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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Drop side News Tuesday Morning Livestream. I'm your host this week, Martaza Hossein. We'll be joined very shortly by my colleague Mesa Mostafa and a few guests we have lined up. We have a great show this week. We're going to be talking about a couple of things. First of all, an incredible wave of violence which has taken place in the west bank over the last few weeks, more so than usual, instigated by settlers backed by the Israeli military who've attacked Palestinian villages. There have been some incidents of Palestinians resisting these attacks and the number of deaths that's all taking place at the moment at a time when the Israeli government itself is pushing forward the settlement enterprise under Netanyahu and several other ministers who have seen it as an opportunity under Trump to basically quash the possibility of Palestinian self determination or statehood in the West Bank. And we'll be joined by a guest shortly thereafter to discuss that. And secondly, we'll be talking about India's very surprising, very large Gen Z protest movement which took place in the last few weeks. The cockroach movement has been called in India. We'll have a guest joining us to talk about that a bit more. That protest movement's been a long time coming. The proximate trigger has been corruption in the education sector. But there are a lot of grievances which were percolating underneath the veneer of the Indian government recently that we'll be having someone talking about that later. But I think we'll bring Mesa on right now just to tee us off for our next segments. Mesa, how are you?
- [01:42]
B
Hello. Hello. How are you? I'm doing good.
- [01:44]
A
Good. Good to see you. So, Mesa, tell us a bit. You were actually in the west bank recently. Can you tell us a bit about the conditions there right now and what's been going on in the last couple weeks in regards to settler attacks and why this may be a bit different from the violence and operations we normally see in the area.
- [02:03]
B
Right. I mean, yeah, while I was there, I saw seller attacks daily. I think as of now, there have been more than 3,500 that have been documented just since the beginning of the year, which averages maybe 20 a day. But over this past weekend, you know, the west bank was kind of the focal point of Palestine after an incident on Friday in the village of 10, which is near Nablus, when 20 to 50 armed settlers were attempting to raid the village. This happened just a week after they had already raided it and lit a house on fire with a family inside of it and when they entered the eastern side of the village, a group of the residents of Palestinian residents were attempting to defend their village, defend their homes. And it ended up in an altercation where, which led to the death of four Palestinians and two settlers. There was a lot of the video was circulated widely over the weekend because one of the, the Palestinians, Farouk Ramadan, managed to seize one of the machine guns and defend himself by shooting settler. This image was everywhere. And Netanyahu, as you see, said, took advantage of the footage to portray it as a terrorist attack. You know, starting as they usually do in the middle of the attack, where the Palestinians, you know, for a rare occasion had a moment to defend themselves and called for an escalation. Right. And he, he called for home demolitions not only of Tel, but of the surrounding villages. He called for increase in arrests, which we did see. I think 30 to 50 of the residents in Tel were, were arrested. A lot of them were released. Not sure there might be still some still detained. There were a lot of searches of the homes. And this spread to the surrounding villages in Jenin and to Boss, and then even in the south in Khalil and Bethlehem Tulkeram. So it's been a moment of widespread, heightened settler violence. And obviously with the military taking advantage of this moment, the settlers are a bit more enabled to do the violence that sometimes the government condemns. Right. Back in November, we saw Netanyahu attempt to distance himself from these settlers by saying he's going to crack down. And there was some whispers that Trump was looking to apply some pressure onto the west bank for these legal settlements, which we hear time and time again. But then you see incidents like this Friday where the response was that these are Israeli citizens. These aren't just these outcasts. These settlers that we, you know, are deemed as like, you know, a rare figment of Israeli society. These are Israeli citizens that need to be avenged. And again, you mean the same characters that we would expect, Ben GVIR Smotrich have called for, you know, annihilation. Ben Gavir said that he hopes that the west bank villages would share the same fate as Beit Hanun and Gaza, which has been completely, you know, erased. So yeah, we. And you asked how this might be different than settler violence. You know, the day to day regular routine settler violence this contracted the entire west bank, even the villages that aren't being attacked, all the checkpoints are closed. I've heard that a lot of the oil you can't get to gas stations. There have been, I think, six women that have, that couldn't have, who were in labor, who couldn't reach the hospital. So it's an example of mass punishment, which we've seen a lot, but this has been one of the biggest ones in recent memories, I think. Yeah.
- [06:01]
A
Very quickly, before we bring on our guests, I saw some of the reporting about this and it was described as the settlers going on a hike in part the West Bank. And it was interesting because they were going on a hike, but they brought machine guns and heavy weaponry and so forth. Can you describe actually what this means or what the actual reality is behind that term or what these excursions that people go on in these areas?
- [06:24]
B
I mean, it's, it's, I mean, although it is pretty common to see settlers walk around and with their machine guns, it's, it's a hobby for them to go and attack these villages. A lot of times, you know, in, in my, my village, a lot of the kids that we've seen killed there were, they were the ones that are going on a hike. They were the ones that were trying to enjoy their, their ancestors land and do like a barbecue. And that's where the settlers are always looking out to see when Palestinians are in these open areas and they'll go and attack. So it's, this is the version actually of settler hike because the, it comes with expected violence and the altercations because it is fun for them. They do have pleasure in doing it, I think.
- [07:11]
A
Terrific. So we want to bring on our guests, actually we can bring them on. Abdul Jawad. Omar Abdul Jawad's a professor at Birzeit University. Thank you so much for joining us today.
- [07:22]
C
Thanks for having me.
