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- [00:00]
Ralph Nader
You are listening to Fiercely Independent KPFK.
- [00:04]
John CrumShow
90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM in.
- [00:08]
Ralph Nader
Santa Barbara and for the world at www.kpfk.org.
- [00:14]
Susan Abulhawa
Support free speech and freeform Radio.
- [00:17]
Ralph Nader
Peace. Come away there. Light my fire. Come over there. Light my fire. Try to.
- [00:32]
Steve Skrovan
This is Chris Hedges and you're listening.
- [00:34]
David Feldman
To the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.
- [00:37]
Ralph Nader
Stand up. Stand up.
- [00:39]
Susan Abulhawa
You've been sitting way too long.
- [00:45]
Steve Skrovan
Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Scrovan, along with my co host, David Feldman. Hello, David.
- [00:52]
David Feldman
Hello, Steve.
- [00:54]
Steve Skrovan
And our producer, Hannah Feldman. Hello, Hannah.
- [00:56]
Hannah Feldman
Hello, Steve.
- [00:58]
Steve Skrovan
And the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
- [01:01]
Ralph Nader
Hello, everybody. Prepare yourself to hear a Palestinian American on the Palestinian holocaust as we record this.
- [01:10]
Steve Skrovan
Israel continues its ongoing genocide against Palestinians amidst talks of various ceasefire deals. This week, Israel intensified its ground operations in Gaza by sending troops into Gaza City. It looks like the world is finally waking up to the fact that this genocide is a genocide. But the mainstream media seems to have a hard time platforming Palestinian voices today. Our guest for the entire program will be Susan Abu Hawa, a Palestinian American writer and political activist and best selling author of the book Mornings and Jenin. We're going to speak to her about Ralph's pet peeve, the vast undercount of casualties, a low number that has given Israel supporters an excuse to say, hey, it's only 60,000. It's not a genocide, it's not an ethnic cleansing. Well, as well is the infuriating experience of Palestinians constantly having to justify their right to exist. As always, we'll take a break to check in with our tireless corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, let's get right to it. Let's hear from one Palestinian American who gives voice to the outrage over what's being done to her people.
- [02:14]
David Feldman
David Susan Abalhalla is a Palestinian American writer and political activist. She's the author of the best selling Mornings in jenin, translated into 30 languages. She's also written the Blue between sky and Water. Born to refugees of the Six Day War of 1967. She moved to the United States as a teenager, graduated in biomedical science and established a career in medical science. In July of 2001, Abel Hawa founded Playgrounds for Palestine, a non governmental children's organization dedicated to upholding the right to play for Palestinian children. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Susan Abalhawa.
- [02:59]
Susan Abulhawa
Thank you, David.
- [03:01]
Ralph Nader
Thank you very much, Susan. And we want to focus on what we've talked about on this program for a long time. And how consequential it is the vast death and serious injury undercount of Palestinians suffering from the Netanyahu driven genocide, which can be called the Palestinian Holocaust. And you have studied this very carefully in terms of the disaster result. Specialists writing in Lancet and other universities and other international relief groups who basically said that the Hamas self serving figure of now 63,000 was perhaps a tenth of the real toll. And I fully agree. You now are estimating the real toll as between 500,000 and 600,000 killed, which would mean that one out of four Palestinians bombarded incessantly, no food, medicine, water, no health care, no shelter, that one out of four Palestinians have been killed, which means miraculously three out of four are still alive, although the vast majority are sick, injured or dying. So in no other conflict have I seen such indifference by the mainstream press to the real death count. And I think part of it is because both Hamas and Netanyahu want a low death count for different reasons. And there's a strong element of racism here. They don't have such qualms on death counts in Ukraine and other war torn areas. Give us your best analysis of why you think the mainstream press, not to mention the Congress and the State Department are ignoring this. Because it would intensify political, diplomatic and civic drives to stop the killing, let the humanitarian aid trucks in and end the genocide which is now moving toward omnicide, a word that should be more currently used, I might add. Susan, we filed a Free Information act to the State Department because about a month after October 7, the State Department Assistant Secretary testified for Congress and blurted out that their death figures were larger than Hamas and she never was allowed to speak about that again. And the State Department is stonewalling our demands for internal memorandum and documents about the more accurate estimate of this massive slaughter. Take it from there.
