will Be Crushing to Palestinian Students Shot in Vermont, Says Victim’s Mother
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
December 01, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/1/ ... transcript
We speak with the mother of Hisham Awartani, one of the three 20-year-old Palestinian college students who were shot last weekend in Burlington, Vermont, in a suspected hate crime. Elizabeth Price traveled from her home in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank to see her son, who is still hospitalized in Burlington. He was shot in the spine and, while in stable condition, now faces an immediate loss of mobility. Price shares how her son’s “resilience” and “brotherhood” with his childhood best friends who are the other survivors of the shooting, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad, have been an integral part of his recovery. She also emphasizes that had Awartani been shot in Palestine, “he would have been dead in prison or thrown somewhere in a medical facility without the support to recover from this.” We also discuss life under occupation in the West Bank, U.S. displays of solidarity with Palestinians, and the media narrative surrounding the shooter’s motives. Of the three young men’s commitment to highlighting the larger picture of Israeli oppression of Palestine, Price says that “the fact that the Israelis have started bombarding again in the Gaza Strip is something that will crush them more than their injuries.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We turn now to Vermont, where family members of three Palestinian college students shot in Burlington Saturday night are arriving to care for their sons, who they say were targeted simply for being Palestinian. In a minute, we’ll speak with the mother of Hisham Awartani. He was shot in the spine when he took a walk with his friends Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad after they visited relatives while staying in Hisham’s grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving break. All three have been friends since the first grade at the Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank. Two of them were wearing keffiyehs, the symbol of Palestinian pride, when they were shot. Their alleged attacker, Jason Eaton, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder. Authorities have not yet added a hate crime enhancement to his charges.
The Associated Press reports Eaton had a history of domestic disputes that led police to confiscate his shotgun a decade ago. NBC News reported Tuesday that another ex-girlfriend told police in 2019 Eaton had continued calling and texting her and driving by her house after she had made it clear she didn’t want to communicate with him, and she had considered filing a restraining order. So often mass shooters have abused women in their past.
At a vigil Monday on the campus of Brown University, where Hisham Awartani is a student, professor Beshara Doumani, the Mahmoud Darwish professor of Palestinian studies, read a statement from Hisham.
BESHARA DOUMANI: “I would like to start out by saying that I greatly appreciate all the love and prayers being sent my way. Who knew that all I had to do to become famous was to get shot? … And as much as I appreciate the love [from] every single one of you here today, I am but one casualty in this much wider conflict. Had I been shot in the West Bank where I grew up, the medical services which saved my life here would likely have been withheld by the Israeli Army.”
VIGILERS: Shame!
BESHARA DOUMANI: “The soldier who would’ve shot me would go home and never be convicted.”
VIGILERS: Shame!
BESHARA DOUMANI: “I understand that the pain is so much more real and immediate because many of you know me, but any attack like this is horrific, be it here or in Palestine. This is why when you send your wishes and light your candles for me today, your mind should not just be focused on me as an individual but rather as a proud member of a people being oppressed.”
AMY GOODMAN: That statement from Hisham Awartani was read at a vigil Monday night at Brown University’s campus, where he’s a student.
Hisham’s mother, Elizabeth Price, joins us now from Burlington after traveling from her home in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank to be with her son in the hospital.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Elizabeth. I’m so sorry you’re here under these circumstances. Can you talk about how Hisham is doing and his friends, the two other Palestinian students shot on Saturday night?
ELIZABETH PRICE: Hisham makes me so proud. I mean, he was lying in his bed, paralyzed from the chest down, in great pain from broken bones, and in shock and traumatized, and he typed out that statement to be read out to a vigil. And I was so impressed with his ability to focus on others during that, in this time of his life being devastated.
He is in stable condition. He is going to be transferred to a rehabilitation center so that he can live to learn — learn to live with his injuries, and then also, hopefully and definitely, return on a path towards full mobility, we hope. His other friends are also stable. One has been discharged from the hospital but is severely traumatized. You know, he spent 45 minutes thinking that his friends had been shot dead. And then, a third, the third child, or the third young man — because they are children to me since they grew up in my house — is stable and working towards discharge.