- [07:26]
A
So Mesa gave us a little bit of background about what's currently going on the west bank and these attacks. Can you give us your own perspective actually, because, because it's interesting for a lot of American viewers, they're not aware, and the Israeli government, when they speak to the American audiences, they kind of try to distance themselves from the settlers and so forth. But it seems like a lot of these excursions or these attacks, they're actually facilitated and overseen by the IDF and by Israeli government representatives. Can you talk a bit about the relationship between these settler attacks, these quote unquote freelance attacks and the state itself?
- [08:00]
C
Well, I mean, the Sutters have a functional role within the Israeli state system and they can be thought of as the spearhead of the expansive land seizing policy that Israel takes in the West Bank. And of course they initiate their own forms of violence, but at the same time it's fully backed by the Israeli government. These are the same sectors that also serve in the Israeli military. It's a rotating door between the military and being a settler with your weapon in the west bank going about doing these kind of settler terror violence. And of course, there's no any or there's no legal accountability for such attacks. Settlers can kill whoever they want, they can injure whoever they want, they can beat whoever they want, they can burn whatever they want. And at the same time, the Israeli legal system does not really prosecute any of these settlers in it allows them to continue doing what they're doing without any formal or legal procession, you know, going about trying to actually holding accountable. So in this sense, whether it's. It's the legal system, whether it's the fact that they, you know, rotate between the military or whether that, in fact that they are backed by the government both in terms of policy, in terms of economic backing and in terms of what they engage in on a daily basis in the West Bank.
- [09:20]
D
It.
- [09:26]
B
Can you kind of explain, like, take us into an incident right, where you have. You have these settlers coming in and the Israeli military comes. What do we usually. What are Palestinians seeing when this happens? What is the military doing in that moment?
- [09:42]
C
Well, you know that the extent of Israeli military intervention in some cases is to try as much as possible to separate between both sides, if you want. This is the extent of where the intervention is a bit, if you want to put a positive light on it. But usually actually the Israeli military is completely complicit in the violence. I mean, in the sense even, you know, yesterday around Ramallah, in a checkpoint called Jabbar, they prevented people from entering the Ramallah area. So there's a checkpoint that separates Ramallah, Jerusalem and the Israel milit comes and puts a checkpoint. That checkpoint led Palestinian cars to pile up because they cannot go into the Palestinian area. And what happened is, in fact, the settlers came and started attacking the cars, the Palestinian cars that are basically piling up. And if, you know, if Israel was really concerned about reducing friction, they would not actually prevent people from entering Palestinian areas. Even if we want to talk about the policy of closure of checkpoints, of people leaving Palestinian areas and going to other areas and disconnecting them. You know, people from Ramallah moving to Nabdus, for instance, or Bethlehem. But they're actually preventing people from coming in and leaving them prey for settlers who would engage in violence against cars, families in cars, kids and people waiting for hours until they enter. So in many instances, you see the Israeli military actually Setting a trap for Palestinians in which settlers actually exploited them and. And use violence against Palestinians. Or they would come in, in such an incident and start firing at Palestinians who are trying to protect their, you know, farmland, they're trying to protect their homes, engaging in live fire and killing a lot of the Palestinians, whether it's in the villages near Ramallah or specifically, of course, you know, one of the most violent flashpoints is in the Nablus area as well.
- [11:44]
A
You know, for our viewers who don't understand the dynamic, it's very, very explain actually, like people, these settlers come and attack people and Palestinians don't have anyone to call to help them. So if they're literally under violent attack, they can't call the police, they can't call really anyone who can effectively deal with them. And if they do defend themselves, what would the Israeli military do? My understanding is they would actually defend the settlers. It's like a bit of the dynamic and how it affects people's daily life living under the terror of these attacks.
- [12:13]
C
Yeah, I mean, of course, we, you know, in the west bank, we have nobody to turn to. The Palestinian Authority is not willing to do anything. That's one side of the equation. And the other side of the equation is that the Israeli military, again, when it intervenes, it usually actually comes not only on the side of the settlers, not only a priority is the protection of the settlers, but also engages in the attack with the settlers. It's one. It's important for everybody to understand that for us, this separation between the Israel military and these settlers is just a fictitious separation. For us, they are both settlers. It's just one is wearing the uniform. The other is engaging in this much more proactive violence, and when the military arrives, just engages in that violence as well. And we should also note, and this is very important for everybody to also gather, is that what Palestinian villagers, Bedouin communities, and Palestinians in flashpoints across the west bank have is their only. Only their bodies. They do go to these places where settlers are coming in to attack, where they're coming to provoke a, you know, violence or burn. They go with their bare bodies, knowing very well this dynamic and putting themselves, you know, as defenders without any means, no weapons, nothing of those sorts that, you know, any other people would have across the world if they're attacked by a violent mob with M16 machine guns and a military backing them up. And they go in what we call in Arabic, faza, which is just a term that means that the people from the village spread the word. They come together and just by being there, they aim to basically deter the settlers from engaging in more violence, keeping them at a distance. That's the whole mentality, at least of these communities is just to be there. By being present, it just makes it more difficult for the settlers to burn homes or to harm cars or to burn trees or to destroy farmland. And in this sense, the Palestinians are exhibiting a very courageous feat because the Israeli state is against you, the Israel military is firing at you, and the Israeli settlers have no qualms about shooting and killing. I mean, even in the incident until that the MESA was outlining, and as the video shows, you know, the Palestinians are going there with no arms, nothing to protect them against a group of settlers that are heavily armed. And of course, a military that comes backs them up. And when the altercation happens and one of the Palestinians finds himself with the settler machine gun, the settler is still pointing out, you know, still trying to point out his own handgun to shoot the Palestinian. And that's the moment that the Palestinian decides to shoot him before he's being shot. You know, these are. You know, this is an incident. But what I think is also perhaps very important to note is that there is slowly a barrier of fear breaking in the Palestinian territories in the West Bank. You know, people used to be more reticent, less willing to place their bodies in this physical proximity with settlers. But slowly but assuredly, because of the intensity and repetition of these attacks, the Palestinians find that there's no way but to actually engage in this form of civil defense of their villages and communities.
