Website Jeremy Hammond
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Ahmad (00:00.174)
Amazing, so Jeremy, listen, thank you so much. I mean, it’s recording now. So look, thanks for coming on and being a guest. It’s great to be speaking to you. So you’re an investigative journalist in the States. I love the States. You Americans are amazing. I hate your government and that’s a separate issue. But you’ve written some pretty amazing articles on Israel-Palestine conflict, the historical context, and also on about COVID. I mean, the reality is, you know, I might actually back again next year because there’s just too much to talk about.

And realistically, in about 90 minutes, I need to go and pick up my kids. So we’re definitely not covering everything. Where to kick off? So I just had a guest on, Professor Norman Fenton. And he was giving things from the Israeli perspective. He’s got family out there and he, his self-proclaimed Zionist. So I thought one of the things I could do today is go through some of the points which are quite fresh in my head about what he said.

and if you can respond to them and tell me what you think and whether they’re correct or not. So when I interviewed Rabbi Weiss, he stated that prior to the 1920s, Arabs, Christians, and Muslims, and Jews lived peacefully in Palestine. There was such a place as Palestine, although it was under the occupation of the Ottoman forces. So this idea that Palestine didn’t exist is actually incorrect and not factual.

He also stated that 80% of the population was Arab Muslim, 10% was Arab Christian, and 10% was Jewish, and they lived in peace and harmony. And the conflicts only started with mass migration, forced migration from Europe, and increasing takeover of the land, and this idea that we’re gonna create a Jewish homeland, which the locals obviously felt quite threatened by, because if they’re making a Jewish homeland, what place will there be for them?

Norman states that wasn’t the case, that actually there was a lot of Muslim, Jewish hatred and violence and rioting, and that, in quotes, the Dimmer law, that Jews were treated as second class citizens and they had to pay a tax, and they weren’t equals, and life was very difficult for the Jews. Do you know anything about the historical context? Which one is correct, or are they both correct?

Jeremy R. Hammond (02:23.784)
Well, the Jews weren’t living under Arab rule at that time. They were living under Turkish rule. It was the Ottoman Empire. And then they were living under the British occupation. So it’s not, he’s making it sound as though, I mean, at least from what you just relayed, as though it was like some kind of Arab prejudice against the Jews. What you said was correct. In fact, we can look back at the violent outbreaks that occurred in the 20s, 1920, 1921, and then there was the Hebron Massacre in 1929.

And the British investigated those outbreaks. They had inquiries, commissions of inquiry into the causes of those outbreaks of violence and riots in which Jews were murdered by Arabs, Arab Palestinians, which by the way, Jews and Arabs were both Palestinians at the time. They were Jewish Palestinians and Arab Palestinians. They were both known as Palestinians for living in the territory of Palestine. It’s true, they’ll say, well, Palestine was never a state. Well, that’s true, but it was a territory.

Ahmad (03:14.263)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (03:22.984)
And so the British commissions of inquiry looked into the causes of the conflict of the outbreaks of violence and in every instance They determined that the root cause was not any kind of inherent Arab anti-semitism but the growing recognition among the Arab population that the Zionists aimed to dispossess them of their land and Of course that you know growing resentment against the British occupation

for denying their right to self-determination because that was the purpose of the belligerent British occupation under the so-called Palestine mandate was to prevent the Arab Palestinians from exercising their right to self-determination which contrasts with every other mandatory under the League of Nations and then later transferred to the UN every other mandated territory became independent

Jeremy R. Hammond (04:18.828)
from gaining independence, despite promises from the British to gain Arab support during the war effort, that the British would support Arab independence from Ottoman rule. So the British broke the promise. They facilitated the Zionist project to reconstitute Palestine into a, quote unquote, Jewish state, which of course the Arabs were upset about. Of course they were upset about that because they were being dispossessed and disenfranchised.

Ahmad (04:30.807)
Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (04:46.292)
And so that’s the cause, the root cause of the violence was anti-Zionism, not anti-Semitism.

Ahmad (04:54.782)
Hmm, I’ve always found this mandate business very interesting. I always thought it’s just a way of legitimizing colonialism. So, you know, you basically take over territory, you defeat your enemy, and instead of saying, we’ve now taken over this land, this is ours, we’re gonna say, oh, look how nice we are. We’re gonna help you with your independence, and it’s gonna take decades. And it’s funny, they apply one rule here.

Jeremy R. Hammond (05:02.788)
correct.

Ahmad (05:20.902)
And if you look at Pakistan and India, you know, the British Raj, there was no mandate. There was no, oh, we will have a mandate and help you become independent. It was one day they were ruled and the second day they weren’t. So it’s funny, even from their own standards, you know, the British Empire didn’t apply to mandates all the time. And I just think it was just simply a way of legitimizing, we’ve conquered this territory and look how noble we are. We’re going to administer it. Like, you know, these areas need to be administered.

as if the people that live there aren’t capable of looking after themselves or ruling themselves. Yeah, I’ve always found that a little bit, hmm, suspect. So one of the other things that.

Jeremy R. Hammond (05:59.808)
Yeah, correct. That’s correct. It was, yeah, it was the, it gave legal cover for the belligerent occupation to deny the Palestinians the right to self-determination. That’s what it was.

Ahmad (06:12.198)
And wasn’t it quite hypocritical because on one side, they were promising the Palestinians, the Arabs there. And I find the word Arab quite equally misleading as well as the word Muslim because it’s like this homogenous group. So take for example, Indians from the subcontinent, you’ve got so many different ethnicities, so many different languages and Latin religions. Just it’s like saying all Europeans are the same, whether you’re from Hungary or Wales.

when actually you’re really very different and there’s multiple different religions, different forms of Christianity, different cuisines, cultures, everything. So, and it’s the same with the Arab lands. All they have in common is that they use the Arab language and nominally Islam. Although when you look at it ethnically, they’re made up of so many different people. Before Islam, these lands were occupied by natives, you know, and there’s names, Assyrians and Phoenicians and Egyptians and whatever.

So just labeling them, and take for an example, Syria and some of the oldest cities in civilization and humanity come from Syria. These places were not Islamic forever. They weren’t Muslims, they weren’t Arabs. These are people that were conquered by the Arab armies and then they converted to Islam and became Muslims. But the word Arab applies almost like they’re one homogenous ethnic group when they’re not, and one homogenous cultural group when they’re not, one religious.

homogenous group when they’re not. And I think if the West kind of understood that, that would really help understand the kind of problems that we’re seeing in the Middle East. Would you not agree?

Jeremy R. Hammond (07:51.06)
Yeah, certainly. It’s the same as people generalize about Islam or what a Muslim is. When there’s all kinds of different… It would be like generalizing about Christianity when there’s so many different sects of Christianity and different faiths and different religions within Christianity. There’s a lot of different beliefs and… Yeah, we certainly shouldn’t overgeneralize.

Ahmad (08:11.69)
No. So, okay, so one of the things…

Jeremy R. Hammond (08:13.996)
I know for convenience, you know, I mean, because they were described as Arab Palestinians. So I described them that way, you know, like an appeal commission. This is how they’re described. So I’m just kind of using the conventional descriptions. Yeah.

Ahmad (08:26.67)
So one of the things that Prof Fenton was saying was that, the Palestinians just hate the Jews and they wanna destroy Israel and they’ve got this visceral hatred for Jews. And that’s the problem. I talked about these children in the West Bank dying before 7th of October. I think there was 40 plus. And he said, oh, these children, a lot of them are 15, 16, 18. And I was like.

15, 16 is a kid and technically in this country, you have to be 18 before you can consent to anything. Up until then, you’re deemed a child. So yeah, and these kids are throwing stones at the forces. They don’t hate Jews just because they hate Jews and Israelis, they hate them because they’re occupied and their life is made misery. But Prof. Ventim was saying, no, that’s not true. They administer themselves and there’s no apartheid going on in the state. What’s right? Is there an apartheid or not?

Jeremy R. Hammond (09:23.8)
Well, it’s a tricky label because within Israel, although there is discrimination against the 20% of the population of Israel that are Arabs, or Palestinians, but I wouldn’t describe it as an apartheid state within the so-called borders of Israel, which by the way, Israel to this day has no legally recognized borders. It remains an armistice line. But if you look at

all of the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, within that territory, you do have an apartheid system, a system of gross discrimination against the Palestinians living in the occupied territories. And Benny Morris recently, in an interview I watched with him, made this point, that he recently signed a letter criticizing the apartheid regime.

And he’s clarifying that, well, within the state of Israel, you know, the Arabs don’t have it that bad. However, if you look at the occupied territories, it is an apartheid system, essentially. And this has been recognized by, increasingly in the international community, Human Rights Watch, that’s their official position, that’s an apartheid regime, Amnesty International, UN agencies.

Israeli human rights organizations, B’tselem, Gisha, they all have been describing it as apartheid for some time now.

Ahmad (11:01.622)
Why? What makes it a power touch?