But they are all traumatized, and they are all feeling grateful to be alive and feeling the bitterness of the fact that they are receiving such attention and such support and such incredible medical services from the Burlington community in the Burlington medical facility while at the same time people are dying under the bombs of the Israeli bombardment. I mean, the fact that the Israelis have started bombarding again the Gaza Strip is something that will crush them more than their injuries have crushed them.
My son said that when he went through the list of those who had died under the Israeli bombardment a few weeks ago, he found that there were 30 that had his name, Hisham. And he has said in another statement to a Brown newspaper — he says to remember, like he said in the vigil, “I am the Hisham you know.” And I think that he just really wants people to be thinking about the Palestinians who are dying by the tens of thousands right now, and not to be focusing on him. And I think this is something that he and his — this is a sentiment that is shared by his friends, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering if you can tell us — although he wants to talk about himself as, as he said, a member of an oppressed community; think of all of the people who don’t get help when they’re shot right now in Gaza and the West Bank. But if you could tell us about Hisham? He’s Palestinian, Irish American? Is that right?
ELIZABETH PRICE: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Twenty years old, a junior at Brown?
ELIZABETH PRICE: Yes, yes. So, Hisham was born in America and is a devoted Giants fan. He grew up in Palestine. He’s an Irish citizen because I was born in Ireland, and he’s Palestinian because his father is Palestinian. And he’s a — you know, grew up in Palestine. He is a born mathematician. He has mathematics in his family. He once said to me that just numbers make him happy. And he is the type of person who — he’s a polymath. He’s a polyglot. You know, he speaks Arabic and English —
AMY GOODMAN: What languages does he speak?
ELIZABETH PRICE: Arabic and English fluently. He’s studying — he’s very good at Persian right now, because he’s been taking Persian. He took cuneiform in college, so he, you know, can write in an extinct language. He has studied Hebrew and German and French in high school, and he is currently studying Spanish and Italian at Brown.
And he is doing a BSc in pure mathematics at college. He went in as a math student. And then, when he took a course in archaeology, he was just hit by a bug for archaeology — bitten by the bug of archaeology. Now he’s doing a BSc in math and a BA in archaeology. Not really quite sure how those two things go together, but Hisham has the ability to just suck in information, create this incredible database of knowledge that he can make, quite rapidly, connections with, and then come out with a conclusion that he shares with people. I mean, he’s a computer, in his brain. And yet, at the same time, he’s very soulful and very philosophical.
And I think in the last few days — I mean, this hasn’t even been a week since this happened to him. In the last few days, I have really understood how Hisham has the ability to have his soul and his heart encompass his people and for him to be able to contextualize the suffering that he’s had within what is something that he sees as a valid and — the dignity of his people. So, I think that is giving him great comfort. There is an Arabic word, sumud, which means resilience. It’s about the concept of existence being resistance, staying on your land no matter what. And Hisham, for me, signifies and symbolizes that concept. He is like an olive tree, that he can get cut down, but he will regrow. And that is where he gets the strength to be thinking about other people and about his people even while he lies in a bed unable to move.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I think we can also see where he gets his spirit: from you, Elizabeth. And his —
ELIZABETH PRICE: I’m lucky to be his mother. I am blessed to be his mother. I am so privileged to have gotten to know him in my life.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about them growing up in the Ramallah Friends School? We spoke with the head of the school, who’s now head of the whole American Friends Service Committee in the United States, Joyce Ajlouny. Talk about his experience growing up in Ramallah, where you live, and going to this Quaker school.
ELIZABETH PRICE: Well, I mean, life in Ramallah and life in Palestine is a beautiful thing. Obviously, we live under military occupation, and so, you know, people are killed every day, and often they are children. And children are arrested, and people are arrested. And often the school goes on strike because — in solidarity with the news of someone being killed by the Israeli army. So, it’s a life where you know when the school goes on strike, that someone has lost their life. And the walls of the streets around the school are filled with pictures of people who have been killed, in memory of them.