- [15:45]
B
You pointed out how Palestinians on the ground don't necessarily see a difference between, you know, a settler or a military soldier. But I think, you know, in the west or whenever we're portraying these narratives or, you know, these incidents, we do make sure to separate the settler from the Israeli citizen. We also see, again, how I've mentioned before, the Israeli government also puts an effort to separate the Israeli citizen that lives in Tel Aviv and the ones that live in the legal settlements and especially the ones that are enacting the violence. Do you think that there needs to be an update in the narrative, or should we be calling them settlers, or are they just Israeli citizens?
- [16:28]
C
Well, I mean. I mean, from our perspective, of course, you know, you know, the Zionist movement as a movement that came to replace the indigenous inhabitants, wherever they may be, they are functionally a settler. They're settling in Palestine and attempting to replace and eliminate Palestinian presidents. So those, you know, I mean, Tel Aviv is the biggest settlement in historic Palestine. It's not any settlement in the West Bank. So in this sense, of course, if we go to the origins of this settler colonial conflict that was instigated, you know, about a century ago, more than a century even, we cannot really make these differentiations and be faithful to what it means to have an understanding of what the Palestinians are facing. Not only the continuity of the attempt to erase their presence physically, culturally, materially, not only the appropriation of their archaeological, their food, our own sense of identity, not only attempting to kill Palestine in all these ways. And from the outside, the Zionist movement did not come here to live with, they came here to live instead. And in this sense, of course, we cannot make this, you know, any separatist. But in this particular moment, historically, the fact that these religious right wing messianic settler movement is the one that is basically taking the mantle of being the spearhead of a ever expanding fronterization of the Israeli state, of expanding its borders, of making sure they create more infrastructures for more settlements in the west bank, for instance, of calling for the settling in the Gaza Strip and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza, of moving even towards settling further within Syria, where Israel has already taken up some of southern Syrian land. And of course as well in Lebanon, where Israel remains, you know, in a military posture, taking over, I think, 10% or so of the Lebanese territory. So they see themselves as the, you know, the people anointed with this safeguarding of the idea of the State of Israel, turning it from a secular state to a Jewish state in the religious sense, but also of expanding its borders and eradicating Palestinian presence not only in the west bank and Gaza, but but eventually even in their discourse of Palestinian citizens of Israel as well.
- [19:05]
A
Abdul Jawad Maisa mentioned this village tell that was attacked by these settler militias when the individual, Sheikh Farouk Ramadan, he disarmed one of the settlers and he killed the settler and then he was killed in the incident thereafter. And it seems that the government is retaliating by demolishing the homes of Mr. Ramadan and his family as well as other people in the village. Can you talk about this attitude of collective punishment as entails in these incidents? Because it seems that they were engaging in self defense from a violent attempt to take their land and then the victims and their families are actually being punished thereafter. Is this a very common practice? And please tell us how it affects these communities which are subject to these settler attacks?
- [19:49]
C
Well, I mean, I mean, yeah, I mean, of course, Israel, I mean, has always tied any form of resistance, even this type of resistance where you know you're being attacked and you, you have to defend yourself with the, you know, these settler militias roaming around and creating havoc and ties any incident of resistance with the idea that, you know, the Palestinians should even be punished further or the idea that Palestinians should be irrelevant, eradicate it further. But we should understand that that is actually the current policy. Whether you resist or not, they're still expanding, they're still creating land seizure, they're still engaging in violence. And even if you die while being passive and not engaging in any form of self defense, whether it's civil or otherwise, the Israelis are still finding ways and means through which to eradicate Palestinian life. And in, in this sense also revenge plays this big role in, in Israeli mentality and avenging the fallen and, and punishing the family, arresting the family, destroying the house of somebody, which is something that stands against any legal system that has any form of self respect. Of course, when even if we, we would assume that the Palestinians are guilty of something, you know, that the person who is guilty should pay the price. But from an Israeli perspective, this form of even self defense exhibited in the village of Tell, demands the punishment of the entire village. The arrest of more than 50 Palestinians in the village itself, the destruction of homes. And this is not a new policy. It has always been there. And if we go even back further, before 1948, it is a policy that is actually inherited from the British Mandate from British colonial officers who taught the Zionist movement what forms of violence to be used against the indigenous population in attempt to making them passive and pacify them. And of course, eventually, at least in the, in the Zionist mentality, eradicating Palestinian presence on the land of Palestine.
- [21:56]
B
Can you give us, you know, what's, what's the state of armed resistance in the West Bank? We knew that in 2025, a lot of the rare groups that did exist in the west bank were in the refugee camps which have jenin, which have since been basically eradicated. What's the state of it now? And you did mention that the fear barrier is starting to change in Palestinian society. Do you think that there might be some, some more armed resistance or a chance of, of armed resistance being created in the West Bank?
