Working for Peace on Earth with Gregory Khalil

The war in Israel and Gaza has been one of the hardest news stories we’ve ever covered here on the show. Today, we’re talking with Gregroy Khalil of The Telos Group about what he sees in his work and the way forward to a future of true peace for a region long fraught with violence.

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:10] And this is Beth Silvers. Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.  

[00:00:33] Hi, we are sneaking into your feed with a bonus episode today. The war between Hamas and Israel has been one of the most difficult topics we've covered while making this show for a lot of reasons. Almost everyone has intense feelings about this war. And for many of you, those feelings come from very personal experiences and connections to people living right now in Israel or Gaza. As we thought about how to credibly share information and perspectives, we wanted to talk with Gregory Khalil, the co-founder of Telos. Telos has been working for peace for a long time now in the Middle East. And as we've tried to express in our conversations, our hearts desire peace.  

Sarah [00:01:12] We did this interview with Gregory right before Thanksgiving, and then quickly all of the circumstances on the ground changed. The first truce agreement between Israel and Hamas was announced and the first hostages were released. We, like so many of you, held our breaths through that period, hopeful that the cease fire would be extended, that humanitarian aid would arrive in Gaza and that all the hostages would be released. So we held the interviews as we quietly watched and waited. And the truce was extended for a time and humanitarian aid did arrive and some hostages were released, but that peace did not last. And today, the conflict persists at enormous human cost.  

Beth [00:01:47] If you've heard our interview with Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and our previous conversations, you know that we both are generally supportive of the administration's handling of this crisis. Gregory is an outspoken critic, and he will make his case in this conversation. We approach this discussion in a posture of deep listening. We respect Gregory's work and his thoughts, and we believe in sitting sometimes uncomfortably with perspectives that don't neatly align with our own. We find value in hearing from other people, and we try to always practice a posture of curiosity when we sit down with someone that we know sees things differently than we do.  

Sarah [00:02:23] So with that introduction and great appreciation and respect for Gregory, here's our conversation.  

[00:02:26] Music Interlude.  

Beth [00:02:43] Gregory, thank you so much for spending time with us. Today, we really just wanted to open up the floor for you to tell people who you are and about your organization and your work.  

Gregory Khalil [00:02:51] Thank you so much, Beth and Sarah, for welcoming me in. My name is Gregory Khalil. I am co-founder and President Telos. We're a peacemaking organization, an American nonprofit. And so our aim is to really unleash the power of more of us to confront injustice with an eye towards mutual flourishing, healing and repair. So we think those things are not mutually exclusive. They have to happen together, that we live in an unequal world with a lot of problems. We've got to confront it, be honest about it, but also work towards a repair. And the reason why I think you invited me on this conversation is one of the issues that we work on at my organization is America's relationship to Israel-Palestine. And I also happen to be a Palestinian-American. My father was a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem. My mom was a Danish American archaeologist, and I'm also a former negotiator. Lawyer. So long before our founding Telos in 2009, I was a legal advisor to the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, which is and was opposed to Hamas. And that was from 2004 to 2008, which is when Israel withdrew its settlements and its soldiers from the Gaza Strip, setting up the dynamic in part that you see today.  

[00:04:07] And so what we've been working for with respect to Israel-Palestine, is we've long felt that America's relationship has been highly problematic to be upfront. And you're either pro-Israel or pro-Palestine. And if you support Palestinians, Israel is this evil, terrible entity. If you support Israel, Palestinians are a bunch of terrorists. And what we've been working towards is trying to move past that false binary because America has been very much a key driver in our view of this conflict for many decades. And to try to get Americans and especially Americans of faith (it is the Holy Land after all) to support security not just for Israelis but for Palestinians, to dignity, freedom, equality, justice for everyone. We think that's possible still. And we think that Americans, because we're so involved, play a critical role in making that happen. So that's where I come from, what I do.  

Sarah [00:04:58] Well, and I think it's so hard because your sort of logical brain thinks, well, when the stakes get really high, people are motivated to seek all those values you just listed. And every time it's like I have to relearn, no, when the stakes get really high, people get really emotional. And that's sort of prioritization and analysis often falls by the wayside. So what are you finding with years and years of background, the reaction has been in these last several weeks. Are you seeing any sort of positive momentum? Are you seeing even a millimeter here or there? Or are you mostly seeing a lot of what we find in the post environment of a really terrible confluence of events like this?  