Jeremy R. Hammond (11:07.136)
The pure discrimination against the Palestinians and the denial of their rights, how the West Bank is divided up into these settlement blocks with these divisions of Jew-only highways. The Palestinians have all of these… just to be able to travel and get around, they have to go through all these checkpoints. If they want to have construction, they have to get permits.

from the Israeli government and the Israeli government will deny them permits. Israeli government demolishes their homes, demolishes sheds and water cisterns, and you have Israeli settlers acting violently with impunity against Palestinians, destroying orchards, attacks on civilians, and this with impunity. Just the nature of the occupation is what human rights…

organizations have been describing now as apartheid. And whether you want to get it, it’s tricky because again, it doesn’t really compare to South Africa. And so, it’s always tricky to use the word apartheid because anytime you say that, people think of South Africa. And Noam Chomsky has made this point that within Israel, it’s not that bad. And in the occupied territories, it’s much, much worse.

Ahmad (12:08.75)
Hmm.

Ahmad (12:19.025)
Mmm.

Ahmad (12:25.623)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (12:35.44)
And so, you know, Noam has kind of objected to the label for those reasons. And I think that’s fair and valid. I think that’s a valid point that he makes in rejecting the label.

Ahmad (12:42.637)
Mm.

Ahmad (12:49.956)
Yeah, so, because Prof. Fenton, going back to Prof. Fenton, we’ll be talking about him a lot, because it’s just literally I’ve come off the podcast with him. He states that there’s two million Arabs living in Israel, and they have equal rights, and they’re judges and whatnot, and they have, everything’s fine. So how are they discriminated? Because it sounds like they’re not.

Jeremy R. Hammond (13:11.532)
Well, there is discrimination against them. It’s true, they do have political rights. You know, they can run for government. There’s members of Knesset that are Palestinian. However, the Palestinian communities within Israel, there is discrimination against them. I mean, it’s been growing worse, including with violence against Palestinians. Again, I was watching another interview just the past week.

or last week or two weeks ago with Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé, who was describing a situation where there’s murders of Arab citizens of Israel on what he said was a daily basis. And that they’re afraid to go out at night because of the threats against their communities. That they’re living kind of in this fear and this terror within Israel. And so that’s from.

Ahmad (13:46.455)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (14:08.972)
you know, again, from Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé. So that’s the situation he’s described. So to me, you know, it’s not as though they’re treated equally. Even though to a large extent under the law, you know, they do have more equality under the law, but even there, I mean, you have systems that favor

Ahmad (14:23.446)
Yep, yep, yep.

Jeremy R. Hammond (14:38.508)
Jews, favor Jewish housing over Arab Palestinian housing, things like this.

Ahmad (14:46.094)
Okay, so one of the other things I said was that, you know, Gaza is like an open air prison, it’s occupied territories. And again, I hear this come back to me, no, they’re not occupied, they’re governing themselves, and they’re not an open air prison. But to me, it seems like it. You’ve got this land that’s 25 miles, but like four miles in diameter, roughly. You got two and a half, almost two and a half million people crammed into it. They don’t have control of their sea.

border, their air, space, or land border. And you know, they’re locked in, and they’re at the whims of Israel and Egypt through that Rafa border. They can’t even go out one mile, if they do, with the little fishing boats, they get, you know, gunned down. They can’t have access and drill for their oil and gas. I mean, it sounds like an open-air prison, just a massive, massive ghetto to me. But the argument is they’re not occupied. But if you’re controlling

the entry and exit and what can be done effectively in that area, then surely that’s occupied. What would you say to that?

Jeremy R. Hammond (15:55.044)
It’s really not a question. You’ve described the state of Gaza under international law. Exactly. It’s still occupied. Because even though Zionists like to claim, well, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, so it’s no longer occupied. But sure, they withdrew ground forces and settlers from Gaza in 2005. However, they’ve maintained a blockade of Gaza where Israel controls, as you said, they controls the land crossings.

other than the Ra’afah crossing with Egypt, which by the way Egypt has been complicit in the blockade since 2007. And they control the airspace and Israel controls the territorial waters. So Israel remains under international law. It’s a simple point of fact. There’s no dispute or controversy about this whatsoever among authoritative…

you know, the UN agencies, international human rights agencies, again, it, Gaza remains under, under occupation. Israel remains the occupying power in Gaza. That’s just a point of fact.

Ahmad (17:02.99)
Okay, let’s go back in time a little bit. So when I talk to Zionists, again, like Norman, and talk about the creation and the birth of Israel, this painful birth, which if I recall was a unilateral declaration by the Zionist groups, it wasn’t the UN, it wasn’t anyone else, it was the Israeli Zionist groups that said, right, we’re independent. They’re leading up to that point for several years.

the Zionist settlers had come over from Europe were armed and were allowed to be armed under the British, oversea, but the Palestinians had been disarmed. And increasingly leading up to that point, Palestinians were being subjected to harassment and crimes and violence. And actually, thousands of Palestinians were subjected to death or violence and were literally forced out of their villages. And that’s what this whole

Nakba means a disaster. And I think 750,000 had to flee their homes. I think there was 1.8 million or something, Palestinians at the time. Now, I just got told by Norman, that’s not the case. What happened was when Israel was declared independent by the UN, all these Arab armies told the Palestinians to vacate so that they could…

go and kill all the Jews and once the war was over then the Palestinians could go back. What’s correct? Is that correct?

Jeremy R. Hammond (18:37.996)
He’s just repeating standard Zionist propaganda. That’s just routine standard narrative. Of course, the Zionist narrative is that when Israel was created, that there was a genocidal war by the Arab states, the neighboring Arab countries, that they launched a war denying Israel’s right to exist and a genocidal war to wipe Israel off the map. This is ahistorical.

because Israel didn’t exist as a legally defined entity. As you correctly pointed out, it wasn’t created by the UN, that’s a myth. UN resolution 181, which the Zionists cited in their declaration of the existence of the state of Israel, that resolution, general assembly resolution 181, neither partitioned Palestine nor conferred any legal authority to the Zionist leadership for the unilateral declaration of the existence of the state of Israel.

Israel to this day has no, as I mentioned before, has no legally defined borders. So what happened was that after that resolution was passed in November of 1947, Zionist forces began undertaking ethnic cleansing campaigns. By the time of May 14th, which was the end of the mandate, and that was the date that the Zionists chose to announce their state unilaterally, by that time…

quarter million Arabs had already been ethnically cleansed from their homes. So what happened was that when the Zionists proclaimed a Jewish state over the territory of Palestine, despite owning only 7% of the land in Palestine, with Arabs owning more land in every single district in Palestine, including Jaffa, which included the main Jewish population center of Tel Aviv, Arabs were the majority. They owned more land, even within the area of the proposed Jewish state.

under the partition plan recommendation. So what happened was that the neighboring Arab states, upon the Zionists proclaiming sovereignty over this land that they had no right to proclaim sovereignty over, intervened into Palestine to try to stop the ongoing ethnic cleansing with limited success, but mostly failure. They mostly failed to stop the ethnic cleansing. And that is how Israel came into existence.

Jeremy R. Hammond (21:02.568)
Israel came into existence through the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Arabs and the wiping, literally wiping off the map, about 450 villages of the Palestinians. As later Defense Minister Moshe Dayan had said, there isn’t a single place in this country that didn’t have a former Arab population. They literally wiped Arab villages off the map to build Jewish communities.

So that is how Israel came into existence through ethnic cleansing.

Ahmad (21:34.082)
So basically, I was also just told that Jerusalem was, you know, predominantly Jewish at the time of the, you just said that there was no area that was, you know, that every area was Arab majority. Is that incorrect? Was Jerusalem not majority Jewish?

Jeremy R. Hammond (21:50.744)
Um, I think it would depend on, I’m not sure the total population of Jerusalem at the time, but I, there was a large Jewish community in Jerusalem. Um, so I’m not sure the total, but I’m certainly, if you look at certain areas, like maybe in East Jerusalem or, um, you know, I think maybe in East Jerusalem, it was probably more Arabs.

But in West Jerusalem, that is possible, that there was a greater Jewish population. I don’t know the demographics specifically of Jerusalem, only the greater area of Palestine itself. But certainly, overall, Jews were a minority. And East Jerusalem, by the way, is also occupied territory. So all of Gaza and the West Bank.

Ahmad (22:20.769)
Mm.

Okay.

Ahmad (22:28.693)
Okay.

Jeremy R. Hammond (22:41.952)
including East Jerusalem under international law, are occupied Palestinian territory, which I need to point out because the media are fond of saying that East Jerusalem is quote unquote disputed territory, which is false. It’s not disputed.

Ahmad (22:54.338)
And that’s actually a really funny point because, yeah, you remind me, actually, when I said, at the end, what you see as a solution, Norman was saying that he doesn’t believe in a two-state solution anymore. I said, what about these occupied territories? And he said, well, I think they’re disputed territories. So what’s the difference? I thought they were occupied. What’s the dispute?

Jeremy R. Hammond (22:55.86)
not under international law.