But Ramallah, and Palestine, is a place of family and community. It’s a place where everyone knows each other, and we feel safe. My daughter, who is 17, can walk home late at night in safety, because everyone respects the other and sees the other as a member of a larger society or community or family. And so you’re never alone, and you’re always — everyone acts to take care of each other.
So, these boys grew up together. They did Model United Nations. They talked, and they did math club, and they did chess club. And they would come to my house on a Saturday afternoon, like giraffes, you know, as they grew up over the years, and they would duck under my threshold and sprawl over on my couches, and I would make them food. And then they would cram themselves into Hisham’s tiny room, and they would just talk about philosophy and politics and language and then just talk about — you know, just joke with each other.
And then, when they were receiving their college results for those who had applied to American colleges, you get the results at like 3:00 in the morning in Palestine, so they would stay up together, and they would be on the phone to each other, and they would be there for each other. So, as the one person up opened their email, and if it was good news, they would celebrate; it was bad news, they would commiserate. And so, that helped them survive so much. And the three boys who you mentioned, Hisham and his two friends, are like brothers. And I think that that has been so important for them.
After they were shot, they were kept in the same ICU room for a number of days by the hospital, because the hospital recognized that the proximity meant that they could be with each other and give each other strength. Kinnan, who has been released, was the least hurt, but was deeply, deeply traumatized by the experience that he went through when he thought that his friends had been killed. And so, by keeping him, even though he could be released, with the boys, the hospital was able to give them that comfort of being with each other and having that camaraderie and that brotherhood sustain them in the time where they were just trying to come to grips with the hatred that had been shown to them, the devastation of their lives and the crippling of my son.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m looking at a report from NBC. At one event at Brown, 20 students were arrested by university police and charged with trespassing after they refused to leave a sit-in outside Brown President Christina Paxson’s office. A friend of Hisham’s, Daniel Newgarden, said that Hisham had attended a Shabbat dinner with some of the Jewish students who had been arrested during the sit-in, and that they got together each Friday afterward. And they talked about the alliance between Jews and Palestinians, who they saw increasingly anxious after October 7th, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH PRICE: Yes. Hisham did notify Brown that he felt unsafe on campus. I hadn’t realized that. Hisham often wouldn’t tell me things. He was so busy with his life, doing five course and 20 hours of work. But he did feel anxious. He was active.
And I have to tell you that when we heard about that sit-in by the Jewish students, we were moved. There has been such an incredible outpouring of support by Jewish activists in America. The concept of the Grand Central Station sit-in was something that reverberated around Palestine and really lifted our hearts. And then, when Hisham sent me a picture of him at Shabbat dinner with these young people, I just felt like he was in the right community.
I mean, when this type of thing happens, when Palestinians are so traumatized and so abused by the international community and the ignoring of their rights, my children learned over this last seven weeks what it is to be on the wrong side of justice. And I think for definitely my daughter and definitely Hisham, it opened their eyes up to what it is to be a part of an oppressed community, and the opportunity for solidarity across that.
Jewish people have been targeted for centuries by antisemitism. The other minorities in America, the Native Americans have been in solidarity with the Palestinians. Black Americans, so many different minorities have reached out and been in — stood in solidarity with the Palestinians. And I think that that’s the life that I want my children to experience, to live in a community where they know and fight for the — against the injustice that others suffer, and that they know that the others are standing with them in the injustice — against the injustice that the Palestinians suffer. So, that Shabbat dinner gave me great joy when I heard about it.