Gregory Khalil [00:05:54] Yeah. There's so much in that question to dig into, and I want to be transparent on a personal level upfront. First is that obviously I'm personally connected. Much of my family still lives in Bethlehem and it's a whole area where my dad was born and raised. I have hundreds of cousins there. They're fearing for their lives. My organization, one of the car key programs which no longer exists, is we used to take Americans over on these deep intensive pilgrimages, mission trips, if you will, exploring Israel in its full complexity. Because guess what? There's thousands of perspectives on Israel among Israelis, as well as Palestinians. And so we had a lot of partners on the ground in those villages near the Gaza Strip, some of whom lost their family members, one of whom was a peace activist who was murdered in her home. And we have a team on the ground who's living this in real time. And my grandmother came from Gaza. Her church was bombed a few weeks ago, the third oldest church in the world. And 11 members of her family, whom I did not personally know, were killed. So, I, my whole team, we have a stake in this fight. We come from different backgrounds on Israel-Palestine, on American politics, on progressive co-founder [inaudible] conservative, evangelical, Republican.  

[00:07:14] So we've got different dogs in this fight, but it's been extremely emotional and triggering for us. And I think the question you're asking is exactly the right question to ask. I'll tell you what's been helpful in this moment. As we've been living through the most difficult weeks of our lives, which don't compare to what Israelis and Palestinians and particularly Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing right now, what has been grounding is that we've been building these relationships and doing this work for so many years. And we understand that there is no good future for anyone in Israel-Palestine without a good future for everyone there. Human rights actually is security, and that's something I would love to unpack because so often, especially now we just come back to this wow, you just got to annihilate everyone, you've got to kill everyone. And humanity has been through this a few times before. And we've arrived at this lesson that actually, no, that might put you on top for a little while, but ultimately this undermines all our interests, including the short term victor. So that feels like a real theoretical point. But what's been grounding at this point in these past weeks, is that we've done so much work together. And some of these relations have been strained, but really so many people are stepping up through unimaginable grief, through their mourning. And they're coming together. They're saying, not in my name. Or you know what? There is a different way. And we recognize that our voices, they have power and agency. And things aren't shifting quickly enough, but we do see actual conversations beyond that emotional reaction happening.  

[00:08:48] Just one last thing. Sorry, Sarah, I do have to share in this moment, because I think this will be really helpful for your viewers aside from us. And that's how you may be personally navigating this or particularly in your communities. What I've seen is a lot of people are paying attention, but they're even scared to ask the question. If, I say something, my friend is going to go crazy. I don't know. But this feels like something big is happening and something really big is happening. That's the tension that I'm holding. I think none of our lives will ever be the same after this moment. This is a bigger moment than 9/11 potentially. We can unpack that later. But the point that I want to raise that I think may be very helpful for your viewers, is when you're talking to your Israeli/Palestinian friends, your Jewish, Muslim, Arab friends, they're experiencing real trauma now. And so there's a logical analysis to a situation where you can look at all the history and all of that. And then there's a trauma analysis. And the thing from trauma is trauma is never past. Trauma is present. And so if you're Jewish-- and I'm not Jewish, obviously, so forgive me if I'm overstepping my bounds here. But my experience has been that like for many of my Jewish friends, if not all of them, this is a point of actual trauma. October 7th, the horrific attacks by Hamas on October 7th were just horrible by any standard. But they also fit a long pattern that Jewish people have experienced for two millennia, (not just once) and most recently the Holocaust.  

[00:10:19] So a lot of people are seeing this through that lens of the Holocaust, like a real contemporary trauma. All these rockets falling down, they're feeling it. And for Palestinians right now, 1.5 million Gazans are displaced after, at the time of this recording, more than 40 days of bombing. Like Palestinians back in around Israel's founding in 1948, three quarters of the population (Palestinians and Christians) were displaced, never allowed to return to their homes. More than 500 villages destroyed. Eighty percent of Gaza's residents, people who live there, are Palestinian refugees or their descendants who come from lands in Israel. Many of the lands where the massacres on October seven took place. And so what you're seeing with your Palestinian and Arab and Muslim friends, is this feeling of historic trauma that's never been addressed, that was always contemporaneous. And it's happening right now. And so what many people need, one thing that you can do today is you can be a good friend. And when your friend is really suffering, you know what you need to do. You're not there to find solutions for them. You're there to be with them. You're there to listen. One of my favorite quotes from Paul Tillich, "Love's first act is to listen." And it's not the last act, but it's the first. People need to be heard. They need you to be present, they need you to be with them. And so that's a fundamental thing that we can do in this moment, which unfortunately is the beginning of a very, very long season for all of us.  