- [05:33]
Susan Abulhawa
Yeah, thank you for trying to get that information from them. I just want to say first before we dive into it that I don't think Hamas has an agenda in keeping a low figure. Quite the contrary. The thing is that they have been quite scrupulous in maintaining as accurate of figures as possible. But the problem is in the counting and the ability to count that's being being faced. And furthermore, everybody likes to say this is a Hamas run medical service and Hamas run. But. But the fact is these are Palestinian institutions regardless of who is in power. These institutions have been in place for decades and it's not. Yes, Hamas was, was the political entity that governed Gaza, but these are Palestinian institutions. Nobody says it's the Trump run cdc. Right? It's the cdc. This is the healthcare sector. Now, first of all, start with the ability to count. This was one of the first things that I was struck by when I was in Gaza because so many of the hospitals had been decimated, as you know, that means that a lot of the servers that housed data were also decimated. And now some of the stuff was on, you know, was in the cloud. But still a vast portion of the digital infrastructure has been destroyed by Israel, and I believe intentionally so and then. But they were still trying to keep count by paper trails and so forth. And they were doing as well of a job as possible in doing that. The paper trails sort of get obliterated as well by bombs and they're burned. So the ability to count and maintain records is compromised. And it's further compromised by the outright murder of hospital administrators and the personnel who are tasked with keeping records. So that's the ability to count. And then the second category of limitation on this number is the limitations of the counting itself. In other words, what is included. So the healthcare system was trying to be very scrupulous, as I said, in reporting the number of people who were killed directly by Israel who were martyrs. So that means that the people counted in this tally of the death toll were only people who were killed by direct fire. In other words, if they came to the hospital dead, or if they died immediately from their wounds. And the other limitation is that they came and they were completely identifiable by name and by civil ID number. A lot of the bodies that came in that were unknown, unidentified bodies that came in, in pieces, in bags of flesh that were unidentified, were not counted because they could not be matched with a name and an ID number. So that's another limitation. A third limitation is the fact that the only people who were counted or still are being counted are the ones who actually come through the hospital system. And so many part phases of this genocide, Israel has blocked people from reaching hospitals. And so what happened, and there's a large population who were killed and were just buried by their family members was because they could not get to a hospital. This was especially true in the north for the ceasefire, when the north opened up a little. So right away you have this already mass population that is uncounted. And then you have the people, and these are in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, I don't know, who remain under the rubble, who were unreachable and are still unreachable. And therefore, and even if you know the names of the people under the rubble. Until the hospital has their actual remains and has a name and an ID number to match to each body, they remain uncounted. If you recall when Israel first was trying to say that Palestinians were lying about the death count, this was one of the things that spurred me to even do this study. The hospital system released. The healthcare system, rather, released a full list of every single person, including their name, their age, and their civil ID number. And those are the only people that are counted. Okay, so that's already like a fraction of the death toll that we know of. But then you have this vast population of people who have been dying of preventable diseases, people who previously had chronic illnesses, but were dying because of lack of access to maintenance medications. Whether these chronic diseases were things like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, cancer, renal disease, some neurological diseases, some genetic disorders that require specific nutritional requirements. Right. All these people were dying because of that. Right. They were not being counted as martyrs. So again, so there's this massive population that was dying because of that. And part of the study that I did was to include those people in the way that. And it was. It's not difficult to estimate the number of people who die for lack of access to medication, because we know the percentage of the population in each one of these chronic disease categories. This was all stuff that was already documented prior to the genocide. And the scientific literature gives us an estimate of morbidity and mortality of these populations of people when they do not have access to medication. Right. So, for example, there are lots of studies that show if a person ate between the ages of so and so who has type 2 diabetes or type 1 diabetes and does not have access to medication, this percent are likely to die. Right. So those numbers are there.
- [11:42]
Ralph Nader
So.
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Susan Abulhawa
So it was just a matter of doing some arithmetic to come up with the estimated number to match the mortality of this population. Okay, so you have that category of.
- [11:51]
Ralph Nader
Uncounted categories, and also 5,000 babies a month born into the rubble with no care, unable to get food, clean water, high rates of mortal dysentery.
- [12:02]
Susan Abulhawa
Exactly. So that brings us to two more categories. One are the people who are literally dying of starvation. And there are people who died of dehydration last summer, like, who just basically had heat strokes in the sun, walking, trying to get to aid or get somewhere, and they just collapsed for lack of water. So those people and the people dying of malnutrition, as well as the people who have died because of preventable and communicable diseases that are born of unsanitary conditions, things dysentery, Hepatitis A was RA rampant when I was there. And all manner of skin diseases, those aren't necessarily fatal, but there were cases of dysentery when I was there. So that's a whole other category of people who are not being counted. And so based on these values, and I also considered reports from the World Health Organization that estimated Approximately, I think 50, 55 to 65 people were being killed every day in Gaza. So there was this, that category, which I estimated separately. So once I did the study, basically, and this was back In June of 2024, I came up with that range between about 194,000 and 500,000 people. That was back in June of 2024. So I think what the number that you're putting forth is likely closer to the actual estimate.
- [13:30]
Ralph Nader
And of course, the death toll accelerates as the starvation builds up, the dehydration builds up, the destruction of all the hospitals, with one or two exceptions, occurs, and more apartment buildings and homes or refugee camps and businesses are blown up. About 80% of this entire Gaza Strip, the geographic area of Philadelphia, they had 2.3 million people before October 7th. About 80% of all the buildings are totally demolished and people are living in makeshift tents if not exposed to the elements with their children. It's a death scene. It's the killing fields everywhere supported by the US Taxpayer and the Netanyahu co belligerence, the Congress and President Biden and now President Trump. So at least 500,000 people. But listen to this, Susan. Day after day, as you know, you read the papers day after day, New York Times, Washington Post, ap, Wall Street Journal, the reports on what's going on in Palestine, and they can't get in because foreign and Israeli journalists are prohibited from going into Gaza by Netanyahu. Day after day they have this boilerplate sentence. Over 62,000 people have been killed according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between non combatants and combatants. Day after day, they're accepting it. And you can forgive the readers into saying, well, that's the number, period. You know, it's not qualified the way you just did. It's not aggregated for other sectors of morbidity and mortality. So I consider this for first of all, immoral is disrespecting the Palestinian dead while they kill the Palestinians who are still alive with US Bombers and artillery shells and other weapons coming from Washington, D.C. and it underestimates the kind of urgency that should be confronting this genocide. Imagine if after World War II, if the count was that Hitler killed 600,000 Jews, who would tolerate that? That would be a huge controversy, saying that one tenth of the Jews killed is the count. But the Palestinians are suffering from that deliberate, vast undercount of deaths and serious injuries. And so we're telling the press, reporter by reporter, Patrick Kinsley, the New York Times in Jerusalem and others for the Post, and we're telling him day after day, npr, pbs, stop using these figures without any qualifications and rational enlargements. And the one way we've gotten through to them is this Professor Rogers, by the way, from a university in England. He's an expert on the damage done by bombs. He has calculated as of April of 2025. But the TNT equivalent that's been dropped on Gaza exceeds six Hiroshima bombs. One Hiroshima bomb killed 130,000 people, and they had shelters exceeds six Hiroshima bombs. So when you say to the reporter, how many people have been killed since October 7th in Gaza? They say, oh, 62,000, according to the Hamas health Ministry. End of story. And so I say, no, not end of story. When you accept that figure, you're saying that only 3 out of 100 Palestinians under this massive bombardment month after month have been killed. That's totally not credible. It's lethally inaccurate. And that brings it home to people. Imagine Philadelphia being bombed like this and saying only 3 out of 100 Philadelphians have been killed. This is a monstrous lie. It's a monstrous collaboration, whether willfully or indifferently or ignorantly by all sides to this conference, including Amy Goodman and others. They're beginning to say 62,000 Hamas, and it's probably an undercount. And we've gotten them that far. But that's not far enough. People remember numbers, not a consequential phrase like, and it's probably an undercount. Why is the media buying into this? They know better. They can come to the conclusions that you've come to.