AMY GOODMAN: People can go to Democracy Now! and see — we were there at the Grand Central protest, hundreds of Jews arrested as they shut down Grand Central Station on a Sabbath night, on a Friday night. If you can say what the doctors are saying right now, Elizabeth? Hisham has a bullet lodged in his spine. He also — his thumb — what else is —
ELIZABETH PRICE: So, Hisham, from what I understand, he must have had his hand up when he was shot, and so the bullet went through his thumb into his clavicle. And then I think it may have ricocheted against his scapula. It broke a — I think it touched a rib, and then it went into the T2 of his spine. So, from what I understand, that trajectory and that passage meant that the bones slowed down the bullet, which is very lucky, because I think the bullet would have severed his spine. So, currently the bullet has lodged there, and there’s concussive impact, which has meant that Hisham has lost the sensation of pain and temperature, but he can feel pressure from his mid-torso downward. So Hisham has to go through a long process of physical therapy to be able to regain the control of his muscles down there.
In the short term, I believe that he will be able to learn how to live with that. He’ll be given the — he’ll be taught how to live with his disability. And our long-term plan is to support him to be able to regain motion, functional motion in all of his body. But my son has an incredible mind and an incredible soul. And he is already — the doctors say that it’s hard sometimes to get people to engage with their new situation, and Hisham has been asking questions and inquiring and just taking control of it all with his curiosity and taking information so he can process it. So, he’s tired, and it’s a long — the next step is — the next phase is going to be a very long process, but he’s very determined, and he’s brilliant and curious. And I think — I know that he’ll be a success in no matter what he does.
AMY GOODMAN: He was shot in Vermont. There’s a three-member Vermont congressional delegation. You’ve got Becca Balint, the first Jewish American congressmember to call for a ceasefire. Peter Welch just joined her, the Vermont senator. And Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders,, while he has not called for a ceasefire, he has called for aid to Israel to be conditioned on what’s happening in the West Bank and what’s happening in Gaza. Your final thoughts on what you’re calling for now, Elizabeth, as your son lies in the ICU?
ELIZABETH PRICE: Thank you. I think one of the things that I really want to emphasize is that there should be — it would be irresponsible for there to be any discussion of the mental health status of the perpetrator. There are millions of people suffering with mental health issues, and it is disrespectful to them to imply that mental health is something that leads to gun violence. There are millions of people in America with mental health who do not pick up a gun and shoot. And it is irresponsible to victimize the shooter in this case. So, any discussion of what his mental state was or his emotional state was is irresponsible. It’s also a double standard. It is often applied to white perpetrators of shooting crimes, but not to those who are nonwhite or of different backgrounds, and particularly of minority backgrounds. And so I consider that to be unacceptable. And recent statements by the media that have highlighted that have — they broke me last night. And I find that incredibly offensive, that people would victimize the shooter.
I would also say that it is time to call for ceasefire. The fact that the bombs started falling on Gaza again today crushed me. I celebrated Becca Balint’s stance, and I applaud and I’m so grateful for Peter Welch’s statement of an unconditional ceasefire. The Palestinian people in Gaza have been brutalized by not just the bombardment, by the fact that they haven’t had — they didn’t have food, water or fuel for weeks. They just sat there and died. And I just — I was in deep depression and mourning for seven weeks, even before this happened to my son.
And my son would be, I think, redeemed in his suffering if he knew that, in any way, in any small way, attention brought to the Palestinian people through his plight helped to make the decision makers in the American government recognize that Palestinians are humans and Palestinians deserve to live, and if one more Palestinian child dies or is injured in the way that my son was injured, it is a travesty that this world should not have to live with. My son is receiving attention and the best medical care in America. If he was in Gaza or if he was in the West Bank, he would have been dead in prison or just thrown somewhere in a medical facility without the support he would need to be able to recover from this. So I am incredibly privileged, and as is my son, that he has been hurt here amongst this community who have supported us and provided us with the medical care, where he is seen as a valid human being. And I think, in my son’s name, I call for all the decision makers and policymakers in the American government to recognize the Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank and in Jerusalem are also human and deserve the dignity and the support that my son is being provided with. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Elizabeth Price, we thank you so much for being with us, mother of Hisham.
ELIZABETH PRICE: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Please give him all of our regards, one of the three Palestinian students shot by a white man while visiting their family in Burlington, Vermont, this past weekend, Elizabeth Price joining us from Burlington after traveling from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank — so did his father — to be at Hisham’s side.