Beth [00:11:44] I want to go back to one of the first things that you said about America's role here. And if we think back to September, so pre October seven, and you're analyzing America's role in creating or fostering or facilitating the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and how you see that?  

Gregory Khalil [00:12:09] Sure. After Israel's founding, within 15 minutes, America was the first country to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. And for many people, this is an historic moment because, remember, the modern nation state of Israel was born in 1948. That's just three years after the end of World War Two. There's a lot of back story there. But three years after a genocide against the Jewish people, Israel as a modern Jewish state is born in this region called Palestine. Now, that set off a lot and a lot have been happening in the works for a number of decades there. Part of the issue was that there were people already living there: Muslim, Christian and Jewish. And many of those, as I just alluded to, were expelled or fled from their homes like we see happening today and never allowed to return. And there's a lot of complexity around the debate. But the very simple reality is that this new state of Israel was born and a number of people who were there, indigenous to the land, were displaced as Israel was born as a Jewish state in the birthplace of Judaism, in this area called Palestine. And when you're asking about America's role, America since then has sort of been tepid but has been increasingly bullish about its support of Israel. Now, what that means is not just when neighboring Arab states have attacked Israel. It doesn't mean just around the creation of the state of Israel. It means that Israel has often gone beyond sort of its bounds.  

[00:13:46] So 1967, there was another big war called the Six-Day War, by some the 1967 war. And then Israel to control or occupied with its military, the West Bank, the Syrian Golan Heights, the Sinai and the Gaza Strip. And this started this new area in U.S. Israel relations. Long story very short, is one of the things that Israel did is it started building settlements, Jewish only communities in these areas that it occupied after '67. International community said, wait a second. No, this is wrong. This is a war crime. Just after 1949, when the War of Independence ended, they said, "Hey, you got to let people go back to their homes." Which they didn't, but started building these communities. And the thing is that what's happened over these years is that these settlements have continued to mushroom and grow. And this idea of creating both an Israeli and Palestinian state, the two state solution in this land, this region once called Palestine, is becoming increasingly possible. Why? If Israel is building all of these Jewish only towns and communities in the place where the Palestinian state is going to be, how are you going to have a second state there? So America has been very, very sort of bullish with both Republican and Democratic administrations on protecting Israel. The rationale has been that Israel is this democracy in the Middle East. It's our ally. And I think behind that rationale is two things. One is geopolitical, which you see playing out today, and that is that the Middle East is this sort of cluster of proxy wars. The Middle East has all this oil. You want power in the world, you need oil or you need to control who gets oil. That's what we've seen over the last 150 years in the most simplistic terms in the Middle East. Is very, very strategic for several reasons, but primarily oil.  

[00:15:33] So there's been this geopolitical consideration and America has seen this affinity of values with Israel, but also this way of exerting influence in the broader region through partnerships with Israel and other countries. The second is electoral. So one of the reasons like why do we care so much about Israel? Why do we send them billions of dollars a year? Well, guess what? We are a democracy and our leaders, 90% of the time, are followers. And there are a lot of Americans who really deeply care about Israel. And so they're doing what every good member of a democracy should do, and that is they should put their money in their mouth around the issues that they care about. And so there's some segments of the Jewish community, not all. And so this is like a real important misnomer is that many people-- sometimes I see this increasingly post October 7th with this rise in anti-Semitism-- are just painting Jewish American Jews with one brush. And that's absolutely untrue. You see some of the most vibrant protests for ceasefire and for human rights and for the release of hostages coming from Jewish Americans. So this is not a monolithic community, and that's important to hold upfront. But some members of the Jewish community in America are organized around Israel, making sure that there's always this what they see as a safe haven for the Jewish people so that the Holocaust could never happen again. And they're joined by some other interests, which include predominantly evangelical Christians, which is a real interesting story and something I've done a lot of work on.  

[00:17:01] And evangelical Christians have been pretty supportive of Israel since day one, but not really politically. This started evolving with the rise of the Moral Majority, which I know you guys have talked about a little bit on your podcast before. But really what's interesting is it really vested in a political sense around September 11th. And so since September 11th, you've seen this massive sort of politicization of evangelical engagement on Israel. And so America has been taking this very one sided approach, always defending Israel, including its very like heinous actions like these settlements, which almost every nation agrees are war crimes over the decades and not not doing it. And the last footnote there to understand is just how deeply this has become part of our domestic discourse, is that more than 30 U.S. states now have legislation banning boycott, divestment or sanctions from Israel. So what that means is you could be like a schoolteacher, you could be a newspaper proprietor, you could have suffered a hurricane and want disaster relief, and you have to sign a pledge to keep your job or to get your disaster relief that you refuse to boycott, divest or sanction Israel. And the way those laws are defined, that even includes products coming from its illegal settlements in the West Bank.  