Jeremy R. Hammond (23:24.224)
Well, when he says, when they’re described as disputed territories, that’s from the point of view of what Israel wants. Israel wants the territory. And so from the Zionist perspective, they’re disputed. But again, from the perspective of international law, Israel isn’t entitled to a single inch of Gaza or the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. From the perspective of international law, these are not disputed territories. They are occupied Palestinian territories.

There’s no dispute about that whatsoever. There’s no controversy about that whatsoever. It’s again, it’s just another point of fact under international law that these are occupied Palestinian territories.

Ahmad (24:02.482)
Okay. Now one of the other things I was told was that yes, you know, there was an, when I said there was a migration of European Jews to Palestine, I was told, well, there was also a lot of Arabs coming from other Arab countries because of the wealth that the Jews were generating. And there weren’t that many Palestinians. And most of these refugees are Arabs from other countries and not

Jeremy R. Hammond (24:27.972)
Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (24:32.352)
No, that’s just a hoax. That’s a hoax. No, that’s just false. That’s just ahistorical. That’s nonsense. There was some Arab immigration into Palestine, but most of the growth, Arabs were the majority. Most of the growth of the Arab population was natural increase, whereas most of the increase in the Jewish population was immigration. Those are the facts.

Ahmad (24:32.51)
Is that correct?

Ahmad (24:56.254)
Okay, but can we can we

Jeremy R. Hammond (24:59.157)
This claim that it was kind of an empty land and the Arabs just arrived because the Jews came and made the desert blossom, this is all just fantasy. It has no basis in reality.

Ahmad (25:11.634)
Okay, so I mean, because I was aware from speaking to Palestinians and reading different texts that, you know, actually there was quite a thriving local culture in Palestine. You know, you had these coastal towns and inner towns and holy land, and they were all thriving. They had culture, they had music, they had arts, they had everything. So it wasn’t just a desert, from my understanding. But can we agree that there were lots of Jews in Syria and Iraq?

Jeremy R. Hammond (25:24.172)
Yes.

Ahmad (25:40.766)
and Yemen, Arab countries, Egypt, Tunisia, and were they forced, expelled by their host countries? Were they treated badly and had to flee because the Muslims wanted to kill them or treat them badly? What was the exodus, what was the cause for the exodus of Jews from the Muslim lands?

Jeremy R. Hammond (26:06.681)
Yeah, there were expulsions, to my knowledge. I don’t remember specifically from which countries, but there were Arab states that expulsed Jewish populations in response to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which is, of course, also wrong, also a crime, just discriminatory and a violation of the rights of those Jewish inhabitants of those states. We can all, hopefully, we all agree about that.

Ahmad (26:24.205)
Yes.

Ahmad (26:32.475)
Yeah, because if they didn’t want to leave if they if

Jeremy R. Hammond (26:33.18)
But, you know, of course you have Zionists, who Zionists point to those crimes against Jews while trying to defend the ethnic cleansing and expulsions of the Palestinians from their homeland. So it’s just hypocrisy. And if I might make a point about the, you know, this claim that, you know, it’s just Arab, you know, that the root causes of the conflict is this, you know, inherent anti-Semitism. Going back to that point, again with these British commissions of inquiry into the causes of outbreaks of violence, they actually

A really interesting point that they made was the distinction between the Zionist, the Zionist organizations colonies in Palestine and non-Zionist colonies in Palestine. And they pointed out how in the non-Zionist colonies that the Jews and Arabs got along fine and that the Arabs were quite open about having benefited from the Jewish immigration. Jews from Europe brought wealth with them.

Ahmad (27:17.463)
Mmm.

Ahmad (27:21.026)
Yes.

Jeremy R. Hammond (27:33.016)
Arabs could find employment in these Jewish settlements, in the non-Zionist colonies. They could find employment, whereas the Zionist organization had an explicit policy about not hiring Arab workers. When I talked about the 7% of land that Jews had acquired by the end of the mandate, much of that was acquired by exploiting feudalistic Ottoman land laws by which…

Ahmad (27:47.941)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (28:01.72)
the rightful owners of the land were disenfranchised. And so the Zionist organization had purchased much of the land from absentee landlords under these feudalistic land laws. So the rightful inhabitants and homesteaders of the land often times were expelled after the land was purchased and their villages were expelled. So they were being expelled from their lands.

by the Zionist organization, and then they couldn’t find any employment in Jewish settlements that were under the Zionist organization. And this contrasted with the non-Zionist settlements where Jews and Arabs got along fine as neighbors. The British talked about how you could go into these colonies and you’d see Jews and Arabs sitting on a porch together chatting and just being neighborly with each other. And this contrasts. So again, this claim that it’s just this inherent anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews.

This is not the case. It was anti-Zionism that was the problem, because they understood, they increasingly came to understand how the Zionists aimed to dispossess them and to ultimately to expel them from their land. And that was the cause of the resentment towards the Jewish community.

Ahmad (29:16.014)
Can we just step back a little bit? I’m curious. Why have you got such an interest in this thing? Nowadays, no one wants to talk about this issue. They’re absolutely terrified. Brave warriors who standing up against COVID and the government and authority and the vaccines are now silenced. No, don’t say anything. You’ll get into trouble with one group or another. I mean, this is the biggest hot potato you can think of. Why would you get into this? I mean, are you an anti-Semite? What is your skin in the game?

Jeremy R. Hammond (29:47.888)
Um, probably two main reasons, I think. Number one, I was brought up Christian. I was brought up in a Christian family and I’m no longer religious, but I have that background, um, you know, just having read the Bible, having read, you know, just, just coming from that background of, of the Christian religion, which of course, obviously

Ahmad (29:56.462)
Snap!

Jeremy R. Hammond (30:06.968)
When you read the Bible and you read about the ancient state of Israel and you’re growing up hearing all the time, you know, we must support Israel no matter what, you know, I kind of came from that kind of environment. But then that didn’t sit well with me. Just like, you know, when I watch the news and I see the misery that the Palestinians live in, it just didn’t make sense to me that I should support their misery and support the violation of their rights.

Ahmad (30:18.644)
Hmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (30:33.06)
That never made sense to me and I could never reconcile that with like the teachings of Yeshua or Jesus in the Bible So that was that’s one aspect of it It’s just kind of that background of mine growing up But also just you know what got me into journalism was the events of 9-eleven and Asking myself the question, you know, why would people do this and you know, I kind of naively asking myself that question and just being dissatisfied with

Ahmad (30:51.17)
Hmm

Jeremy R. Hammond (31:01.56)
Bush’s answer that it’s because they hate our freedoms and recognizing that, well, okay, that’s not it. Like, what really is it? And just wanting to know. I just sincerely wanted to understand that. And so that’s when I really began digging and reading and researching very intently. And then the more I learned, I realized I needed to start speaking out. So by the time, by the end of 2002, I was speaking out against the coming war against Iraq, saying that the government is lying.

There’s no evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. There’s no evidence that it has operative ties with Al-Qaeda. This is all government propaganda. It’s all lies just to manufacture consent for an illegal war of aggression. And I was doing what I could out of a sense of duty to try to stop that from happening, because there was a crime coming, and I didn’t want to see the government that supposedly represents me committing this atrocity. And so that’s kind of how I got started.

Ahmad (31:42.786)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (31:59.516)
And so I kind of already just had a focus on the Middle East from the very beginning. And so, of course, that just kind of naturally progressed into a very heavy focus on the Israel-Palestine conflict. And so that was just kind of a natural evolution, I think.

Ahmad (32:04.018)
Mmm.

Ahmad (32:14.21)
No, I get that. I did a podcast with Richard Gage. You should listen to it. Especially look into building number seven. Building number seven. That…

Jeremy R. Hammond (32:20.525)
Oh, yeah, sure.

Yes, the freefall collapse of World Trade Center 7 means that all of the building’s potential energy was converted to kinetic energy, which means that there was no energy remaining to do the work of buckling columns as required by NIST’s fire-induced collapse hypothesis.

Ahmad (32:42.454)
Well that was god damn well summarized. Hahahaha

Jeremy R. Hammond (32:45.175)
which leaves one other hypothesis.

Ahmad (32:47.851)
Which is…

Jeremy R. Hammond (32:49.216)
Yeah. Control demolition.

Ahmad (32:50.978)
Which is, yeah, it’s very, no, it’s just very worrying. And that’s when I think I start questioning everything in the world. I’ll be honest with you, that was my, ooh.

Jeremy R. Hammond (32:54.948)
What is controlled demolition?

Jeremy R. Hammond (33:00.642)
Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (33:03.98)
Yeah, NIST’s report, I scoured NIST’s reports very heavily back in the day. And its final report on the collapse of World Trade Center 7 is scientific fraud. It’s scientifically fraudulent.

Ahmad (33:19.108)
Mm.

I agree. I mean, let’s-

Jeremy R. Hammond (33:22.44)
Yeah, on numerous counts, on numerous counts.

Ahmad (33:25.774)
All right, we’re gonna jump forward. So listen, can I say, is it true that you’re not an anti-Semite?