- [22:35]
C
Well, I mean, I think we, we are on the cusp of, or there's a convergence of various crisis in, in, in the West Bank. The first is an economic Crisis. Israel since October 7th has decided to not allow Palestinian laborers, about a third of the Palestinian workforce from entering and working and laboring in Israel itself. So people have been deprived from their income. And there's a fiscal crisis facing the Palestinian Authority, also the biggest employer of Palestinians in the west bank, specifically in the medical, health care, educational systems. And a lot of the people who are employed in the west bank or in the Palestinian Authority, I'm sorry, have not been receiving actually their full Pay. They're receiving 50 to 70% of their pay. Sometimes their pay is being postponed. And a third crisis is also emerging and one that has to do with the Palestinian banking system, which is tied to the Israeli, to two Israeli banks that clear Palestinian payments because most of what we actually use, like fuel, medicine, you know, and other products come from Israel because we are also prevented from really trading with the world separately, meaning that we have. Everything has to go through the Israeli banking system, it's itself. And two of these banks have decided to stop any form of clearing Palestinian pay as Middle Banks because of a policy from the Minister of Finance Smotoric, who has to write this letter that protects these banks from any form of lawsuits tied to funding of terrorism that might hit these banks if they continue doing this Middle banking rule. So we have also an emerging banking crisis. So these economic crises are in the background, coupled with the feeling that the settlers are roaming around and becoming more and more daring in the forms of attacks and making all of their attacks more deadly against the Palestinians, specifically in the Palestinian rural areas, but also targeting Bedouin communities. This is slowly pushing the palestinians who since October 7th in the west bank have taken this position of, you know, we should weather the storm, of letting the, you know, wind blow without engaging in any form of proactive resistance because of the enormity of the monstrosity of Israeli genocide that has been displayed for everybody to see. Of course, that fear was instilled and because of also the changes that Israel has made to much of its policies around, for instance, Israeli prisons, et cetera. But I think recently, whether it's the economic crisis or this feeling that we're being attacked anyways, despite having this kind of passive posture with a checkpoint system that is choking Palestinian life, Palestinians are slowly, their patience is running out. Doesn't mean that we're on the cusp of Intifada or on the cusp of a new round of wide scale resistance, whether it's armed, civic or otherwise. I think that in this instance what we will see is more and more Palestinians resisting specifically in these areas where they're being attacked and committing themselves to more daring and honestly brave positioning against, you know, settler militias who have no hesitancy to engage in deadly violence. So I think that will happen more. But I'm not sure whether we will reach this kind of breaking point where, you know, you have a major escalation on the part of the Palestinians. As you also mentioned Mesa, the Palestinian armed resistance groups in the north of the west bank have basically been decimated. Most of them are arrested either by the Palestinian Authority or by the Israeli security forces. So at this particular point, there's no real organized forms of resistance. But we should never underestimate the Palestinian capacity to organize themselves specifically if things edge towards a flare up.
- [26:55]
A
And Abdul Jawad, you described this multiple policies the Israeli governments implementing the same time to choke off the Palestinian economy and banking sector while also unleashing or giving free reign to these militias. What do you see as the particular goal that they're aiming towards at the moment? Or does it just seem like it's a punishment for the sake of punishment? How do you interpret these policies that the government is currently putting in place?
- [27:20]
C
Well, there's different ways to interpret, but we should remember that the biggest prize for Israel is the West bank. It is about 5,000 km squared. It is full of also water. It has a lot of natural prizes. It also compromises in at least Israeli security doctrine, this form of, you know, natural defense because it does separate, you know, the heart of the Israeli territory, the Rosh Dan area, this bigger Tel Aviv area, from the eastern borders, whether it's Jordan and other places. So from the outside of the Zionist movement, the idea of colonizing the west bank has been part and parcel of Israeli state policy throughout successive governments. Whether these governments were liberal, center of left, or these governments were right wing, as the current one is. But I think in this current moment, the Israeli settler movement, these spearhead, the ones that I spoke about earlier, the religious Zionists, the people like Itamar Bengvir and Bislas Motoric, are in fact interested in creating the conditions for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians of the west bank as well. And therefore they're pushing the Palestinians in the west bank towards a more brutal form of occupation, towards economic suffocation, hoping that that would entice some people to leave. You know, so inducing immigration on a semi, if you want voluntary basis, but also eventually creating the conditions for whatever form of large flare up where Israel will have the pretext to engage in mass destruction as the one that we all witnessed in the Gaza Strip, we're also seeing.
- [29:12]
B
So while I was there, I, I, I went to the Jordan Valley, which has been another focal point of settler violence with this new Israeli military project, the Crimson Thread and their aims to take over some of the most fertile land in Palestine. But we're also seeing these attacks in places that were relatively safe for decades, right around Ramallah. Can you, can you kind of explain why, why are they targeting now? The middle of the west bank is with the E1 plan. Is there something, is there a short term goal that they have with, with restructuring the west bank or is this just kind of a coincidence?