[00:18:24] Music Interlude.  

Beth [00:18:35] As you give us that history. I'm thinking about this piece from Matt Iglesias where he said we'd probably be better off-- and we meaning the Globe, as well as the people of both Israel and Palestine-- if Americans generally cared less about this region. I wonder if that strikes you as partially true. How does that hit you?  

Gregory Khalil [00:18:58] I think yes and no. So here's the moment we are at in the world. We are at a pivotal moment in the way that power is organized in the world, and it's all converging right now in Israel-Palestine. So I come from a progressive political background, and I might offend some other progressive friends in the comments that I'm going to say. But, look, we're entering an unknown right now. And so what I mean by that is so like, say, you look at October 7th and you have Hamas commits this terrorist attack that everyone I think should condemn. But Hamas is not just a Palestinian resistance movement. So some people view it through the lens of just settler colonialism. Gaza have been under a 16 year siege where stuff, people, and goods weren't getting out. That doesn't excuse what Hamas did. But what do you expect to happen when you lock up 2 million people, mostly children, for 16 years? They don't get enough food, water, medicine, and they're bombed six times. Nothing good is going to come from that. But Hamas is not just a resistance organization, not just a humanitarian organization of the people of Gaza, not just a terror organization, not just a governing organization, it's also a proxy for other regional and global powers. And so this is what is some of the analysis, which I think is wrong, by the way, that the Biden administration has been employing. And this gets to your question of should we leave this stuff alone?  

[00:20:26] So the Biden administration has been viewing this through this old school Soviet era paradigm of geopolitics. It's like Hamas is allied with Iran. China and Russia are backing Iran and Syria right now. And earlier this year, China did something it had never done before, which you may have missed. It brokered this historic deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Mortal enemies now coordinating, now organizing around the flow of oil and all of these things that took Israel and the US off guard. And not just because Iran and Saudi are coordinating, but China actually brokered this deal. And China has been making all of these investments all over the globe. Why this is important to understand is because the geopolitical calculation for Biden had been he'd been trying to push the Saudi-Israel normalization deal. Saudi, obviously, is where Mecca is. And if Saudi where all the main Islamic holy sites are, gets into a normalized relationship with Israel, the entire Middle East changes and Chinese and Russian influence is kept at bay over the Middle East and ultimately oil. So the point about we may have been better off, I think is true. And here's the problem with that. We live in a competitive world, right? So if we stayed out, other people would enter. I'm not a fan of the American empire at all. If you've spent any time outside of America in the global South, you know that we are viewed as the most violent country on the face of the planet because so many people have died because of our policies and faced deprivation. It's true that we've done a lot of good too. I'm not trying to take away from that. But what I am saying is that there is a problem with American empire. I don't know if it can ever be really benevolent. But the issue that we're facing now and everyone on this call is going to face, is after this period, we are already in a multi-polar world.  

[00:22:23] So Russia and China see new opportunity. The day before President Biden flew to Tel Aviv, Putin flew to Beijing. And they've been talking about this new multi-polar world. I think it's very likely that you will see activity on China, in Taiwan, all sorts of little things flare up around the world because Biden owned this. He didn't just support Israel, but he said this is our approach. Israel, no cease fire. Do whatever you want. No red lines. We are perceived throughout the entire world as this being our conflict and our response too. America has lost so much credibility in the world these past six weeks. I think it's immeasurable. And what this means is this is going to be not just a more dangerous world, but a more dangerous world for Americans. So when you ask that counterfact, well, what if America had never been involved? I think it's true that a lot of terrible things would not have happened. But I also think it's true that there are a lot of other bad actors there who would have been pushing equally, if not infinitely worse, terrible realities in the Middle East and other parts of the world. And so the challenge I think of this next decade is how do we actually bring back a robust vision of human rights to our politics here at home and to the world? We have this mantle of power. Even if people want to challenge us, our economy and our military is exponentially larger and more significant than anyone else's in the world. And so the challenge is how can we use this leverage or what people in my communities would call privilege? How can we leverage our privilege for good? That's got to be the challenge.  