Jeremy R. Hammond (33:29.034)
Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (33:35.096)
course I’m not an anti-Semitism. The label of anti-Semitism, not to deny there is a lot of anti-Semitism. I encounter it myself, you know, sometimes within my reader community, once you know sometimes anti-Semites pop up and email me these hateful things about Jews. It exists. I find it repulsive. But the accusation of anti-Semitism is just an inst- a knee-jerk.

reaction to any kind of legitimate criticism of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. So if you criticize Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, therefore you’re an anti-Semite. It’s the height of intellectual and moral cowardice.

Ahmad (34:18.845)
Do you not think it’s also true that you can be anti-Zionist and not anti-Jewish?

Jeremy R. Hammond (34:27.532)
Yes, of course. Yeah, and this is another thing, that if you’re anti-Zionist, they try to equate that with anti-Semitism, but again, these are two different things. Again, going back to the Mandate period, we could see that the Palestinians, the Arab Palestinians, were opposed to Zionism, not to Jews because they’re Jewish.

Ahmad (34:54.23)
So, Prof. Fenton said that Jews have always been Zionists. It’s in their blood, in their scripture that they will return to Israel and have their home place. But from my understanding, Zionism is a political construct that only originated 150 years ago with Theodore Herzl. Which one is correct?

Jeremy R. Hammond (35:05.678)
I

Jeremy R. Hammond (35:13.568)
Yeah, modern political Zionism is a recent phenomenon, yes. And when this secular political Zionist movement arose, there were ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities who opposed it precisely because in their view, it was an act of rebelliousness against God for this secular political movement to try to reestablish Israel.

without awaiting the Messiah, you know, and acting on their own in spite of God, in defiance of God. That’s how they view it, which is correct from a biblical perspective. I think they have the right interpretation. And so, and to this day, to this day, there are ultra-Orthodox Jews who are anti-Zionist.

Ahmad (35:58.762)
I need to see that. I need to see. I need to see.

Ahmad (36:07.006)
I know, I need to see that biblical, I need to see that biblical quote, I need to see that where the Jews have been told not to go back until God gives them the land. But I interviewed Rabbi David Weiss, the podcast just came out, and he says it’s anti-Jewish to have a state of Israel. But then, you know, Norman Fenton was saying, actually this is just an extreme cult that represents less than one in a thousand Jews in the world.

Jeremy R. Hammond (36:08.099)
Go ahead.

Ahmad (36:36.398)
and they can be ignored. So, you know, but speaking to that rabbi, he was saying there’s tens of thousands of Jews like him, if not hundreds of thousands. And I know of Jews who are anti-Zionist, who are not member of that cult. I think the idea of just labeling, just like all Arabs the same, all Muslims, by the way, it’s not Muslims, it’s Muslims, Muslim man. And so all of them are the same, and just the same as labeling all Jewish people the same, it’s really wrong. Jews come in all different shapes and sizes,

every other faith and race and ethnicity and culture. So, yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (37:11.404)
Yeah, that’s a really good point because we need to point out the fact that some of the most outspoken critics of Israeli government policies are Jews. You know, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappé. You’ve got Jewish Voice for Peace. You’ve got Betzalem, Gisha, the Israeli human rights organizations. Some of the most ardent opponents of Israeli…

of the occupation and Israel’s brutalization of the Palestinians, its war crimes in Gaza. Some of the most outspoken opponents of these policies are Jews. And so this must be kept in mind as well. In fact, a Jew wrote the foreword to my book, my book Obstacle to Peace. The foreword was written by a Jew and the introduction was written by another Jew, Richard Follack and Gene Epstein respectively.

Ahmad (37:53.454)
Okay, but listen, speaking to-

Ahmad (38:03.243)
Wow.

Ahmad (38:07.254)
Fantastic. So, I have so many Jewish friends. I love all my friends, but I don’t care what religion or race you are. I don’t care about that. I judge you by your conduct and your deeds and your character. Anyway, just wanna go back. So one of the things that I was told is that, by Norman, that Iran is behind everything right now. It’s a global conspiracy with Obama.

and Biden and Iran is funding Hamas and Hezbollah. And I had to break it down to him, Hamas is actually Sunni Muslim, supported an offshoot of Muslim brotherhood, came out of Egypt, supported by the British intelligence forces, if not set up by them, also supported by Israel and Mossad. And Netanyahu made it clear that that’s what they did to divide the Palestinian resistance.

and Hezbollah is a Shia organization originating from Lebanon, and yes, they’re supported by Iran. And I haven’t seen any direct involvement of Iran with Gaza, but apparently they’re behind everything. What I have seen is direct involvement of the West, funding with weapons and arms, and not condoning what’s going on with the Israeli government. It almost feels like there’s two double standards.

Iran just says, you know, we support the right for Palestinians to resist, but that automatically gets them blamed for causing the troubles. Is Iran behind it? Have they got a sinister hand behind the violence that’s just recently happened?

Jeremy R. Hammond (39:41.78)
Well, you know, Western intelligence agencies, the US government has acknowledged it has no evidence that that’s the case. It’s kind of a suspicion and assumption, but there’s no evidence that, certainly that I’ve seen, and as far as the government has acknowledged itself, that Iran was involved in the 10-7 atrocities by Hamas in Israel against Israeli civilians. And you were absolutely correct. You made a really excellent point there about…

the origin of Hamas, excuse me, and how Israel initially supported Hamas as a counter force to the PLO because the PLO had dangerously accepted the two-state solution. And Israel has always rejected the two-state solution. And so there was this threat of peace because if the international community now viewed the PLO as a legitimate organization, a legitimate political leadership,

that was an organization that Yasser Arafat was someone whom the world viewed as a peace partner for Israel. This was a threat to Israel. Israel didn’t want that. And so it had a policy of divide and conquer, dividing the Palestinian leadership to be able to say, oh, well, the PLO doesn’t represent all Palestinians. So they initially supported Hamas against the PLO for that reason. And…

The Israeli government has maintained a policy of utilizing Hamas as a strategic ally, and under the Netanyahu government, he’s been quite explicit about that, about utilizing Hamas for strategic reasons to keep the Palestinian leadership divided, so in order to be able to maintain the death of the so-called peace process.

Ahmad (41:35.194)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (41:35.724)
Which you know and we could talk about the peace process too and how the peace process the US led peace process is the means By which Israel and its superpower benefactor have always blocked implementation of the two-state solution But that’s kind of another issue

Ahmad (41:45.478)
We do need to talk about this. No, we do need to talk about this because one of the things I’ve just been talking to this morning about was the fact that Norman kept saying to me that it’s the Palestinians that reject the peace process. They continuously say no, they don’t want peace. Whenever the accords get delivered to them, they keep saying no, we won’t have this, we won’t have a two state solution. And it seems like everything Israel is doing is right, everything the Palestinians are doing wrong.

Jeremy R. Hammond (41:49.345)
Yeah.

Ahmad (42:15.822)
and it serves them right. They asked for it, it’s their fault. What is actually going on? Because my understanding of it was different from that. My understanding of it, correct me if I’m wrong, is that the two-state solution would work if it went back to the 1948 borders or the way the land was meant to be demarcated. And even though some would argue, many Palestinians would argue it was unfairly divided

they would be willing to accept it. But actually what they’re being offered now isn’t a quarter of the slice of the cake, they’re being offered crumbs. They’re not being offered a contiguous state, they’re being offered land with settlements, dual jurisdiction, no real control of borders, no compensation for the refugees. And basically, really what sounds like a dud deal. And every year it gets worse and worse. So,

How can they accept a deal that only seems to get worse? It’s a one-way system. Now, am I just propagandizing? Am I talking bullshit? Can you objectively, as much as you can, tell me what are the facts?

Jeremy R. Hammond (43:19.882)
Right.

Jeremy R. Hammond (43:31.316)
Yeah, well, you’re correct in your view. I mean, this is a specific strategy of building settlements in the West Bank to ensure that there cannot be a two-state solution in terms of there being a contiguous area in the West Bank that is under Palestinian sovereignty. I mean, this is the strategy.

Ahmad (43:34.603)
Oh, okay.

Jeremy R. Hammond (43:57.9)
and has been since 1967 when Israel invaded and occupied the West Bank. But if I might just jump back real quick before I come back to the peace process, I wanna make another point about how Hamas came to power in Gaza because you hear, again, this is another propaganda narrative that you hear that Hamas came to power in a violent coup, which is, again, is just ahistorical. What happened was that Hamas in 2004,

Ahmad (44:12.334)
Do it. Do it.

Ahmad (44:19.286)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (44:25.484)
In January 2004, Hamas announced a shift in policy where it proclaimed its position was that be willing to accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel and offering Israel a 10-year truce to establish mutual intent. And Israel’s response to that was after Sheikh Yassin, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin had

the founder of Hamas had announced this policy. Israel’s response to that was instead of encouraging this kind of movement like the PLO before it, away from armed conflict toward political engagement in diplomacy, instead of encouraging that movement, Israel’s response was to assassinate the sheikh, the sheikh Yassin in his wheelchair. He was quadriplegic as he was rolling out of mosque. And so,

And then what happened was in 2005, Hamas started participating in municipal elections, starting winning seats on local councils, defeating Fatah, which is the party of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas. And then in 2006, won parliamentary elections. And so what you had is a Hamas-led government in power in the occupied territories. Israel and the US’s response to that was, number one, Israel implemented the blockade of Gaza.