- [29:49]
C
No, I mean, it's not coincidental. I mean, taking up the Jordan Valley, there's a lot of reasons for that. It is the bread basket. It's a very fertile area and it has fewer Palestinians and it compromises more than 20% of the West Bank. And trying to solidify their take of that land and pushing a lot of the Bedouin communities and of course rural areas that exist in that part of the west bank would also on the one hand give Israel more control of fertile land of water that spills over from the west bank towards the Jordan Valley. And at the same time it would deprive Palestinians specifically in certain areas from their ability to grow agricultural produce. So it would actually deprive us from one of the, the most important focal points for the production of our own food. So this is, this is part of why the Jordan Valley is one element of this fixation across the Zionist movement. And it should be also noted that many of the settlements that exist in the, in the Jordan Valley are actually kibbutzim, which come from the historic leftist tradition in Israel. So whether it's left or right, they're both, both engage in this form of expansive seizure of land. And in this instance, you know, the left wing has, you know, more of a bigger role in the Jordan Valley than the right wing. That having said that, of course there is some logic to where some of the more right wing religious Zionist settlers exist and the repeated incursions towards some religious villages. So in the Ramallah area, in Hebron area and in the area of Nablus where a lot of these attacks happen, there are also some of the most hard right wing settlements that host these settler, these Zionist militias, specifically the, you know, the ones coming from the direction the ideological camp of religious Zionism and its messianic beliefs. And, and they are the ones more ready to actually engage in this more proactive forms of provocation of engaging in attacks. And of course because of the nearby element of these settlements exist nearing some villages, you would see a lot of these attacks happening repeatedly. But this does not take that it's not only a geographic proximity, it does not take that. In fact, a lot of attacks also have a much more strategic outlay to them taking up more land, creating the condition for the expelling of Palestinians, confining them in even more restricted area of the west bank and creating the conditions, of course, or a sense of insecurity that haunts all Palestinians to the extent, extent that they believe that they would be able to clear out and empty Palestinian villages and Bedouin communities.
- [32:55]
A
So, you know, the position of Palestinians geographically is very boxed in by the Israelis in the west bank and then obviously on this side of Jordan as well too. How do Palestinians manage to get, or how can they maintain some economic life in this condition or how are they trying to. And if there was a position where there was a resistance movement in the west bank against the Israeli occupation of the west bank against these attacks, is there a way that they can receive supplies? There's smuggling that takes place from Jordan and so forth. What's the lifeline currently for the west bank in terms of economic or other material support, if there is one?
- [33:33]
C
Well, I mean, there's still some input going into the Palestinian economy coming from either things that the Palestinians managed to export, but they're very few, or from a complex of high tech companies, an NGO environment that is backed or supported and financed, for instance by the European Union and some of the Arab states, or by the Palestinian Authority that still manages, despite the fiscal crisis, to redistribute some of its physical applications across Palestinian society. And there's also still laboring going on, mostly illegal by Palestinians in Israeli settlements or Israeli or Israel itself. And they provide also an important economic lifeline for Palestinians, specifically unskilled labor, giving them some reprieve from this economic life, economic devastation that, you know, the west bank is going through. Having said that, of course, other elements also play a role. The more the Palestinian territory goes through cycles of economic crisis is not something that we're not used to. I don't want to say that it's normal, but it's something that we have always struggled alongside, you know, a suffocating economic condition. Palestinians also in the diaspora play an important role to remittances, etc. You know, sending money to their families and creating the condition for the sustenance of the Palestinians in, in, in, in the west bank itself. So there are numerous ways through which Palestinians try to navigate economic, if you want survival. And in, in Palestinian society, where families are an important, you know, social unit, you know, the family survival is seen as collective, not as individual. So in this sense, the whole family pulls resources together towards, you know, the economic and material survival of the entire collective body. And this is also the case with Palestinian small communities in villages, et cetera. And that kind of hyper attachment to the family structure also plays an important role in this survivability and ability of the Palestinians to manage themselves economically in the long term, even when things get worse on multiple levels. In terms of Palestinians being able to actually, I don't know, get their hands on weapons or trying to find ways and avenues through which they can actually arm themselves. In fact, the biggest source of army armament has always been Israel, not actually outside countries. Of course there are some smuggling routes, various modes of trying to bring and import weapons through the Jordan, you know, the large borders with Jordan. But in, you know, Israel is a highly militarized society. It has wide and large storage facilities of military equipment and to be honest, and also a vibrant, if you want, criminal syndicates that exist in Israel. And they have always been a line for the smuggling of weapons from within Israel itself towards the Palestinian territory, usually by corrupt soldiers and officers in the Israeli military who are actually the ones engaged in, in the selling of the weapons to the Palestinians in this kind of criminal syndicate manner. So there are different ways, of course, this does not take from the fact that also armed resistance, the west bank historically had to rely on itself. So in some instances they created their own forms of weapon, like the human bomb, for instance, of the second intifada, you know, using fertilizers, etc. Things that are available in the Palestinian market, turning it into a very improvised bombing device or things along those lines. But of course, I do not think at this particular point necessarily that the Palestinian resistance would turn towards an armed character, at least because of the deprivation in terms of the availability of the arms, but also because I think Palestinian posture as at least particularly currently in the west bank is one of self defense. And it will take a form that is more civic forms of self defense where the Palestinians will place themselves not taking Israeli settler attacks without actually fighting back and making sure to create this equation of deterrence with these Israeli militias. And I think this is the logic of what going on, at least specifically currently in the West Bank.
- [38:26]
B
What's the. Is there a relationship with the timing of elections? We know that that's coming up in a few months and I do feel we do talk about how whenever elections come around, there's usually a spike in settler violence. Do you think that that has something to do with what we saw happen over the weekend. And Netanyahu's response to it as well.