Sarah [00:24:02] Well, and I'm wondering, as you speak to this long regional history-- because I think you're right. I think, first of all, we talk about Palestinians as if they all feel the same way. We talk about Israelis as if they are a monolith. And then we talk about like that's the only two parties involved in this conflict when the regional complexity is enormous. But I'm wondering, like as we talk about that long history, when you look back on your history and your work in the area as you are, I think, rightfully looking forward into the future, what feels familiar? What feels like this is what we've been dealing with, and then what feels like, like you said, this is sort of paradigm shifting, like everything is different. Is there anything familiar left in the conflict? Because I think when you were talking in the beginning about this is a security risk, you don't have to open many Israeli newspapers to read that exact perspective. This was a bargain we struck. It failed. It was a bad bargain. It didn't keep us safe with the Netanyahu government. I just wonder how much you see that is continuing on. Or are we in a completely new place and the paradigm has shifted.  

Gregory Khalil [00:25:21] It's both. And I'm going to explain very quickly. So the first thing is that all of this is on a loop and repeat and totally predictive. And I have to tell you, that's one thing that gives me hope. Why? Because if we predicted this, we know where this is headed. It's not rocket science how to get out. You stick your hand in a fire and it burns, don't stick your hand in the fire again. So this was predictable. And then two, what's new is more people are paying attention. More people are listening. And then the scary part of what's new is the geopolitical shifts and the realities on the ground. I mean, you're getting hundreds of genocide experts around the world saying, wait a second, this very well could be genocide or we're on the brink right now. Stop. And you have all these pyromaniac acts on the ground from Hamas to Netanyahu's government and the right who want to blow this up. And then you have the American U.S. administration that's like-- I'm sorry-- completely incompetent and working in these old world paradigms that don't apply anymore. First, let me just dissect a little bit about what is familiar, because this is part of my personal history and I have to share this with you because this will help you understand there are ways out. We all predicted exactly what you're seeing today. And not just a few months ago, but many years ago.  

[00:26:41] So the Gaza disengagement, Israel pulled out of Gaza 8000 settlers and all its military bases in 2005. I worked on that. I spent many weeks down in Gaza. And around this time, we were talking about something that you may have heard of today. What will the day after look like? So Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, this big Israeli hawk, he promoted this disengagement, this unilateral removal of settlers, very painful for Israeli society, from Gaza. He pushed it as sort of this big gesture towards peace. He said Yasser Arafat-- this was back in 2004; he was still alive. You're a partner for peace, but Israel has to look forward for its own interests. So we will pull out and then you make Gaza into Singapore and show us that you can live in peace. I think there's a lot problematic with that framing, but there was something else happening at the time. And in the plan itself, the plan called for an additional four settlements to be removed from the West Bank, but for the expansion of settlements in the rest of the West Bank, particularly around Jerusalem. So it was happening and criticized. It was like, okay, you're removing 8000 settlers from Gaza, 8000 Israeli civilians living in one of the most densely populated areas on Earth, who controlled 20% of the land, 700% more water per capita than a lot of their neighboring Palestinians, most of whom are refugees. And that took an incredible military force to protect. It was diplomatically costly to manage. So here you're removing these guys, but at the same time, the same year, you move 12,000 more into the West Bank and approve them to expand for 30,000 more settlers to come in. This was a real shell game. But what people spoke about it the day after and what I worked on, is we're like, okay, fine. Israel is actually removing settlements from Palestinian territory. We've got to make this work. We got to build momentum for peace at the time for a two state solution.  