Ahmad (45:41.234)
Hmm

Jeremy R. Hammond (45:52.232)
an illegal act of collective punishment to collectively punish the civilian population. So that’s been an ongoing 16 year, 17 year blockade. Number two, Israel and the US colluded with Fatah to try to overthrow the Hamas led government. And this included arming the Fatah special forces, which is the presidential guard force 17.

Jeremy R. Hammond (46:19.08)
to violently try to overthrow the Hamas-led government and what happened was Hamas fought back and there was a counter coup and Hamas ended up expelling Fatah from Gaza and that’s why you have this divided leadership between the PA and the West Bank and Hamas and Gaza It’s precisely a consequence of Israel’s own policies that Gaza rules. I mean that Hamas rules Gaza today So that’s an important point as well to keep in mind now the peace process coming back to that

Ahmad (46:45.918)
No, no, can we just stop? No, let’s put that on ice for a second. So is the government and the leadership or whatever you want to call it, the administration in the West Bank, illegal? Is that the unelected force that’s still there?

Jeremy R. Hammond (47:05.624)
It’s illegitimate, yes. I mean, Abbas’s term ended in 2009. Abbas’s term as president ended in 2009. And there haven’t been elections since, since some of us won the parliamentary elections. And so, yeah, he remains.

Ahmad (47:07.074)
That’s it. Illegitimate.

Ahmad (47:21.89)
So there’s been no more elections in the West Bank.

Jeremy R. Hammond (47:28.428)
There may have been municipal type elections, but not parliamentary elections, not presidential. So his term expired in 2009 and he’s remained president nevertheless. So he’s really not a legitimate leader. And this is one of the reasons that Hamas did so well in the elections is because the PA, the Palestinians have kind of recognized what the role of the PA is. So the Palestinian authority was created under the Oslo Accords.

the 1993 and 1995, in 1993 it was Oslo I and then Oslo II in 1995. So the Oslo Accords created the Palestinian Authority as a sub-agency of the PLO. And the purpose of the PA was to serve as, essentially, to serve as Israel’s collaborator in enforcing its occupation regime. And so…

You know, one of the reasons that Hamas did so well in the elections is because the Palestinians recognize that they have this failed leadership, that the PA does not protect their rights. It’s done a horrible job of defending them and protecting their rights. It just kind of existed. It enables Israel to maintain this occupation without having its own forces in the West Bank because the PA is performing that function for Israel.

Ahmad (48:50.178)
Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (48:50.3)
It’s Israel’s subcontractor in the occupied territories, essentially. And this was the purpose of the PA as far as Israel and the US were concerned. And this again speaks to, that kind of comes back to the peace process of how, what the peace process is, is the means by which Israel and the US have blocked implementation of the two-state solution. And so they speak of a two-state solution, but it’s as you’ve described,

Ahmad (48:52.706)
Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (49:19.616)
where there is no feasible contiguous area under which where the Palestinians can exercise sovereignty as a result of the settlement regime and the occupation regime. And so the two-state solution and a two-state solution as described under the peace process are two completely different things.

Ahmad (49:35.092)
Okay, so-

Ahmad (49:43.998)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I did. So basically, I understand the PA, the Palestinian Authority, are incredibly corrupt. A lot of money gets funneled and channeled to the cronies and the goons and the thugs. And exactly what you’ve just said, they’re subcontractors for the Israeli government and being the security guard for the occupation. So a lot of Palestinians felt very angry, disenfranchised, have gotten a…

Jeremy R. Hammond (49:44.548)
Did you have a question?

Ahmad (50:12.622)
politically homeless, don’t know who to vote for because how do we resist this occupation and our so-called leaders are frankly in bed with the occupation? I mean, just like all political leaders, you can’t trust them. They’re scum. I interviewed Ed Griffin, who’s amazing. He said, anyone who trusts the politicians is a schmuck, is an idiot. And I think it doesn’t matter who they are, what background, what religion, all politicians are scum.

Was it the case that the people in Gaza simply were, and also probably the West Bank, were offered an option to the PLO and they grabbed it, despite the fact that, I’ll be honest with you, if the Hamas Charter is saying we need to bring in Sharia law and blah, and get rid of all the Jews, I mean, eradication of Israel and all the Jews, I mean, that doesn’t sound nice to me either. I don’t seem to agree with what they want. I don’t believe in any…

theocracy, whether it’s Jewish, Muslim, or Christian. So what they’re selling doesn’t really appeal to me. You know, is it that the Palestinians wanted that and they’re all bloodthirsty, you know, fundamentalist? Or is it that they’re just desperate and they wanted to get rid of this occupation and the PLO wasn’t doing anything, PA, FATA, whatever, and they grabbed a chance at an alternative? I mean, what, or was it a bit of both?

Are the people in Palestine just fundamentally very religious and very fanatical now? Because I used to think they used to be secular. I mean, going back a bit, just this is a digress a bit, but my parents told me what it was like growing up in Pakistan in the 50s and 60s. And I’ve seen pictures of people and spoken to people from Iran and Iraq and all these other Muslim countries. And they were becoming quite liberal. They were…

Jeremy R. Hammond (51:38.808)
bit of both. I mean, I think

Ahmad (52:02.026)
they were not this black hijab wearing kind of stuff going on, my mom remembers just walking around with a scarf on her shoulders and short trousers and flares, people were very relaxed, even Afghanistan believe it or not. And this movement of Muslim fundamentalism only really came about around about the 70s and 80s starting off with the funding by the Saudi Wahhabi kind of groups and madrassas and.

a variety of different countries, because they offered free education to these poor families. And then, and these actually Islamic fundamentalist groups have origins with Western intelligence, with British and American intelligence, who didn’t want Arab nationalism, who didn’t want secular organizations who were modern and forward-looking. They wanted

the barbarians, the bad Muslims that they could point fingers at and control. And actually what you’ve then got is rid of all the nationalist movements and charismatic leaders and installed basically boogeymen, people that look scary, that you can point fingers to and say, look at this clash of civilizations, we’re better than them. They’re just towel rag wearing nut jobs. Does that resonate with you? Because that’s certainly coming from my background, that’s what I have seen.

Jeremy R. Hammond (53:22.488)
Sure, look at Al Qaeda, also in bin Laden’s organization. It grew up alongside of the CIA operation in Pakistan to support the most radical extremists and to create the most radical extremists with the madrassas there, those fundamentalist religious schools, which is where the Taliban came from, the talib, meaning student. And…

I mean, that’s where it came from because the CIA was working alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan against the Soviets. And so, I mean, yeah, it’s exactly as you described. It was really fostered as this whole kind of radical extremist Islam is his was kind of a creation as you said of Western intelligence organizations. And al-qaeda is a perfect example of that. And I think coming to you the question, you know, I think there is

Ahmad (54:19.86)
And even the free Syrian army in Syria. You know, you had this multi-ethnic society, multi-religious in Syria, an ancient civilization going back thousands of years. And suddenly you had all these fundamentalist Muslims imported in from Libya and whatnot, beheading other Muslims. It’s like, you know, it’s like, and they were funded by the West. Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (54:39.12)
And of course they were being supported by the US. Yes. ISIS was a creation of the Iraq war. And then the US was siding with ISIS in Syria against the regime there. Whereas Russia was supporting the government against the terrorist organizations. And US support included arming the most extreme groups in Syria. So through Saudi Arabia and-

They were arming the ISIS type organizations there.

Ahmad (55:11.006)
And I think people need to know. Yeah, and people need to understand this here in the West. They need to understand that, you know, they talk about this, you know, all the Muslims are within their gates. I mean, recently there was this comedian who gave a speech at the ARC, you know, WEF 2.0, and it certainly appears like that. And he was talking about, oh, the barbarians aren’t at the gate, they’re within the walls. And now the latest boogeyman isn’t COVID or the big bad Russians, it’s the Muslims.

And why a lot of the people in the population here in the West need to understand is these big bad Muslims, these boogie men, they were, they’re Frankenstein’s monster and Frankenstein is the West. We made them. And now we’re like, oh, they’re the ultimate patsies. You know, we create them, we use them, we exploit them. And when they come home, even that, I just question how they suddenly crossing the Mexican border and the channel. Why are they even allowed to come over? It’s just all f***.

weird, you know, something weird is going on. I mean, that’s my thought, Jeremy. I’m sorry, I really digress here. Let’s go back, peace process, peace process.

Jeremy R. Hammond (56:13.476)
No, it’s a good point because, you know, and when you, when you brutalize and oppress people to the point that they just have no hope, you know, you’re, you’re creating the environment where you’re going to find people that can be radicalized and turned into extremists and violent extremists and then utilize for, for as pawns in some geostrategic game. You know, this is, this is what’s been happening.