- [38:49]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think in the election season there's more incentive. I mean, if you, if you actually followed, you know, how the different, you know, contenders in the Israel elections reacted to this event. For instance, they were mostly, you know, engaging in this showmanship of we should create havoc more, destroy the Palestinians more, more mischaracterizing what happened in the village itself and creating the conditions for even further incitement. Whether it's Yair Gulan who is apparently the, the leftist liberal in Israel where a lot of people hope that he represents and embodies some sort of peace camp who engage in this form of violence, an incitement for violence against the Palestinian community, communities and specifically the village of Tell itself, or it is people like Gadi as Canot also, you know, place front and center as a possible replacement of the current Prime Minister Netanyahu, or it's the right wing coalition currently that was engaging in that. So Israel was basically in, you know, a, a, I don't know, a psychotic breakdown where everybody was just calling for my violence, more collective punishment, more killing, more checkpoints, more economic choking, etc. Targeting the whole of the west bank, but also targeting the village of Tel itself. And that tells you something about Israel elections. It tells you something about the nature of that elections. There are some analysts that also contend that perhaps that the Israelis are interested in fact in having a major flow clear up specifically the current right wing government in the west bank before elections, because that would also help Netanyahu find the pretext for the postponement of elections. This is an election for Netanyahu that is insecure. There is a viable contender that actually has the numbers backing him, at least in polling right now, that can actually replace him. And therefore there is that fear on the part of the current, a right wing coalition that they would lose power and the flare up in the west bank might be able to postpone elections or create the conditions for the sustainment of the current government without having to contend with its own citizens in Israel. And the fear of Netanyahu, of course, in this case specifically is that him being removed of power means that the corruption cases go on against him, but also him being removed to power would mean accountability for the Israeli military and of course intelligence and of course political failure in October 7th when Palestinian resistance was able to surprise the entire apparatus of Israel's control around Gaza and of course conducted surprise attack at that particular moment.
- [41:50]
A
Abu Dhua, thanks so much for joining us today. Really appreciate your insights. Love to have you on again in the future.
- [41:56]
C
Thank you. Thank you guys. Take care.
- [42:02]
A
So next up we're gonna have be joined by Akshay Marathe, who's a spokesperson for a political party in India, former spokesperson, the Aham Admi party, which is more of a leftist center party as well as Meghnad Bose. I think we can bring them on right now. They're in the background at the moment, I think. Hey Magnan. Hey ak, can you guys hear us? Thanks. So you know we've done some coverage recently at drop site about this Gen Z protest movement in India. I think the protest movement's been a long time coming. Many built up concerns about corruption and frustrations economically, India. I want to ask actually first because I think actually you're boarding a flight not long from now. So I wanted to get your analysis if we can ask Meghna thereafter. But can you tell us a bit about for those who don't know what this protest movement is about, what triggered it, what was the shape and connotation of it and what did it result in inside India in the last few weeks? And I think you're muted right now, so just unmute that briefly. Yeah, there you go. Thanks.
- [43:08]
D
Yeah, thanks for having me. I can quickly give you a background of what, what the context in India has been recently. India has historic levels of unemployment at the moment I think it's as high as 40% in some estimates. And what's happening is that more than 80% of all the unemployed are young people. And these young people have nowhere to go in terms of job opportunities. And absent setters doing very poorly. So what does one do as a young person in that situation? They apply for public examinations that the government runs for recruitment to government jobs or they apply for competitive examinations for recruitment to medical school or other kinds of government run education institutions. And in the last 10 years since the Modi government has been in power, over 150 of these public examinations are have leaked. And what leak means is that someone within the system who has access to these, these exam papers has sold them for money. And then which has led to these exams being canceled. The results have been delayed, recruitments have stopped so. And hopeless for their future that there doesn't seem to be a way out of of economic conditions. Because in a country like India, social mobility and economic mobility is only possible through these kinds of public jobs. So that's the classic context. And what triggered this particular movement is actually nothing short of cinema. Abhijit Dipke, who's The founder of this movement was literally in Chicago with his sister. He just graduated from the Boston University. And the Chief justice of India had made a stray comment that these young unemployed people are like cockroaches who are. Who are, you know, who are a menace to the system, obviously a really insensitive and horrible thing to say about anyone. And Abhijit tweets, what if all cockroaches unite? And that One tweet Got 10,000 likes or retweets in the first 24 hours? As a joke, he put out a good Google form that got about 50,000 members in the first day. And that's when he realized, wait, this is. This is something. Something is going on here. And he launched an Instagram page. He launched a Twitter handle under the name of the Cockroach Janta Party, which is actually a play on the name of India's ruling party, the Bharatiya Janta Party, led by the Modi government. And that took on like wildfire. That caught on a wildfire. In the first eight days of the Instagram handle, it had 10 million followers, more than the BJP, more than any other opposition political party in India. And today it had like 26 million or something, which is just staggering even for a country like India. That, that number is huge for an online movement. But what happened in the last couple of weeks, three weeks, is that this sentiment, this frustration bubbled over into the streets of India when Abhijit's movement, which was an encampment almost at a protest site in Delhi, became popular. Lots of people joined in from all over the country. And one individual, Sonam Wangchuk, who was on a hunger strike, actually led to this kind of moral pressure on the government to actually act, because he was fasting for 20 days at one point. And the response of the government to that was they cracked down hard and picked up Sonambank, the hunger striker, in the wee hours of, I think, 17th or 18th July. And that's the turning point of these Gen Z protests, which led to an outpour of hundreds of thousands of people, people that, you know, how the. What the hell do you mean? You can just pick somebody up who's just protesting peacefully for all of India's problems. There is a sense among people that we are a democracy and we want to be a democracy. And so that moment really punctured that, that feeling of safety, that some people felt that maybe we are no longer in a democracy. And then the events of the. Of 20 July unfolded when by some estimates, about 250,000 people assembled peacefully on the streets of New Delhi demanding the resignation of the Education Minister of India. And the brutality that the Modi government unleashed on people is something that young people have never seen before and will always remember as probably one of the worst days in India. Because I saw young girls and boys, their heads being burst open by the bitums. The police were using tear gas, shelling. It looked like a war zone at one point. And following that, I think the movement has won. Just this past weekend when that kind of brutality led to more backlash against the government and eventually led to the resignation of the Education Minister. That's, you know, that's, that's the short version of everything that has unfolded. But having said that, I must take your leave. I have a flight to catch. Thank you for having me on. And Sir Magna will be able to thank you.