[00:28:39] So Gaza has to succeed. So how can it succeed? We spent eight months negotiating a series of protocols called the Agreement on Movement and Access. It was negotiated. The Palestinian Authority, Israel, the US. Condoleezza Rice spent the last 24 hours straight on her laptop finishing this off. Britain was part of this, but it was the EU, the U.N. and Russia. This entity called the Quartet. And it said very clearly that Gaza, the day after Israel withdrew, needed the following things to succeed. It needed free access of movement and goods. Israel needed its security, and that free access of people, movement and goods looked like a connection to the West Bank for trade markets. It looked like access to international markets. Reopening the airport, which had been bombed by Israel pre 2004, the seaport, allowing people to fish. Gazans needed to be able to take care of themselves. And if that didn't happen, everyone said that Gaza would descend into humanitarian and political crisis, that Hamas would gain power and that you would see these regular skirmishes between militants in Gaza, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, whatever, and Israel. And what happened is instead of implementing these agreements, there are a lot of reasons for this. But the punch line is that Israel decided actually to seal Gaza off after Hamas came to power in 2007, and it started imposing this blockade. Now, who was saying this? It wasn't just me. I spent two years of my life talking about Gaza 2020, making the diplomatic rounds in Washington, all over the world, talking about both the opportunity and what would happen, what you're seeing today. I spent literally two years of my life talking about the scenario and warning that we had to make sure that Gazans had some control over their future. But what you saw happen is that there was a segment of the Israeli government who were following Ariel Sharon's footsteps. They wanted to use this as a shell game. And so his senior adviser at the time said that disengagement, this withdrawal, its intent was to permanently or indefinitely freeze any possibility of a Palestinian state. Why? Because if you have Gaza over here, kind of this mess under militant control, nobody's going to pressure you to create a two state solution, which would include Gaza and the West Bank. And then you can settle the West Bank.  

Sarah [00:31:05] Containment.  

Gregory Khalil [00:31:06] Exactly. And you know what Netanyahu's government said? This went all the way up to October six, including his minister, Smotrich, and other ministers, the finance minister. This is all public record. Netanyahu called Hamas control of Gaza a strategic asset and said the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank must be weakened and Hamas must be supported, again, for this reason of entrenching Israeli control in the West Bank. And so this is important when you're asking the question of what have we seen before? We've seen this all before. And anyone who's actually not worked in the slogans of like, "Oh, yeah, got to defend Israel. Palestinian freedom" all this stuff, but who's actually worked on the details, all of this is familiar. All of this was predicted. All of this is predictable, which means it can be avoided. But big difference now is the pyromaniac on the ground are in control. Hamas called the October 7th Al Aqsa Flood- after Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, and many to the right of Netanyahu, including some of the folks in his government, actually want this to explode. Why? Because then you get to get rid of as many Palestinians as possible and then you get control of the holy sites in Jerusalem. Al-Aqsa mosque sits atop the ruins of the second temple, where some-- not all, not most, but some far right extremists who now have power in the Israeli government, want to rebuild the temple. When Jerusalem explodes, this is when this goes completely out of control regionally and unfortunately, probably globally as well.  

[00:32:44] Music Interlude.  

Beth [00:33:03] In our last conversation about this, Sarah and I talked about how it will take more than just the leadership of Gaza and Israel to resolve this conflict because there are so many proxy fights in the Middle East. Because I think what you're describing is there have been factions for a long time that something about this conflict works for. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about outside of Israel and Gaza and the United States, who has this worked for? What are the interests of some of the Arab countries that need to be taken into account for a peaceful way forward here?  

Gregory Khalil [00:33:42] Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. So the Middle East right now, there's been a lot of talk about bringing democracy to the Middle East. We saw that in the first Gulf War. We saw it with Obama's outstretched hand to the Middle East. Those have all been empty words, empty rhetoric. So what in practice has worked for the West has been propping up essentially dictators who meet our interest for stability in the region. Now we can have a whole nother podcast.  

Sarah [00:34:13] Yeah, we're using work really loosely there. Has it worked? Is it working? I don't know.  

Gregory Khalil [00:34:19] Yeah. No. Well, in some ways it has worked. And that's what you were sort of suggesting. It's like, well, what do we measure working as? Is it just working sort of like a realization, like human rights and stability and democracy, or do we have other objectives here? And so if part of the objective was to make sure that the West has power and oil and all of these things that we need to maintain our life and our lifestyle, in some sense, it has worked. Look at our position in the world today. And so what I would argue is that I would argue that I think it's foolhardy to think this can work indefinitely. And I also don't think that these games that might makes right law of the jungle is the way that humanity needs to live. And I think that we can make appreciable differences in our lifetimes to a different way of governance, both here at home and around the world, that allows more people the agency and freedom that they need and deserve. Because I believe are all created equal, no matter who we are, where we're born. And that means something. So we got to fight for it. But so, yeah, you're right. If we all share that world view about the fundamental dignity of all human life, no, it's not working. But that's what you need to get at. I think a lot of times we overlook this analysis that you're asking about, Beth. And so I think that's something I encourage listeners to, whether it's in our personal lives, tell us for a peacemaking organization, we see peacemaking as both internal and external or it's these big foreign policy issues. The first question about these horrible things that we're shocked about is like, wait. How is this working? Who is this working for? And for a lot of parties right now, the Palestinian issue has been this thorn like Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, like Israel has the fourth most powerful army in the world. It's a tech hub. It's an innovator. It's connected economically. They want to just like integrate in this economic sense.  