Ahmad (56:36.296)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (56:39.48)
So yeah, that’s a really good point. And I’m glad you brought that up. So I think it is, there’s a little of both in Palestine. Yeah.

Ahmad (56:41.98)
And I think…

Ahmad (56:45.93)
Yeah, I was gonna come back to that, and I think it relates to what’s happening in Palestine and Israel, is that these leaders, whether they’re ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Israel government, I actually think they’re all working for the same people. I honestly believe that. It’s not some weird conspiracy theory. I really do think all wars are bank wars, and the ultimate one is where you fund both sides, it’s profitable, it’s all that geopolitical game.

There’s uncertainty, there’s chaos. You can exploit the resources. I think there’s a friendship pipeline they wanted to do from Iran, Iraq, and Syria to the coast, the Mediterranean coast. It was called a friendship pipeline. And just think about this. Iran, Iraq, who fought a war for almost a decade, a million people died, we’re actually gonna make a pipeline, have a friendship. I mean, what the hell? I mean, if that’s not something to be applauded and celebrated by everybody. But the problem is who would have lost that? Qatar.

with their massive gas pipelines. Saudi Arabia wouldn’t like that. Israel didn’t have a slice of the pie. So guess what? All these people weren’t very happy. And you know, and likewise America then wouldn’t have been happy, because Iran’s profiting from it. So suddenly there’s a conflict with ISIS and Israel. Now I think one third of Syria is occupied by America. No one talks about it, illegally, without any authorization. They’re just sitting on all the oil fields.

And people in the West need to know this because if that doesn’t breed hatred and resentment, what would? I mean, just imagine China took over New Mexico and Texas and just sat there with no permission. How would most Americans feel? They’d be like, what the hell? Who are these people? Who do they think they are? Would they just allow it to happen? Would they fight back? And I think there is a bigger geopolitical game going on. I think Netanyahu not very long ago drew a picture in the UN with a pipeline from

UAE across Saudi Arabia into Israel into the Mediterranean. Wow, it sounds very similar to the friendship pipeline. So I don’t know, the reason I’m mentioning this is, what I’m trying to get my listeners to think about and whether you agree with me or not is the idea that this is about Islam versus Judaism and whether it’s about Muslims against the West.

Ahmad (59:05.418)
is actually quite reductive, basic, stupid propaganda, which isn’t actually true and has no basis in reality. And what the reality is, is it’s all about money and power. It’s all about divide and rule and profit from the misery of human beings, regardless of their backgrounds. And I think Israelis are suffering as much as Palestinians. And that might sound a bit strange for some people, Jeremy, but if you think about it, if you lived in Israel, would you be happy?

I mean, thinking the level of stress, that everyone hates you, everybody wants to kill you, you have to sign up for the army, you have to be brutal to the other people too, and to be constantly dehumanizing other people, which I think is what goes on there, you know, the Palestinians are subhuman, that has a very horrible effect on the psyche of the population. That is not healthy for the Jews in Israel. And then not just that, if you look at what’s happening now,

there’s a global resentment of what’s happening. People aren’t supporting Israel. Whatever the West and the media are saying, I think antisemitism will go up following what’s happening in the Middle East. So whoever’s engineering this, I think they’re the antisemitic people because they’re not doing Israel any favors. Anyway, sorry, I digress, I apologize for that.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:00:09.924)
Thanks for watching!

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:00:27.86)
Yeah, it’s interesting. There’s a group called Breaking the Silence in Israel, which is an Israeli veterans organization that’s critical of the occupation, critical of Israeli war crimes. After Operation Kes’ led in 2008-2009, Israel’s 22-day military assault on Gaza, which occurred after a ceasefire that Hamas honored and was violated by Israel, they put out a report, you know, describing soldiers’ conduct in war crimes.

shooting of civilians, use of Palestinians as human shields. So, you know, this again speaks to the point I was making earlier of how, you know, some of the most outspoken critics of the Israeli government and its policies are Jews and Israelis, including the soldiers, you know, soldiers who are coming out and speaking out against what’s happening. So, you know, to their credit. But, you know, I

I don’t want to leave, I kind of, we had an open-ended point there, I want to kind of complete a point about the peace process that I didn’t kind of get to, which, yeah, which is, it goes to UN resolution 242, because I had said that there’s a difference between the two-state solution and a two-state solution as proposed under the peace process. And you have to, it’s really important to understand the distinction, because this is how they confuse you and they deceive the public.

Ahmad (01:01:33.486)
Please do.

Sorry.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:01:56.26)
Okay, so the two-state solution is premised on UN Resolution 242. The two-state solution is premised on the applicability of international law to the conflict. So after the 1967 war, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242 with the intent and meaning of which is that Israel must withdraw its forces to the armistice lines, to the positions it held pre-June 5, 1967.

which is the same as the Green Line or the 1949 Armistice Lines. Those all mean the same thing. Sometimes they’re called the 1967 Lines. Same thing. So Israel had to withdraw from what we’d call the occupied Palestinian territories. Now Israel has its own unilateral interpretation of 242, which the Zionists propagate. And they say that, oh, well, Israel doesn’t need to withdraw until there’s a peace settlement. And so Israel’s interpretation is that the people living under occupation have to…

negotiate with the occupying power over how much of their own land they’re able to live in.

and to maybe someday exercise some kind of sovereignty over, which of course is ludicrous and it has no basis in international law. And so the two-state solution is premised on the applicability of international law. Israel has to withdraw from the occupied territories. The peace process was based on rejecting resolution 242 and the US instead accepted Israel’s unilateral reinterpretation of it that has no legitimacy.

validity and where this is this was what the peace process was it was subjecting the Palestinians to this occupation regime and that the occupation was just going to persist while the settlements continue the settlement continued to expand in the West Bank so more and more of their land that would you know so that’s supposed to go to the Palestinian state is just being eaten up and in

Ahmad (01:03:29.19)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:03:57.356)
de facto annexed to Israel, which is the purpose of the wall that they built, you know, through the West Bank, the settlement barrier that the Israel International Court of Justice that they requested the General Assembly looked at the legal, you know, the legal consequences of the wall and the International Court of Justice in 2004 affirmed that yes, the settlement regime is illegal. All the settlements are constructed illegally in occupied territory.

Ahmad (01:04:25.217)
Mm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:04:26.676)
against its violation of international law for Israel to do this and the wall is illegal. It’s a violation of international law. But this is this is the purpose. It’s it’s so that this is what I mean when I say that the purpose of the peace process was to block implementation of the two-state solution. And they talk of a two-state solution but that’s not the same thing as the two-state solution. So that’s a really important point for people to understand. And when you talk about you know like what Norman had said about

that Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And Israel has made all kinds of concessions and offers to the Palestinians, and they’ve always rejected, and they’ve always just rejected their own statehood. This, again, is just complete ahistorical nonsense that has no relationship to reality whatsoever. So all concessions, and again, this speaks to, when you hear that Israel has made concessions, this term.

Ahmad (01:05:00.715)
Mmm.

Ahmad (01:05:05.013)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:05:24.832)
It’s like describing East Jerusalem as disputed territory. Israel has made concessions in terms of what Israel wants, but this isn’t the framework for discussion properly. The proper framework for discussion is what are both parties entitled to? And under international law, Israel isn’t entitled to any of Gaza or the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. And so already when the Palestinian leadership, when the PLO in 1988,

Ahmad (01:05:39.478)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:05:53.888)
officially declared its acceptance of the two-state solution based on resolution 242. That again was a threat to Israel, which is why it supported Hamas, but that itself constituted an incredibly huge concession on the part of the Palestinian leadership, because they were saying we’ll accept a state in just 22 percent of former Palestine, from which you know 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in order for this

quote-unquote Jewish state to come into existence. So the PLO’s acceptance of the two-state solution was a huge concession. And when you hear about Israel has made concessions, that’s just in terms of what Israel, yeah. So if Israel grants, or is willing to allow the Palestinians to exercise some kind of control and authority over bits and pieces of the West Bank.

with a security detail along the Jordan River, and still with the Jew-only highways dividing up the West Bank and the Jewish settlement blocks you know, annexed into Israel. You know, this is what they’re talking about when they’re talking about a two-state solution. It’s not a viable sovereign state that they’re talking about in the first place. And it’s only a concession in terms of, oh well, if Israel doesn’t take over all of the West Bank.

without the Palestinians, because this has been the aim of the Zionist movement from the start, was to gain as much territory in Palestine as possible without the Palestinians, hence the ethnic cleansing. And there’s been continued ethnic cleansing ever since, gradual ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank, ethnic cleansing right now, if not outright genocide in Gaza. Israel wants the territory without the Palestinians. And so,

All of the concessions in terms of the proper framework for discussion, which is the applicability of international law All of the concessions have always and ever come from the Palestinian side Israel’s concessions throughout the peace process have been negative

Ahmad (01:08:00.662)
So that’s a sober hearing that. Do you know, one of the other things that I heard was, oh, why don’t the Gazan people just leave and why don’t the Arab countries take them? Look, this tiny little smidge is Israel. Look at all these Muslim countries. Again, see, quite a racist thing to do actually because you’re painting all these states as a homogenous mass and they’re not. It’s racist. If that’s not racist, I don’t know what is. It’s very racist attitude. And the thing is 800,000 of those

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:08:22.84)
Right. Yes.