- [48:37]
A
Akshay, thanks for joining us.
- [48:38]
D
Thank you so much.
- [48:39]
A
Safe flight.
- [48:40]
D
Thanks.
- [48:43]
A
So Magnat, I want to ask you a few things actually. So you know, Akshay, before he left, he mentioned that the movement, the cockroach movement, did succeed in winning the resignation of the Indian Education Minister. But there was a broader context of economic and social dissatisfaction which had been percolating beforehand, which gave rise to this outpouring of public protests. Do you see or there indications that the protest movement or the sentiments that animated it would lead to a broader sort of protest against the current the BJP government? And if so, what form would that potentially take? What levels of organization may exist to instantiate that?
- [49:27]
E
Yeah, that's a great question actually, Maz. The thing is that it felt like a strategic decision on behalf of the Cockroachanta party to focus on one issue and say this is an issue about education, about the future of our country. And they did that to be able to create like a big tent, a broad umbrella by which to get people involved in this. But the reality on the ground was that a lot of the protesters who were joining these protests were chanting slogans against the Modi government. So even though the protest organizers were sort of initially trying to keep it to just talking about education and these paper leaks like Akshay mentioned, the protest took on a much larger shape and form into becoming a protest against the Modi government, which has been accused of excesses on all fronts, including human rights, including sort of anti Muslim policies and politics, jailing dissidents, imprisoning, sort of like having political prisoners in human rights defenders, etc. And so like you said, the other issues that have been sort of animating people in India, whether it's the Social conditions of sort of interfaith divide being created through the Modi government's animus. It's a Hindu nationalist government. They're animus against Muslims in the country. The ways that that plays out, the way Muslims have been disproportionately arrested for participating in civil rights movements, for participating in protests. But also factors like unemployment. Youth unemployment has been at record levels under the Modi government. And so economic wars, for example, even the Indian currency has slipped to its lowest levels against the US dollar ever. And so a lot of these factors really animated the Indian youth beyond just the issue of education, which was the flagship sort of cause of the protest. And even though the protest organizers at times would try and sort of make announcements limiting slogans to XYZ kinds of slogans, keeping it to like a particular few slogans that don't particularly target the Modi government, there were lots and lots of anti Modi slogans and chants and protests across not just Delhi's Jantar Mantar, but in different parts of the country where this protest snowballed into.
- [52:15]
A
You know, Meghan, I want to ask you a bit about that as well too, because I think it's known that the BJP is kind of like a Hindu nationalist party, but it also had a reputation of being a development fundamentalist party. So people, it would draw investment and it would grow the economy in aggregate and so forth. But I was actually interested by something actually was mentioning the very high rates of unemployment and inflation that have affected ordinary people. So the BJP is kind of like a neoliberal party economically in many ways. Can you talk a bit about how that's actually playing out in daily life in India? Because the party draws a lot of his legitimacy internationally from a sense that it's growing the Indian economy in general. But your view or your experience and others is that that's not the case or it's experienced very unevenly within India.
- [53:04]
E
The thing is that the Modi government has sort of overseen an economic crisis in many ways. And one of the major problems that reporters and experts and folks working in the public policy space have had with the government is that it has been sort of on a data suppression overdrive. So in 2019, on the eve of parliamentary elections in India, there was a report by the government of India that was supposed to be published. It was the unemployment data that used to be published at regular intervals and that showed that unemployment in India was at a 45 year peak. And this is 2019 we're talking about. The report was not published, but it Got leaked. And this is before the election, the Modi government came out and said that the methodology was all wrong and the report like that's not a legitimate report. And withheld publishing that report officially after the election that they won, the Modi government came out and said, you know what? That report was true, it was the actual report.
- [54:10]
D
But.
- [54:11]
E
But what it's done since then is that it hasn't published that survey ever again. It hasn't conducted that survey of unemployment ever again. And so one of the major problems with this administration is its suppression of data on economic indicators. But even then, what we find out from independent sources, sort of looking at these kinds of metrics is that consumer spending has whittled down and was also a few years ago at a record low, unemployment at a record high. And some of these things were obviously exacerbated by the pandemic. But even since then, the government hasn't been able to provide jobs at the scale that Modi had promised while running for election. And thereby comes this pressure on the public examinations. Now, what these examinations are is that there are routes to employment. So for example, some of these examinations are for government jobs, government service jobs. Right. And when those examinations get leaked and have to be canceled and there's widespread corruption in them, the anger among the people is that, hey, this government said it would get us jobs in the public sector. In the private sector, it's failed to increase the number of jobs substantially. It's also failing to provide the government jobs that it absolutely should be providing through these examinations because these examinations are taking place in a corrupt way. So even though there are those in the international media who portrayed this issue as sort of an education issue, it is actually far more. Education was a proxy for unemployment, for joblessness, for. For the economic angst amongst India's young people. And it's a Gen Z protest. Yes, because a lot of these young people are the ones who are graduating from high school, graduating from college, and are on the search for employment, but are finding increasingly fewer options.
- [56:21]
A
When you look at the actual political landscape in India, it seems that the BJP party does well in elections for the most part. It continues to do so. But this economic. The disjointment between the reported economic figures and the lived reality, especially for young people, seems to be growing more and more. Do you see this political energy that was shown in this cockroach movement potentially forming, drawing to one of the currently existing opposition parties like the Ahmadni Party or Congress Party or something, which doesn't really fit into India's current political landscape may take expression in a different manner.