- [18:03]
Susan Abulhawa
Well, I mean, why does the media, I mean, you can, you can ask them, you can ask a lot of other questions. Why does the media repeat everything Israel says as if it were gospel, despite the fact that Israel has been caught lying repeatedly over and over and over? I mean, the most recent example is the bombing of the hospital and then bombing of the hospital again in the same place. Right. First, Netanyahu came out and said it was quote, unquote, mishap. Right. And you had all of these media outlets just parrot that. Oh, mishap. Even Reuters, they couldn't even name their own reporters. They put Them out as numbers, right? Imagine, like, talk about disrespect. These are their colleagues, people who worked for these media outlets. They just had this headline that for journalists killed. Well, who were the journalists who killed them, right? None of that. It's always so obscured. And now because Netanyahu's lie collapsed, another lie collapsing, and ironically, it collapsed because the soldiers who carried out that atrocity, that war crime on live TV started calling into media outlets on air demanding an apology from Benjamin Netanyahu. Because they did it. They acted on orders to target those journalists. They literally said this. These are soldiers in the Golani Brigade. And so now Israel came out with this utterly ludicrous, absurd narrative that they were targeting a quote, unquote, Hamas camera. Like, what the hell is a Hamas camera? And of course the media is parroting it. Honestly, this is something that I think generations will study for a very long time to come. The complicity of Western media across the board is no less criminal than the genocide itself. And I want to repeat what your parrot, what you said at the opening of this call, that this, this is no longer a genocide, it's an omnicide. I recently wrote a piece that's going into an anthology about the destruction of life in general in Gaza. I mean, I don't want to get too far into the weeds, but like, but why did. Gaza was a major stop for migrating birds. And a lot of biologists believe that a lot of bird species are extinct now or going extinct because of this. They're like all the bugs, all the rodents, the street animals, I mean, every life form is destroyed. And even like, if you look at the bombings, I know most people don't even notice this, but it's one of the first things I see across the screen is always this flutter of birds who just fly around chaotically, having lost their equilibrium and their sense of direction. So, like, pay attention to that. This is, it's a complete wiping out of life, a total destruction. And it's completely driven by this unfathomable hate and colonial arrogance and Jewish supremacy and this notion of entitlement, of being favored by God, of being promised some real estate by a real estate agent. Lord. I mean, it is in beggars belief the narratives that we see spoken in mainstream outlets and in the halls of power. Truly, it beggars belief.
- [21:27]
Ralph Nader
Say extend what you're saying, Susan. We're talking with Susan Abu Hawa, a best selling novelist internationally and also a civic activist, a Palestinian American in the United States. Just extend what Netanyahu says when he bombs and kills 20 medics in South Gaza where he blew up the caravan of the World Food Program or the Catholic Church that Pope Francis used to call every evening, they hit that and killed three people and injured others. When he goes so rarely into the realm of saying, oh, that was a mistake and we're going to open an investigation, the press writes, open the investigation, they never follow up. All these investigations of torture of prisoners, Palestinian prisoners documented by Israeli doctors in Israeli jails, held without charges, more than a few women and children. Oh, we're going to open an investigation. And they get the press off their back and the press never comes back and says what's the result of the investigation? So, you know, the obeisance of the press knows no end. And I might add it includes the independent press. The so called progressive press uses these Hamas figures, for instance. And as far as the destruction of Gazan life, they targeted universities have been blown up, libraries have been blown up, 85% of the schools have been blown up, the museums have been blown up. They want to eradicate Palestinian culture, not just Palestinian life, of course.
- [23:00]
Susan Abulhawa
I mean, this is, you know, this is something that Frantz Fanon spoke about far more eloquently than I can in that this is the colonial mindset. The idea is not just to kill the native, it is to erase their very identity. It is to strip them so utterly of their humanity, of their relevance to the land, of their history and their roots. And that's, you know, at the end of the day, I believe one of the most helpful powerful forces driving this naked colonial genocide is a deep jealousy of the indigenous people who possess what Israelis will never possess. And that is true roots in the land, real familial, traditional, cultural, culinary roots in the land that they covet. You know, and so the only way to spread of assuage this tension is to destroy that very identity.