Ahmad (01:08:29.858)
2.3 million Gazans are actually from, you know, are refugees. So now you want a whole group of people to be refugees again. And they were refugees once and never got to go back home. Grandchildren are born who are refugees. And now you want them to become refugees again? I mean, you honestly think they’ll be able to go back to Gaza? I mean, this is ethnic cleansing. So why are these people clinging on to these homes and these buildings while they’re being bombed? Because they know the moment they leave,

It’s gone forever. Listen, I think you’ve painted it quite, the picture quite clearly. Some people like maybe profentum will think you’re just a propagandist and you’re talking BS. I struggle to disagree with what you’ve just said because it kind of fits with everything I’ve read. And what I’ve read wasn’t coming from Hamas, it was just all very objective from charities and all these humanitarian organizations.

I have to be clear, I don’t really agree with any kind of religious state. You know, I’ve got a weird solution, which I don’t know if it’s viable or not. I think there should be a united republic of Israel and Palestine. And I think all of them should live in peace. There’s no one state religion. Muslims, Druze, Christians, everybody are treated equal. Equal citizens, equal rights. No minority has…

rights over the majority. No majority has a right over the minorities. All about individualism, decentralization. No big state, local militias of Palestinians and Israelis all coming together to form a national army. Skills are mixed for some people, and those that don’t want mixed skills can have their own religious skills, if they want to be religious schools, whatever. But decentralization, local communities, people working together with equality, with.

equal land access, equal opportunities, and no state, no Sharia law, no Judaic law, and just people living in harmony. Do you think that’s a crazy idea? Or do you think that actually would make sense?

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:10:42.156)
No, I don’t. I don’t. In fact, if you go back again to the Mandate Era, this is what the Arabs were proposing because they weren’t saying, well, we don’t want Jews to live here. Again, they acknowledged having benefited. The Arab communities had acknowledged having benefited from Jewish immigration. It wasn’t the Jewish immigration that was the problem or Jews living there that was a problem. And there had been Jews living there before. As I said, as you mentioned, there were, I think, about 10%. I think that’s correct.

before the mass immigration brought it up to like a third of the population, was Jewish. They had been living there since time immemorial, as the expression goes. And so that wasn’t the problem. And they were proposing a single democratic state with equality under the law for both Jews and Arabs. And of course, the Zionists rejected that. And hence you had the belligerent British occupation in service to the Zionist movement.

The Palestine mandate was literally just like the Balfour declaration was drafted by Lord Rothschild on behalf of the Zionist movement. And there was some back and forth. Arthur, you know, the British Foreign Minister, Lord Arthur Balfour, you know, they had some back and forth before they kind of came up with the final draft. But the original draft of the Balfour declaration was written by the Zionist representative.

Ahmad (01:11:49.302)
Hmm

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:12:11.1)
And the same thing with the Palestine mandate. The Palestine mandate was literally drafted by the Zionists and implemented in service to the Zionist movement to facilitate the Zionist project. And so the Balfour Declaration really put Britain, Great Britain, on a policy course that ultimately facilitated the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. And this is one of the reasons, this is one of the reasons, this is really important to understand, because this is one of the reasons you have Western media just parroting.

these Zionist propaganda narratives about the conflict from its origins to today. It’s Zionist propaganda that we’re being kind of bombarded with, why? Because the Western media report things through the lens of Western governments. And Western governments have always been complicit in the brutalization and disenfranchisement and rejection of Palestinians’ rights, including.

Ahmad (01:12:46.583)
Mmm.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:13:06.324)
and this is the root cause of the conflict, the rejection of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. And so we have to step away and see things from outside that lens and see that there is another perspective, there is another side, and it’s legitimate. The Palestinians have legitimate grievances and we should respect their rights and it’s the rejection of their rights that’s the problem.

So, you know, what you’re describing in terms of a single state solution is also what I think is the most equitable. It is, in my mind, the only equitable solution because, and, but in my view, it has to be done in two stages. Stage one, implement the so-called two-state solution where you have Palestinian sovereignty in Gaza and the West Bank. That’s step one. Step two, adjust resolution to the refugee problem.

Ahmad (01:13:53.664)
Mmm.

Ahmad (01:13:58.603)
Yeah.

Ahmad (01:14:02.999)
Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:14:03.188)
And when you do that, if the right of return is respected, guess what you have? A single state.

Ahmad (01:14:12.759)
Yeah, unified. It’s fine. It’s-

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:14:13.561)
So that’s how I see, that’s the path that I see to get to what you’re describing.

Ahmad (01:14:17.562)
It’s funny, in September 29th, 1947, the Arab Hire Committee issued a statement. And it doesn’t sound like they wanted to get rid of the Jews. The Arabs of Palestine were determined to oppose with all means at their disposal any scheme that provided for segregation or partition, or that would give to a minority special and preferential status instead.

advocated freedom and independence for an Arab state in the whole of Palestine, which would respect human rights, fundamental freedoms, and equality of all persons before the law, and would protect the legitimate rights and interests of all minorities whilst guaranteeing freedom of worship and access to the holy places. I mean, it doesn’t say a Muslim state, it doesn’t say a Muslim.

It’s just an Arab, and that’s because I think 80% of the population was Arab, 90% of the population was Arab, which, okay, but now it’s not. Now there’s a lot more Jewish people there. So the idea of a united Israeli Palestinian Republic, I think, why not? That would get rid of all this war. Just have peace and harmony and love and love your neighbor. They’ve got so much in common. Jews and Muslims actually have so much in common.

buying, the communities are so happy. There’s a story, I’m not gonna repeat it, but my dad was helped out in the 70s and 80s to help make a shoe shop because of a Jewish guy in Scotland who helped him buy shoes because at that time, because of my dad’s color, he couldn’t buy shoes to sell in the shop because they didn’t sell to blacks and Paki’s and niggers and Muslims and whatever. So this white Jewish guy,

helped out my dad and was amazing. And you know, I remember my dad telling me this story and never once have we heard anything bad other than Mr. and Mrs. Noah, they were another Jewish couple friends of my parents. And you know, this idea that there’s this ancestral hatred between the groups, it’s just, honestly, it’s absolute garbage, it’s just nonsense. Okay, listen, one last question, if you don’t mind me asking, unless you think I’ve missed anything. Have we missed anything?

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:16:28.984)
Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:16:35.684)
Well, I think we’ve covered a lot of ground. Certainly, I think the most important points, I think, have been made. But yeah, shoot.

Ahmad (01:16:43.662)
Okay, yeah. Okay, so, okay, well, there was one last question, but I’ll just come back to the Gaza one. So right now, a lot of people, especially, you know, frothing at the math on Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it, they’re saying, oh, this is all in tomorrow if the people in Gaza stop supporting Hamas and let go of the hostages and whatnot. And to me, that’s really quite bizarre, because one, they didn’t.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:16:45.661)
throw away your question.

Ahmad (01:17:11.402)
Most of the people dying didn’t even vote for Hamas. They weren’t even born when Hamas came into power. And like all these groups, once they get into power, they’re very difficult to dislodge. They never voted for these people. They might have sympathies for them because they’re resisting occupation. So, and this is their only outlet. But they’re not, the vast majority of people aren’t terrorists. They’re not murderers, they’re not killers. They just wanna live their life in peace. And yes, it’s terrible that there’s hostages. But now…

shooting and bombing all these people and where the innocents are is like saying, oh, there’s a, someone killed my family and has run into a school. We need to blow up the school, including the kids. There’s no rush, okay? Something horrible happened in the 7th of October. There’s no doubt about that. Now, surely Israel should show restraint and negotiate or use their, whatever, intelligence forces and, you know, try and sort out the situation, but.

mass carpet bombing of innocents. Now they’re saying that, oh, but Israel doesn’t target civilians, they give them ample warning. This is what I was told. Again, this picture that Israel does no wrong. It’s all the nasty Hamas people, they’re guilty of killing their own people, blocking their own people, and Israel’s doing everything it possibly can to avoid civilian death. Is that correct?

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:18:37.492)
No, it’s not correct. It’s again, just completely, bears no relationship to reality and the nature of Israel’s operations. And Israel is explicit. Again, going back to Operation Casled, which I documented just extensive detail in my book, Obstacle to Peace. Israel had announced a policy and they call it the Dahia Doctrine after a district in Beirut that had been flattened in its 1982 war.

maybe it was the 19, 2006 war in Lebanon, I forget which one, but there was a neighborhood in Beirut that was just flattened. And so the policy was called the Dahiya Doctrine, of the policy of the Israeli Defense Forces, the IDF. And they were explicit about what this doctrine was. It was the deliberate use of disproportionate force. So disproportionate force, under international law, is a war crime. So Israel had announced its intention.