[00:36:11] But the Palestinian issue is a thorn in the side. It prevents them from doing that. And so this analysis of what is working for whom is really, really critical. And sadly it takes us sometimes to really uncomfortable places. I'll use a very simple analogy. The immigration debate in America. Sorry to bring up another hot button issue, but one of the realities that we need to contend with is a lot of our economy actually depends on immigrant labor, and our lifestyles are dependent upon people not getting paid and with the same benefits and protections and money that American citizens get currently. And so that's a critical part of it that we have to acknowledge if we want to actually address this issue. Similarly, with Israel's closure of Gaza, people understood Hamas was not going to be a good actor. Long term, nobody was under those illusions. But how did Hamas get those weapons then? They didn't get them in through the checkpoints. Israel, along with Egypt support, controls every person drop of water good that goes in and out of Gaza. Except for the things that came through the tunnels. Why didn't they shut the tunnels down? Well, you shut the tunnels down, then you have to take all this responsibility over Gaza to make sure that these people have these basics that they didn't have before. So you're right. There are a lot of Arab countries, there are a lot of international players that have an interest. The one difference here, though, is that we as Americans have outsized influence there on the ground. We just approved $14.3 billion of additional aid in addition to the 3.8 billion that we send annually that President Obama approved.  

Sarah [00:37:52] Yeah. And I'm just wondering, it's so hard to see a path forward, especially with the Palestinian Authority. And then I think what's my responsibility? It's not like I'll be voting in any of those elections. It's not like I'm on a diplomatic mission to Israel or Palestine. And so I wonder how do you tell people, how would you tell our listeners to channel that heartbreak when we have our country plays an outsized role, but as individuals, we have such small powers of influence. I think your first answer about listening to anybody in your life, people with direct contact with this area of the world to listen. But let's say you don't have anybody in your life that has direct contact with this part of the globe, but who considers himself a peacemaker. How can they channel some of this grief they're feeling for this conflict?  

Gregory Khalil [00:38:41] I have a few ideas here. And push back, please. So first is you don't need to be an expert on Israel-Palestine. So free yourself of that responsibility. And you're getting a lot of input to speak up for this or that side, including from me on this podcast, because I'm going to ask you to do a couple of things, to be upfront. But what I want you to understand, first of all, is your connection. If you're not Israeli-Palestinian, if you're not Jewish, if you're not Arab, I want you to understand that this conflict is not half a world away. We've been part and party parcel of this conflict, along with a lot of other parties from the very beginning. And we just owned it. President Biden owned it. He flew there. He said, this is us. He defended Israeli intelligence even when there were indications that it was wrong. He's calling against a cease fire, despite 68% of Democrats calling for a cease fire. He has owned this and it's also affecting us on the global stage. I alluded to that earlier with the fact that the world will never be the same for Americans after this moment, but also domestically, electorally here at home. We're going to see so much increased polarization because of this. And I hate to say that, but this huge rise in anti-Semitism, which we have to confront as a Palestinian-American, I am not only appalled by anti-Semitism on its face because it's just one of the horrific racism that has persisted for millennia and society that we have to resist and hopefully vanquish, but I also realize that I believe that for Palestinians, our struggle is connected to the struggle for Jewish freedom, immigration against anti-Semitism as well. It's not only Jewish people who pay the costs of anti-Semitism. Sometimes that anti-Semitism is weaponized, and we pay that cost too. So we're going to see in every mosque, synagogue, church being divided.  

[00:40:40] The electoral map, you see so many young people, so many Arabs, Muslims are just refusing to vote for Biden in this next election. I don't know what's going to happen in a year. Electoral cycle changes very, very rapidly. But now it's like you've got like one former president being tried in court and many people want Biden to be tried in a different court for supporting genocide. That's where they are emotionally and intellectually. And so this is going to affect a lot of us, our lives going forward in very profound ways. So the first thing I would want to say is continue to listen. This is a story that's just beginning for many of you, but this story is going to go on and evolve in very unexpected ways and your attention is needed. So if you're not ready to speak, listen to your friends and listen to podcasts like this and keep paying attention. This is necessary. The thing about this world is it's not a question of whether we have influence. We all do. That's what it means to be alive. But how? The second to the bucket I would say is I think right now for listeners, I know this may sound controversial, but I want to make the case for ceasefire now. And first, what is ceasefire? Ceasefire is when both parties are going to agree to stop fighting. Hopefully, there'll be release of all the hostages or at least some. But the point is that we are on the brink of massive escalation right now. Already in Jerusalem's Old City, we're seeing some settler organizations try to take control of some Christian land in the Armenian quarter. And it's a complex situation. But when that heats up, there are bulldozers there, this has the risk of really becoming a religious conflict in a way that it never was before. And so that's when this goes out of control.  