- [24:01]
Ralph Nader
By the way, it's important for the American people to be reminded that David Ben Gurion, often considered the founder of modern Israel, has said in a very often quoted statement to Nahum Goldman, the head of the World Zionist Organization, he said, and I'm paraphrasing it very closely, it was their land and we took it. Why should they ever have an agreement with us? Well, he was coming out of the Nazi Holocaust and he was not going to indulge the indigenous people's survival rights in Palestine, but he admitted it was their land and we took it. And another propaganda lie that needs to be corrected is the Israeli military doesn't specifically target civilian infrastructure and civilians, a complete lie. Back in the early 80s, Abba Eban, a foreign minister and ambassador to the UN, a scholar in Israel said, what are you talking about? Israel's always targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure in the very beginning. And it resembles some regimes that we do not dare mention. When he was in a dialogue with another Israeli security official who agreed with him. So all these lies that the media swallows, including Charles Lane, for example, the columnist of the Washington Post, he keeps saying Israel doesn't target civilians. Of course they target civilians. There are no military airfields, no military barracks. And the other lie is that Hamas hides behind civilians. Well, every day Israel is using Palestinians as shields to go into areas where there might be some bombs or some explosives so that they take the first brunt like they're guinea pigs. And historically, historically, Israel has always used Palestinians as shields in their maraudings and destruction since 1948 of remaining Palestinian territory.
- [26:00]
Susan Abulhawa
Yeah, I mean, it's like every accusation is a confession. But the thing about the human shield, propaganda, you know, in order, the only way human shields works is if the other side has a compunction against killing civilians. So Israel has shown that they will kill civilians in a heartbeat. They don't care if it's a baby or, or an 80 year old man, they will kill them. So it makes no sense for Palestinians to use human shields because it's, it's not a strategy, you know what I mean? It's not a strategy against a force that has such an intense bloodlust and doesn't care who they kill. And in fact, if you listen to their soldiers, it's something that they take great pleasure in killing Palestinians. So, and these are their words, not, not mine.
- [26:49]
Ralph Nader
What do you think of the resistance in Israel? There's at least 16 human rights groups that from the beginning have been telling Biden, stop the human catastrophe in Gaza. They had an article in the New York Times in December 13, 2023. These are former reservists called Ending the Silence. And Beth Salem, Civil Liberties Rabbis for Human Rights. And now more Israelis are starting to demonstrate, including political opponents and military retired, against Netanyahu. What's your read of that? So we don't stereotype everybody on Israel?
- [27:28]
Susan Abulhawa
Well, I mean, there are surveys showing that at least 82% of Jewish Israelis support what's happening. So I don't think that there is really a significant resistance in Israel.
- [27:44]
Ralph Nader
But do they know, do they know what's happening given the censorship?
- [27:48]
Susan Abulhawa
I mean, the whole world knows. I don't really know how they don't know they're doing it, they're participating in it. They're soldiers. Talk about it. Their dating apps have photos of soldiers committing atrocities. Because that's apparently sexy. I mean, I understand that you don't want to generalize, but I'm beyond that. I'm beyond. I'm looking because when you have watched what we have been forced to watch for two years every day, shredded bodies, children sniped in the head, people burned alive, doctors being raped to death, having rape, cancer camps where prisoners are tortured day in and out, I really don't care anymore, Ralph. And I have to say I think we need to speak very plainly about what is happening. If there is an opposition in Israel, it is a very small group of people. It is by no means even approaching a majority or even half of the population. And all the surveys support what I am saying. And most recently, that survey showing basically that Israelis, 82% of Israeli Jews support what's happening. And then you see these trends on social media where people dance and celebrate and rejoice in the demise of Palestinians. You know, there was a point in time when we were willing to live side by side, when we gave the ultimate compromise and agreed to live on 22% of our historic homeland, just to end all this bloodshed, just, you know, to have a dignified life in, even if it meant giving up 78% of historic Palestine. And even that was not enough for them. And they continued to build settlements, steal more land, demolish more homes, and now they're doing the same thing in Lebanon, and they're going into Syria, and now they're talking about, you know, Greater Israel. It's disgusting. This kind of naked colonialism we all thought was a thing of the past, but we're all watching it in real time. This colonialism that is complete with just utter wanton slaughter and supremacy and lies. And, you know, this. This abysmal darkness, Ralph, it does not bode well for the future. I don't agree to live side by side with these people anymore. I think Israel needs to be dismantled, and that is what needs to be normalized. Saying that this in the same way that Nazism was dismantled now, in the same way that apartheid was dismantled, Israel must be dismantled, and the people who have committed this holocaust must be held to account if humanity is to have any semblance of hope of a moral future. This has to happen. It must. It is grotesque the way that the most powerful nations in the world have ganged up on this tiny strip of land of a prison, principally unarmed Defenseless civilian population. And why? Why? Because it's prime real estate and because they have a gas field offshore. That's the reason. It is naked colonialism, naked aggression, naked unfettered greed.
- [30:57]
Ralph Nader
Well, as you were indicating, they're moving beyond the borders. They want to now annex the West Bank. They're bombing Syria for when Assad was there, bombing him. With the new regime taking over land, they're still in south Lebanon. They've killed a lot of UN relief people, hundreds of them, who been serving the poor in Gaza for food, health, and education. They oppose the peacekeeping UN in southern Lebanon. They're denouncing the UN vitriolic terms when they go to the un. Do you think that the UN should suspend or expel Israel?