It had literally announced its intention to commit war crimes in Gaza before it launched Operation Kessled. This is the nature of Israel’s operations. And the same thing is happening today. Israel is using deliberate disproportionate force, which is a subcategory of indiscriminate attacks. And it is targeting civilian objects, knowing that civilians are going to die.

as a consequence. It’s destroying infrastructure, it’s wanton destruction, its purpose is to collectively punish and brutalize the civilian population of Gaza. That’s what’s happening. The civilian population is being targeted for brutalization. That’s what Israel is doing. And the idea, and of course we always hear this claim that well, Palestinian civilians only ever die because they’re being used by Hamas as

Well, these claims were investigated by numerous international human rights organizations, by numerous UN inquiries, including, again, I’m talking about Operation Cast Lead here, the same claim was made then, including a UN fact-finding mission headed up by a self-described Zionist. They all looked at these allegations. They scoured the IDF’s own self-investigations in its reports where it was trying to absolve itself of responsibility for civilian deaths.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:21:00.068)
So looking at Israel’s own claims and investigating those claims, and there wasn’t a single documented case throughout the entire 22-day operation, Operation Casled, in which civilians died because they were being used at the time by Hamas as human shields. So what Israel does when it says that civilians only die because they’re being used as human shields is that it’s using the term euphemistically. And what it means by human shields is…

any Palestinian that dies by virtue of their being in Gaza, which bears no relationship to the legal definition of the term human shields under international law. And so this is what they do. They have this propaganda claim where they use the term human shields in a way that bears no relationship to its meaning.

Ahmad (01:21:36.681)
Mmm

Ahmad (01:21:45.166)
It’s so funny.

Ahmad (01:21:51.642)
I’ve seen videos of IDS soldiers, actually bizarrely in the West Bank, not even Gaza, crouching, the soldier crouching behind a blindfolded, you know, tied up captive in front of him, using him as a shield. I said this to Prof, I said, I’ve actually seen the opposite. I’ve seen IDS soldiers using Palestinian men blindfolded as human shields. And he said, no, that’s all propaganda nonsense. How do we get through to good people?

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:22:19.404)
No, again, the investigations I was just describing, they didn’t find that not a single documented case of Hamas civilians dying because Hamas was using them at the time as human shields. They did however document Israeli soldiers using Palestinians as human shields, as did, as I already mentioned, as did the group Breaking the Silence, which is the Israeli soldiers organization, where they were describing, you know, the soldiers who were there on the ground coming out and saying, yes, our group,

Ahmad (01:22:24.043)
Mm.

Ahmad (01:22:41.29)
So, you know, you know.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:22:49.004)
we use Palestinians as maybe not the people speaking out. Some of them opposed it. They didn’t want to participate in that, but they witnessed it themselves and then they spoke out about it. I’m talking about Israeli soldiers speaking out against the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields because that occurred. So yes, that’s correct. It’s documented.

Ahmad (01:22:50.168)
So.

Ahmad (01:23:06.802)
I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember, but during the first Gulf War, there was a big scandal about Iraqi soldiers throwing out Kuwaiti babies at incubators and whatnot. When I heard the thing about 40 decapitated babies, I was like, oh my God, that sounds very similar.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:23:16.612)
Mm-hmm.

Ahmad (01:23:20.89)
And I’m not questioning that some babies might have died or people have been decapitated. I’m sure something horrible things have happened. But I know that there’s a fog of war and I know there’s propaganda and I know it’s used to manufacture consent for horrible actions basically. You whip up the population, you brainwash them, you propagandize them. Just like you did with COVID, we see the playbook again and again, fear, terror, blind propaganda manipulation and to get your agenda.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:23:21.156)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Ahmad (01:23:50.622)
And so I mentioned the fact that 40 kids died in the West Bank this year prior to October 7th. And I was told, well, these old kids with knives coming in, they’re all 16, 15, 16, 17 attacking the IDF. I’ve seen the opposite. I’ve seen videos of pictures and videos of, sorry, kids throwing stones and being shot in the head and killed. And apparently that’s all propaganda.

What is the story about the deaths of these children? Because it’s not a fiction, and this is a fact. Children have died, a lot of them this year, am I right?

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:24:32.556)
Yeah, I don’t know the numbers, but certainly, certainly there’s been a lot of violence, not only IDF attacks, but also settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. And you know, this speaks to a point about you talking about hostages. And you know, I think Kama should release the hostages. It shouldn’t have taken the hostages. This is a war crime as well. To hold civilians hostage is a crime. Just like.

collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza is a crime and the massacre of now over 3,000 women, over 4,500 children, almost half the population of Gaza is children, youths, you know, children and adolescents. So, but also there’s the point about there’s thousands of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, which for Israel to launch raids into the West Bank

Ahmad (01:25:12.43)
Hmm

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:25:29.76)
and capture Palestinians and to transfer them out of the occupied territories is a violation of international law. So Israel is essentially holding these people hostages. And some of them maybe have been involved in criminal activity. But Israel also has what’s called administrative detention, where it captures people and it holds people like political prisoners. And it puts them in prison. And they don’t have.

without any kind of due process. You know, there’s no trial, there’s no charges. It just holds them and captures them. And they call it administrative detention. And this includes children. There’s children being held in Israeli prisons. There’s children being held under administrative detention over the years. And so, you know, this is, you know, there’s kind of an equivalence there.

Ahmad (01:26:19.486)
Okay, so we, listen, we’ve talked about, we’ve highlighted, yeah, we’ve highlighted the wrongdoings of the Israeli state. Do you think Hamas should let go of their charter and drop their religious demand for Sharia law and caliphate or whatever it is they want? Do you think that’s a good first step? At the end of the day, that’s not, the language they use,

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:26:39.5)
Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:26:45.108)
Yeah.

Ahmad (01:26:49.538)
Sorry.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:26:50.064)
Well, that was one of the things in 2005, they put out a political dossier that the Western media found remarkable for its lack of mention of any goal of destroying the state of Israel. And of course, as mentioned in 2004, Hamas had shifted its policy ever since. Hamas officials have repeatedly stated their willingness to accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel with a 10-year truce.

And in 2017, they put out a document that some media in the West described as a new charter. It wasn’t officially, haven’t officially like disbanded the original charter, but they did in 2017 put out a document again, expressing their willingness to accept the Palestinian state, expressing that their grievance wasn’t against Jews because they’re Jewish.

but against Zionism and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and against the ongoing brutal occupation. And so, in this 2017 document, they did really step largely away from the original charter, although, yeah, I certainly agree. I think they should just officially disband the original charter altogether. I think that would be a good thing for them to do, not just because on…

Ahmad (01:27:49.346)
Hmm.

Ahmad (01:28:04.716)
Yeah.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:28:09.992)
moral principles, but also for strategic reasons, it would be wise for them to do so. So yeah, I agree with that. But we do have to recognize that Hamas has largely moved away from what’s written in its original charter.

Ahmad (01:28:11.652)
Mmm.

Ahmad (01:28:25.214)
Okay, next, last question. Jeremy, you’re now 150. You’ve lived a long, healthy life. You’re surrounded by your family and your children. You’re about to die. You’re about to meet your maker. And you’re comfortable in your deathbed. What words of wisdom and advice, health or otherwise, would you give to your family around you?

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:28:47.724)
Never compromise your principles. Don’t compromise your moral principles. Stand on principle. Stand up for what’s right. Speak out against criminal activities, criminal policies of the government. And then don’t be afraid, you know, cause you, and when you do that, you’re going to, you’re going to have slings and arrows cast at you for speaking out and for standing on principle and for standing on moral principles and values. You’re going to be attacked for that.

But you need to do what’s right. You need to develop the courage to stand up and speak out and do the right thing. That’s, I think, the message that I would leave to my loved ones. And I try to live my life in that way.

Ahmad (01:29:17.966)
Mmm.

Ahmad (01:29:29.15)
Nice. Great. Jeremy, I hope I can get you on next year at some point because we need to talk about COVID and flu jabs and all the other garbage out there. I really enjoyed talking to you, buddy. Really have. Thank you so much, everyone listening.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:29:40.672)
Yes, sure. Yeah, same here. I appreciate the discussion.

Ahmad (01:29:46.55)
Thank you. Everyone, I’m gonna put Jeremy’s links up. No, my pleasure. Everyone, I’m gonna have Jeremy’s links up on the website so you’ll be able to find his website. He’s got some amazing writing there. So please follow him and yeah, support me. Support me in the show. I’m not gonna keep asking, but if you can, I’d be really grateful because you know, I’m still not working and probably won’t be working for a very long time. So yeah, I could do with all the help. And all the recent subscribers, all you American and Canadians.

Jeremy R. Hammond (01:29:47.756)
Thank you for having me on.

Ahmad (01:30:15.966)
and love you. Alright, bye bye. Yeah, Americans and Canadians are my biggest supporters.