- [56:59]
E
Yeah, I mean that's a great forward looking question and one that like sort of everyone's searching for the answers to.
- [57:05]
D
The.
- [57:05]
E
The important thing here to remember is that the opposition parties as well as independent analysts have in India have repeatedly been questioning the integrity of India's electoral processes. Now a few months ago there were widespread sort of claims and a lot of evidence put forth by the Congress Party that you mentioned that said that the Indian government was allegedly attempting to rig elections in India in various ways. The widespread sort of voter fraud allegations put forth, a lot of evidence was put forth on the same front. The Indian Election Commission has widely been sort of criticized in recent years as kowtowing to the whims and fancies of the ruling party. Instead of operating independently, they've undertaken measures such as a special intensive revision of voter list. And for example, in a recent state election in the state of West Bengal, which incidentally is where I hail from, they removed as many as 9 million voters from the voter rolls on the eve of elections. Most of them did not even get a chance to appeal their, their, their exclusion in time for the election to be able to vote in the election. So yes, there is a possibility that the angst and discontent you saw in these protests, you heard numbers of 200,000 protesters just in Delhi and of course larger numbers in all in totality across the country. But whether this translates to electoral outcomes is a sort of a really tricky and dicey affair. One, because parliamentary elections in India are still three years away, they're scheduled in 2029. But also because of these allegations of electoral malpractices that are repeatedly leveled against the BJP and the growing sort of partisan nature of the election commission. So there is also a sense among, among some observers that that if the Modi government were to be seriously challenged, it would need some sort of and potentially a pan India national popular movement on the streets, for example, like some of what we saw during these protests and not just an electoral battle.
- [59:45]
A
This is my last question for you actually and also build on something Akshay mentioned before he left the protests. The response to it from the police was exceptionally brutal in many ways. There were people injured. There were people whose eyesight was damaged by pellets and things like that. Tear gas beatings took place, including a sector of society, students and so forth, which had not been acclimated to that kind of treatment in the past. How do you see this episode and the way it played out, potentially changing the views of Many people of the government of Modi and so forth. Because oftentimes I find historically when after a violent incident like that, it's sort of, it really colors what comes thereafter. I'm curious if that's the case that you're seeing or hearing among young people in India and how that may affect their views of the BJP which has ruled the country now for over a decade.
- [60:39]
E
Yeah, yeah. The BJP has been in par for 12 years. And there have been large protest movements before. There was a large nationwide protest movement in 2019, 2020, when the Modi government tried to sort of of implement a series of measures that would eventually risk disenfranchising India's 200 million Muslims, potentially through a very controversial Citizenship Amendment law. There were Farmers protests in 2022, 2023. But this protest was different in the sense that it couldn't be ascribed to any one community leading the protest, any one religious community or like, sort of like, oh, these aren't just farmers or these aren't just Muslims leading a protest. Of course, during those protests against the Citizenship Amendment law, there were, it wasn't just Muslims. There were large numbers of people from other communities as well. But these protests were led by students. They were led by very young Gen Z protesters. And that sort of them being beaten up, being brutalized by the Delhi police. I mean, we saw visuals of like blood gushing from the faces of these protesters as they were latte charges. They were attacked on their heads by, by these sort of, by security officials of, by officials of the Delhi police. And that sort of triggered an immediate radicalization among India's youth. And I say radicalization in terms of them hitting the streets in record numbers during this, this protest. And so this sort of discontent that is there was because it was the students that were targeted. Even if you look back to the Citizenship Amendment protests, one of the large turning points during those protests were when Delhi police had entered a university in Delhi, Jamia Millia, and attacked students within the university premises, beating them up terribly. And that had led to an immediate sit in protest outside Jamia that was attended by thousands and thousands of people. And so when young people get targeted, there is something that inherently shakes the conscience of people and sort of implores them to come out and join the protest. And that's what we've seen happen over these last few days. But now with the resignation of the Education Minister, the Modi government is also trying to manage the situation. He got the Education Minister to resign. He set up an expert panel to look into these Paper leaks and examination issues. But the youth are still dissatisfied. Right? The protest for now has stopped, but it sort of remains to be seen. Where we go from here. Is there another protest a few weeks from now? Is it going to be a few months from now? What's going to be the next trigger? But even as that plays out, it's extremely important to draw attention to the fact that the governments in different parts of the country, the state governments, are going after some of these protesters. And in fact, they're going disproportionately after Muslim protesters. A Muslim man named Mohammed Junaid who was serving food to thousands of volunteers, thousands of protesters at Delhi's Jantar Mantar was briefly detained by the Delhi police. His parents, his family members have been harassed by police. Elsewhere. Protesters in, in Kolkata have been arrested, several of them. When the chief minister of West Bengal, the state, was asked about those protesters and the violence that had ensued, the chief minister responded and said, oh, it was the Friday people, a derogatory reference to Muslims because of their Friday prayers. And so even though the protest resulted in a victory for the protesters, in terms of the education minister's resignation, it's not all hunky dory yet or still in India, the clampdowns are occurring in various ways. And this conversation about the discontentment among the Indian youth, its frustration with the Modi government and the Modi government's attempts to manage this crisis, this story is far from over.
- [65:12]
A
Thanks so much for joining us.
- [65:14]
E
Thank you.
- [65:15]
A
Love you on again. Yeah. Well, that does it for this episode of Dropside Weekly Livestream. You can catch us every Tuesday at about 9:30am Eastern. I'll be back again next week with more coverage. And thank you all for joining us. See you real soon.