- [31:37]
Susan Abulhawa
They should have done that a long time ago. Yes, I do. Absolutely. Absolutely.
- [31:42]
Ralph Nader
It's been violating UN resolutions like Two for two for years. Respecting Palestinian rights, for example, and it's threatening the judges at the International Criminal Court, including the prosecutors. So any other country would be exposed to a suspension move, the way South Africa was during the apartheid. In your interview with Capital Citizen, you responded some questions about what's going on in the US And I didn't know about some of the things you pointed out. Whatever happened to the Harvard Educational Review?
- [32:17]
Susan Abulhawa
Oh, yeah. I mean, they completely suspended that issue. You can read more about it. But these researchers, these scholars worked for months on this issue. And then, of course, like so many things that sort of get canceled in academia, whether it's jobs or programs or events, you know, wealthy Zionist donors object, and sometimes you get politicians stepping in and it gets canceled. Any expression of Palestinian humanity, anything, anything that represents Palestinian humanity, Palestinian history, anything of the sort of anything that challenges Israel's prevailing narrative is controlled.
- [32:55]
Ralph Nader
You say Harvard canceled the Harvard Educational Review issue on Palestine, and they also obeyed Trump's demand that the School of Public Health at Harvard cut its ties with Birzit University in the west bank on health cooperation. And just be no end to the censorship, the suppression of people who are speaking against genocide, while people on campuses who are for what Israel's doing in Gaza, they don't get suspended, fired, harassed, their programs closed down. So you have any hope for the United States changing? The public opinion is changing radically. Even some members of Congress are beginning.
- [33:40]
Susan Abulhawa
I really hope Americans start to wake up. I really do. I mean, it's disgusting the way. The extent. The chokehold that Israel has on the United States is breathtaking. I mean, to the point, imagine that, you know, American citizens cannot receive any governmental help. Any disaster Relief. Unless if that state boycotts Israel or unless they sign a pledge to not boycott Israel. Imagine American taxpayers who experience a flood, who lose everything in a tornado or whatever, cannot get federal aid, cannot access public tax dollars, unless they pledge allegiance to a foreign country. I mean, that's the absurdity. The school board of education in California just voted to fly the Israeli flag in public schools. Like what? What? I mean, the hold that this foreign country has on the United States should concern every American, regardless of what they think of Israel, whether they like them or not. But, like, why is everything getting subordinated? Why is American civil liberties being subordinated to the whims of the foreign country?
- [34:51]
Ralph Nader
Not to mention Israeli occupied territory known as the Congress.
- [34:56]
Susan Abulhawa
Exactly. I'd say the whole of Washington, you know, it's not just the executive branch.
- [35:01]
Ralph Nader
As well, but the tide is turning among the American people. It hasn't yet reached Washington, but it's having more of an impact than any time in the last 60 years, especially among young people and Jewish Voice for Peace. And if not now, very formidable opponents of the genocide and rather brilliant in the way they're organizing protests in the United States. Anyhow, we're running out of time. Let's go to Steve.
- [35:30]
Steve Skrovan
Susan, sometimes I'll tune into cnn and they've got this idiot on there named Scott Jennings who is their conservative voice on the show. And whenever this subject comes up, he always says, hamas, Hamas, Hamas. Hey, if Hamas just released the hostages, then this would all be over. What would you say to Scott Jennings if he said that to you?
- [35:55]
Susan Abulhawa
I mean, it's. That's a lie. I mean, and Israel has basically. I mean, these are just these, like, soundbites that Israel excels at because the media just parrot them. They've made it very clear that. I mean, Bezel Smor was just came out and said it. He was like, the hostage is not returning the hostages is not our main priority. The main priority is, quote, unquote, defeating Hamas. Then, of course, Israeli public sort of got angry about that and they said, you know, these are our dual goals, etc. And Netanyahu himself has said that it doesn't matter whether they return the hostages or not. You know, we will continue this war. And I might add that if they wanted the hostages back, hamas said on October 9 that they will return all of the hostages in exchange for not continuing the war. So in the only way they have ever gotten hostages back, with the exception of one instance. That was horrific. It was through negotiations. That's it. That's the way if they really wanted to get their hostages back. But that's not the goal. The goal is to occupy Gaza. And they keep saying it. They keep saying they're planning their Jewish communities and settlements, and they're talking about, you know, removing, placing the rest of Gaza's population. And I believe that's part of, like, that's the plan. Right? It's hard to move 2 million people. It's a lot easier to move 1 million. So if you kill 500 to 800,000 people, you displace another 3 or 400,000 out of the country, then, you know, 1 million is more manageable. And I think that's what they're trying to do. And as you know, they have been in talks with South Sudan, and South Sudan has agreed to accept a large number of Palestinians in return for us lifting the sanctions and aid and so forth. And this is what they do. This is naked colonialism.
- [37:50]
Ralph Nader
There's nothing left of Hamas as a fighting force. It never had a few thousand fighters with light arms huddling in tunnels with smuggled ammunition. The Israelis always exaggerate the opposition. They built up Hezbollahs and powerful force so they then can attack. And as you said, there were many bombardments of Palestinians way before October 7th, going back decades. There wasn't any hostage issue here. The main problem is that every time Hamas agrees, they agreed. In May 2024, with Biden's ceasefire deal, Israeli Netanyahu raised further obstacles to scuttle it. Every time they come close, they find a way to scuttle it. Because the top priority of Netanyahu is to save his job. And he's got these extremist people in his coalition who can quit, and then his government would collapse. So that's what the motivation is. That's why he's opposing an official investigation of the mysterious collapse of the multi tiered border security on October 7. Suddenly all the different scientific, technological, detection systems, human intelligence, spies, informants, Israeli spotters telling them, look, something's going on there, suddenly they all collapsed. Well, that's why he doesn't want an official investigation. And the media has forgotten about how all this happened when the border opened up. And I think Hamas fell into a trap.