[00:42:34] What we need now, a cease fire is not an end. It's not going to bring all the hostages home. It's not going to get rid of Hamas. It's not going to be a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis. It's not going to address the rebuilding of Gaza. What it is going to do is it's going to give us a chance to wisely consider how we deal with all these things rather than feeding this beast. Right now, this response is necessarily bringing our interests down. It's putting the world on the brink of massive potential conflagration. It's not making anyone safer. It's not bringing people home. And so what I want to say to you, is you don't have to have a position about Israelis and Palestinians. You can be way more sympathetic to Israelis or Palestinians. But as Americans, our voices matter. How do I know that Biden's electoral consideration? He's thinking in a match-up against Trump. He's got the progressives on his side. If you are progressive and you're concerned, speak up. Also, my progressive friends who were not quick to call out Hamas for what it did, I would invite you to do sort of a little bit more-- I think there's more than this paradigm of Hamas is only a resistance organization, as we talked about earlier. So I think there's some work to be done there as well. But Biden's presuming that we're all going to be on his side, that's not a fair presumption. So if you speak out now and if you speak out to your representatives and family members and people, that changes the calculation a little bit. But also, he's playing to this persuadable middle who tend to be in greater numbers, non-denominational Christians who tend to be in older generations hugely supportive of Israel and sometimes have these like end times theologies about Israel.  

[00:44:16] And so what I'm trying to say right now is that the thing that we need in this moment is wisdom. And to have wisdom, we need a break. It took us months, four months after 9/11 to make some disastrous errors and more than a year to go into Iraq. And now we know where that turned out. Thousands of American service dead, millions of civilians dead, trillions of dollars spent, and the Taliban back in power with American weapons in Afghanistan, right? Israel went right on October 7th and started responding immediately. Of course, there's an active threat happening that they have to stop. But the point is that these decisions were made without reflection. And so if you can do it, your voice has particular weight today. And that means calling for ceasefire. So make sure call for ceasefire now, release the hostages, all that. Your voice has power and people are listening. The last thing I would share, I have the very short favorite poem that I think really speaks to this moment and to so much of us, so much of the struggle that we're all fighting with, I think in this time and in others. It's from a Hafez 14th century Muslim poet. He says,  

The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck her head
When the moon hangs low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For all the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners. 


[00:45:51] I want to remind you, the most powerful thing, the most powerful human technology ever created is story. Story can destroy. When we tell stories about those evil people. As you hear people saying about Israelis and Jews and Palestinians and all these people, that is horrible. And we've all done it. I've done it myself to my political rivals, even though I've now formed an organization with a conservative Republican, evangelical Christian. We all do it. That's how we're wired. Our brain categorizes, but categorically story can liberate us too. When we turn towards each other, when we start listening, when we really turn away from these prophets of destruction, we're just trying to rationalize in these hard times somehow, like we're going to get safer by bombing each other and destroying each other's families and lives and bringing our country down. And all of these things that are just about more destruction while consolidating power for few. Story is a tool that can liberate us. And so if you're listening and you don't know a lot, pay attention to those stories that are trying to turn us towards each other. Pay attention to those stories. Offer stories. Ask questions. Don't just erase it and pretend it's all Kumbaya. And we just have to be like there's no point. But remember as you go forward, what you can do, you can pay attention and you can keep dropping keys. That is fundamental. That can help heal our nation and the world.  

Beth [00:47:23] I think that's a really nice place to leave it. Thank you so much, Gregory, for your time.  

Sarah [00:47:28] Keep dropping keys. I love that.  

Gregory Khalil [00:47:30] My pleasure.  

Beth [00:47:33] Thanks so much to Gregory for his time. Thanks to all of you for listening to this bonus episode. We will have some of our favorite episodes of the year playing for you until the New Year. And we'll see you back here to process the news together then. Until then, have the best holidays available to you.  

[00:47:47] Music Interlude.  

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. 

Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. 

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. 

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 

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