- [39:19]
Susan Abulhawa
Not to mention that the fact that a lot of the people who were killed on that day were actually killed by Israel itself. You know how they show all of those burned cars, Hamas did not have that kind of firepower. Every one of those cars that was full of people, most of them Israelis, were hit with Apache missiles. There were 28 Apache helicopters that responded six hours after the fence was breached. Six whole hours it took them to finally respond. And then they started firing at all of these cars. So, you know, Haaretz reported that at least hundreds of the Israelis who were killed on that day were killed by Israel itself. So of course he doesn't want an investigation because it would show, it would collapse their lie. And you remember the sensational beheaded babies and ovens and whatnot. I mean, all of that was to the manufacturer consent for genocide. And the truth is Hamas is no threat to them. They've never been a threat. We see when somebody's a threat, somebody who can fight back, like Iran, they behave very differently. Right? They ended that. They were calling for an intervention to end it after nine days.
- [40:27]
Ralph Nader
And by the way, right after October 7th, 1200 Israelis were killed, 400 of them were soldiers. By the way, Israel said that they killed 1600 Hamas fighters. So more Hamas fighters died on October 7th than Israelis died. And they never mentioned that figure again. So there was huge, what's called the Hannibal option, where if there were vehicles going back to Gaza with hostages, they blew up at all. If there were people in Israeli homes controlled by Hamas fighters, temporary, they blew up the whole house. So that this is well known, they will sacrifice their own people in such situations. Anyway.
- [41:08]
David Feldman
David, could you speak to Humanitarian City and the Boston Consulting Group, working with aides to Tony Blair, devising plans to turn Gaza into what Trump we thought was joking about the Riviera with totally evacuating Gaza and turning it into Qatar.
- [41:33]
Susan Abulhawa
Very early on, if you recall, Jared Kushner talked about what prime real estate Gaza was. So they have wanted Gaza for a long time. And even before Jared Kushner, I mean, these, these, if you pay attention to the internal discourse in Israel, they have been talking about, you can call it genocide, you can call it transfer, you call it whatever you want, basically taking the land and getting rid of Palestinians. One of the greatest Israeli laments in their public discourse, whether it's political discourse, academic discourse, social discourse, whatever it is, is that Ben Gurion did not finish the job. And there have been repeated so called missed opportunities to get rid of Palestinians. And including the 67 war, including, you know, what Netanyahu once said was a distracted world during the Tiananmen Square uprising in the 80s. So this has been an Israeli aim for a very long time. And they wanted this moment, they engineered it and they thought it was going to be their 911 moment. If you remember, that was the early, the early narrative, right? They kept saying this is Israel's 911 moment. And they thought they were going to go in, wipe out Gaza, push them into the Sinai or make Egypt take them. And then. And they were going. They thought it was going to be a cakewalk, but it didn't quite. They had some surprises and it hasn't worked out exactly as they wanted.
- [43:04]
David Feldman
It is exactly like 9 11. Then it's exactly what happened to America.
- [43:09]
Susan Abulhawa
No, Israel, I mean, the United States is a settler colony and they are, of course, colonizing the world in different ways economically and stealing people's resources. This is a far more insidious and genocidal enterprise. Whereas the United States wanted to. And actually at the behest of Israel, I would say, following the 1996 white paper that was written by the neocons from Wolfowitz and Wermer and. Yeah, exactly. And which, you know, that war was against Iraq was fought at the behest of Israel. And Israel is trying to pull United States now into a war with Iran. Anytime there is a foe that can actually fight back, it's not women and families and lightly armed guerrilla fighters, they drag the United States to do their dirty work. But they wanted this to be a 911 moment where the world sort of sat back and forgave them for it. Except that Israel's aim has been slaughter. Israel's aim was the destruction of a civilian population. Right. It's not just stealing the land. Israel does not want the indigenous people to remain, to keep their identity, to have any claim remaining to the land. So it is different and it's not. It's different than 911 in that regard, in the aims, I should say. Anyway, there's certainly some parallels, but they wanted that. They wanted to get away with it.
- [44:36]
Ralph Nader
And of course, Susan, is what this conflict is doing to America not just censorship, not just billions of taxpayer dollars, but it's affecting elections. Zogby pulled people in the swing states and he thinks that enough Democrats stayed home and discussed, you know, 7.1 million Democrats who voted for Biden 2020 stayed home in 2024. And it cost Kamala Harris the election. She wouldn't come out demanding a ceasefire in the entry of humanitarian aid in a forceful way and contradicting Biden, who was like a toady, but not as bad as Trump. At least he put out a few warnings once in a while. But seems more and more obvious that the Netanyahu regime has a dossier on Trump rising out of the Epstein debacles because he refuses to make the one call that he alone in the world can make to stop the slaughter. The one call to Netanyahu he always brags about, all it takes me is one call to stop the Russian Ukrainian war. Well, he hasn't done anything. So it is affecting our country in so many ways. And the effect is not ending. It's only going to get worse if they try to blow up the west bank and annex the west bank to the Greater Israel concept. Let's go to Hannah.
- [45:59]
Hannah Feldman
Susan, my question is about you mentioned dismantling the state of Israel. And the question that seems to break people's brains is, does Israel have a right to exist, or does Israel have a right to exist as a Jewish state? And I'm Jewish, I grew up. It took me a while to fully understand what Israel is. And now looking at it, I think it's such a ludicrous proposition that the solution to this genocide against Jews in Europe is to do another genocide, and that a country like a corporation, it's an artificial entity. A country does not have human rights. So I'd venture to say that your answer to that question would be no. And could you, well, I guess answer the question and then explain why that might be the case?
- [46:55]
Susan Abulhawa
You know, when somebody asks a Palestinian, does a group of people, Does a nation that destroyed your family, that took your home, that dismantled your heritage, stole your story, stole everything that you are denies your identity, denies your existence, and is still slaughtering your people, Is that a right? That's ultimately what I'm being asked when somebody asks me that. So of course it's no. No, I don't believe Israel has a right to exist. It has never had a right to exist. No political entities have a right to exist. People have a right to exist. They have a right to exist in their own homeland with dignity. People have a right to universal dignity, a supremacist ideology. And that's ultimately what Zionism is predicated on, on supremacy and entitlement for a group of people at the detriment of another group of people. That is not a right. And it should never be a right. It should be anathema.
- [48:00]
Ralph Nader
In fact, remember, Hannah, the apartheid regime in South Africa was dismantled. It was not considered under international law as a legitimate regime, and it was dismantled. And I think that's what Susan is alluding to, that everybody has a human right to exist and fulfill human possibilities. But there are certain regimes under control of this kind of imperialistic, colonial, destructive, endless assault. Government needs to be dismantled. There are a lot of Israeli retired people who think that the Netanyahu Regime needs to be dismantled. In fact, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in a letter with five other prominent Israelis sent to Congress urging Congress to disinvite Netanyahu last year from speaking before a joint session, it said that Netanyahu is destroying Israel. Those are the words used. So we have to distinguish between the regime and all people's right to have human rights.
- [49:07]
Susan Abulhawa
If I can just add, Hannah, this idea, I mean, there is this embedded in this question is this idea that Jews of the world are a singular people. That is an ahistoric concept. There's never been a moment in history when Jews of the world were a singular people. Absolutely.
- [49:25]
Hannah Feldman
We're nomads, we're diasporic. Like, it's.
- [49:28]
Susan Abulhawa
That's a whole point. But. Right. So Jews in the Arab world had a very, very different heritage and past and destiny than the Jews of Europe. And Jews of Europe never looked at Arab Jews and, you know, and said, oh, those are my brethren and my sister. They never look at them as part of a Jewish whole until they. They needed numbers, right? And so they started bombing synagogues in Iraq, where, in fact, the oldest continuously living Jewish community in the world existed was in Iraq. And so they started bombing those synagogues there and blaming it on Muslim Arabs so they would flee to Israel. Avi Shlayim wrote, you know, I don't know if you've ever read his work, but he documented that quite well because Avishlaym himself was from a prominent Iraqi Jewish family. And so, you know, I just reject the whole notion. I mean, this. It's a complete rewriting of history. It's a total perversion of reality. And it was to suit what was ultimately a supremacist settler colonial ideology that does not have a right to exist.
- [50:37]
Ralph Nader
Susan, before we close, is there anything else you'd like to say before we run out of time?
- [50:42]
Susan Abulhawa
You know, when I was in Gaza, there is a quote by Rafael Itan that I just was playing in my head. I think he said this sometime in, like, the early 1980s. He was a chief of staff in Israel. And he said, when we are done, when we have settled all the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it is to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle. And that is the image that Israelis have had of us, and it is, on some level, they need to reduce us to that conception. And it's what I was thinking about, because I was looking at these seas of utterly bewildered faces who just have been reduced from a relatively high functioning society, highly educated society that has done miracles under impossible circumstances in Gaza, circumstances of siege and bombardment. And they still managed to have state of the art universities, cafes, museums, social scene. And to see this dignified people unable to bathe, hungry, living in tents, being eaten up by sand crabs and ants and, you know, and trash everywhere. I kept thinking of that. And that's what they're doing. It's not just that they, they're trying to take the oil, as in the case of, of the United States in Iraq or something like. There is a deep desire to destroy us and to humiliate us and to denigrate us utterly.
- [52:21]
Ralph Nader
Well, we're out of time. We've been speaking with Susan Abalhawa and Susan is a Palestinian American writer, political activist and she's the best selling author of Mornings in Jenin which has been translated into 30 languages, as well as the book the Blue between sky and Water. Thank you very much, Susan.
- [52:43]
Susan Abulhawa
Thank you so much. It's an honor to speak with you, Ralph.
- [52:46]
Steve Skrovan
We've been speaking with Susan Albahawa. We will link to her work@ralphnaderradiohour.com now let's check in with our corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber.
- [52:55]
Russell Mokhiber
From the National Press building in Washington D.C. this is your corporate crime reporter Morning minute for Friday, September 5th, 2025. I'm Russell Mulkheimer. Kimberly Clark Corporation will pay up to $40 million to resolve a co a criminal charge relating to the company's sale of adultered micro cool surgical gowns. Federal officials said that Kimberly Clark betrayed the trust placed in it by consumers and health care providers when it chose to defraud the FDA and bring adulterated surgical gowns to market for its own financial gain. Federal officials alleged that a Kimberly Clark employee conducted fraudulent testing on Kimberly Clark's microcool gowns to avoid having to submit a pre market notification to the FDA after Kimberly Clark made a change to the gowns. A pre market notification is meant to show the FDA that a medical device is as safe and effective as an already legally marketed device. For the corporate crime reporter, I'm Russell Mulcyver.
- [53:55]
Steve Skrovan
Thank you, Russell. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. I'm Steve Scrovan along with David Feldman, Hannah and Ralph. Wow. Very powerful.
- [54:04]
Ralph Nader
You know, her people are being wiped out, you know. Yeah, yeah, look what's happening. They're even bombing in Rabala. Now this crazed guy in the west bank for Netanyahu, he sees the opportunity right now and you've got the kushners and the Trumps and everybody supporting it. You know, you got the president of the United States and the US Government, not just Israel. So, yes, it's horrifying thought if you're a Palestinian. Horrifying.
- [54:29]
Susan Abulhawa
Yeah.
- [54:30]
Ralph Nader
We're in the Nazi area. You had the US Trying to destroy Hitler, moving in to liberate the death camps. Yeah. In this situation, you got the US Enabling and weaponizing and protecting and immunizing. Imagine, imagine how they feel.
- [54:46]
Steve Skrovan
Yeah. People being sent to gulags who are protesting on campuses and calling it anti Semitism when some Jewish students have a hard time maybe getting into class, you know, it's unconscionable. So. Oh, here's the question I want to ask you, Ralph, because we've had a number of people push back against. When you say Hamas has motivation to keep the count low, we had Jeremy Scahill say that they would lose credibility if they did any more than what they could actually document. And I think for Rose Sidwa, I'm sure.
- [55:20]
Ralph Nader
I'm sure Hamas is worried about credibility in the Western world. So all I want Hamas to do is to go as far as Lancet, to go as far as a Scottish woman, to go as far as Doctors Without Borders, Feroz Sidhos. I mean, who's getting who? Under the cloak of being meticulous, they have put a ceiling on the death count that is 1/10 of the real death count. I don't give them pass for that.
- [55:44]
Steve Skrovan
But I think you can appreciate, Ralph, because even in your work over the years, you could never afford to misstate any anything. A corporation could lose its integrity every day of the week. But if you, as a consumer advocate, were factually wrong about something, then that would compromise everything else you're working for. So can you understand that the Gaza Health Ministry, which he distinguishes from Hamas, is not motivated? I mean, people in Gaza, they know that their families are dead. They know their family members are dead. The fact that the count is lower, I'm not sure that really is what would prevent them from abandoning Hamas. Does that make sense?
- [56:26]
Ralph Nader
Yeah. Well, no, it doesn't make sense because Hamas could stick to their total and still refer to Lancet, still refer to all these things and say we're not able to estimate the collateral effects of no food, medicine, health care, drugs, starvation. All we do are estimating the names we know that are killed by the bombs, and we know that there are tens of thousands killed by the bombs that are still under the rubble or they've been blown to bits and can't be identified. Is that too much to ask? Because they know they're being used by the Times and Post and Journal every day. You look at it today, anything, any article, it uses the Hamas figures as a maximum.
- [57:10]
Steve Skrovan
But if Hamas said anything other than that, they would be accused of lying. They'd say, prove it.
- [57:16]
Ralph Nader
No, they said, go to Lancet. You don't believe us, go to Lancet. Go to the head of the global health program in University of Edinburgh. You know, go to the CBC investigation. You know, that's what they do, what they do by keeping quiet. They allow the reporters and the columnists to use their figure as a maximum when they know full well it's extremely narrowly defined.
- [57:42]
Steve Skrovan
Yeah. I want to thank our guest again, Susan Albahawa. For those of you listening on the radio, that's our show. For you podcast listeners, stay tuned for some bonus material we call the Wrap up featuring Francesco de Santos with in.
- [57:54]
David Feldman
Case you haven't heard, join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.
- [58:00]
Ralph Nader
Thank you, everybody.
- [58:03]
Hannah Feldman
Stand up.
- [58:15]
John CrumShow
This is John CrumShow for KPFK Politics or Pedagogy. Please make your contribution online at kpfk.org I'm on the line with Alex Kenna. She's a mystery writer who is also an attorney. Welcome to Politics or Pedagogy.
- [58:30]
Alex Kenna
Thank you for having me.
- [58:31]
John CrumShow
Your practice of law informs your mystery writing. Tell us about how that works.
- [58:36]
Alex Kenna
I spent 10 years as a prosecutor in Los Angeles, first at the state level and then later at the federal level. I met all kinds of different characters in that world, police officers, lawyers, judges, all different types. And I've always loved mysteries and thrillers and, you know, criminal fiction. So I wanted to put them together and kind of rely on that, that background that I had. And then I guess on another level, as a trial lawyer, you're really a storyteller. You take the information that you have and you have to present that in a compelling way to 12 strangers, in a way that makes sense, in a way that's truthful, in a way that's engaging. So having that background really got me thinking about how to tell a good story and found ways to incorporate that into my murder mysteries.
- [59:23]
John CrumShow
Now, when you talk about murder mysteries, are these based on what occurred or your imagination?
- [59:28]
Alex Kenna
Oh, they're all imaginary. If there's any realism, it's just from existing in the criminal law sphere for a while. And my protagonist in both of my books is a former LAPD officer who later became a private eye. And when I was building her, I thought a lot about some really fabulous, tough, smart, amazing female police officers who I had worked with over the years. So certainly there's. I wasn't relying on any case facts, but just, you know, the experience that I. But just, you know, the experience that I had as a prosecutor definitely filtered in.