‘Israeli Society Has Become Completely Genocidal' - B'Tselem Head Yuli Novak
Zeteo
279,951 views Feb 2, 2026
Beyond Israelism with Simone Zimmerman
In this latest episode of Beyond Israelism, Simone Zimmerman sits down with Yuli Novak, Executive Director of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, and one of the most uncompromising dissident voices within Israel. Yuli reflects on her journey from an upbringing shaped by patriotism and belief in Israeli democracy to a painful reckoning with what she now calls an apartheid regime — and with the conditions that enabled mass complicity with genocide.
Yuli revisits her years leading Breaking the Silence — a group of former Israeli soldiers that documented abuses under occupation — which became the target of an all-out smear campaign involving government officials, mainstream media, legal harassment, and infiltration by right-wing groups. Today, as head of B’Tselem, Yuli explains why the organization chose to name Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide in its report ‘Our Genocide’.
Beyond Israelism with Simone Zimmerman is a provocative new video podcast series from Tikkun Olam Productions, the team behind the viral and award-winning 2023 film Israelism. In this series, Simone hosts bold and inspiring conversations that face, head on, the growing global reckoning with Zionism, the debates over Jewish identity, and the urgent struggle for Palestinian freedom.
CHAPTERS
00:00 - Opening montage
:40 - Intro
4:04 - B’Tselem
7:23 - Yuli’s upbringing in Israel
16:00 - Breaking the Silence
21:23 - Acknowledging apartheid
26:46 - Being targeted for speaking out
34:22 - The journey of anti-Zionism
39:45 - Yuli’s experience in South Africa
47:42 - ‘Our Genocide’
1:03:27 - Israeli society
1:08:15 - Where do we go from here?
This interview was published 10 days earlier on Zeteo.com. If you want early access to exclusive content and hard-hitting, independent journalism, subscribe on Substack here: https://zeteo.com/subscribe
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Transcript
Chapter 1: Opening montage
0:00It took me a long time to understand that I actually was born into apartheid in order to understand how Israelis got
0:088 secondsto where they are today which is in my view and it's painful to say it but a completely genocidal
0:1616 secondssociety. You have to understand how this blindness was [music] instilled into us from the day we were born. What we are calling on is a regime shift is [music]
0:2727 secondsto change the again the DNA the the fundamental elements of the political system we live under because we believe
0:3535 secondsit it [music] is one that that abuse human rights in its essence. Happy new year and welcome back to the Beyond Israelism podcast. I'm Simone Zimmerman.
0:4747 secondsThere's a lot I could say to introduce my conversation today with Julie Novak.
0:5151 secondsJulie is the executive director of Betellum, Israel's leading human rights organization and the first to label Israel's genocide as such. At a time
1:001 minutewhen so many Israelis have succumbed to fascism, Julie's courage and clarity stands out, and I see her as one of the country's most vital voices. Israeli
1:081 minute, 8 secondsdissident an essential part of my own journey out of Zionism. Though they are a tiny percentage of Israeli society,
1:151 minute, 15 secondsthey provoke incredible backlash from the mainstream because they call for a vision of life in that land beyond separation and domination.
1:231 minute, 23 secondsJulie and I discussed how growing up under apartheid shaped the limits of her political imagination.
1:291 minute, 29 secondsTo her, all of this is part of the story of how Israeli society became a genocidal society.
1:361 minute, 36 secondsJulie also used to run Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers who collect testimonies about the violence that the Israeli military carries out in the occupied territories.
1:461 minute, 46 secondsDuring her tenure there, Breaking the Silence was subject to a nationwide smear campaign that started in far-right organizations and was taken up by
1:541 minute, 54 secondsmainstream media and even the government. She wrote about that experience in a new memoir called Who Do You Think You Are? which is coming out
2:012 minutes, 1 secondin English later this year. We'll link to the pre-order page for the book in the show notes. For some context, Julie and I spoke just before the horrific
2:092 minutes, 9 secondsattack on the Hanukkah candle lighting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. As we've seen too many times, Israeli leaders and their allies again weaponize
2:172 minutes, 17 secondsthis tragic act of anti-Semitic violence to further demonize the Palestinian freedom movement and push for repressive measures that actually won't help keep
2:262 minutes, 26 secondsJewish communities around the world safer.
2:292 minutes, 29 secondsJulie and I have spoke about how the fear and racism and militarism in Israeli society have led Israelis to commit unspeakable crimes against
2:362 minutes, 36 secondsPalestinians and have condemned everyone in the region to a more unsafe and unstable future. Speaking of unsafe and
2:432 minutes, 43 secondsunstable, I couldn't introduce this episode without also mentioning another terrifying ripple of the genocide in Gaza, the US attack on Venezuela and the
2:522 minutes, 52 secondskidnapping of their president. It's an event that may seem unrelated, but is actually deeply connected.
2:582 minutes, 58 secondsI wanted to just quote directly from Palestinian-American legal scholar Nura Ericat who wrote on X this week. The
3:063 minutes, 6 secondsgutting of the most basic norms of international law to facilitate a genocide in Gaza has made possible the kidnapping of a sitting head of state
3:143 minutes, 14 secondsand the commandeering of a sovereign state and describing this as self-defense. The atrocities committed in Gaza cannot be contained, she wrote.
3:233 minutes, 23 secondsAnd it's really no surprise that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his allies are cheering this on and calling for Iran to be next on the list of regimes
3:313 minutes, 31 secondsthat the US goes after. Also, as many have noted, the lies and the spins that the administration is now using to
3:393 minutes, 39 secondsjustify an ICE agent murdering Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis has chilling echoes of the rhetoric that we regularly hear from the Israeli military when they
3:473 minutes, 47 secondskill innocent Palestinians in the West Bank. This is all part of the world that the genocide in Gaza has helped normalize.
3:553 minutes, 55 secondsI'm so grateful to voices like Julie who are unequivocal in insisting that there is a different way. I hope you find this conversation as impactful as I did.
Chapter 2: B’Tselem
4:054 minutes, 5 secondsHey Julie, welcome to Beyond Israelism. Hi Simon.
4:094 minutes, 9 secondsI'm really grateful to have you here right now because for me you both as an individual are a person who has taught me a lot and been a person I've looked
4:174 minutes, 17 secondsto and learned a lot from. You also are a representative of a community that I feel that I owe a lot to,
4:264 minutes, 26 secondswhich is the Israeli human rights community. And I've the two organizations that you have run have been very instrumental in my own journey
4:354 minutes, 35 secondsin this work. And so I'm really excited to kind of get to talk to you about your journey, learn a little bit more about your family and your family history. You
4:434 minutes, 43 secondsknow, for me, 2014 was kind of the moment that I stopped having any illusions that I could try to make
4:524 minutes, 52 secondschange within Zionist institutions and within the Zionist consensus. And I remember meeting Kagaya, the former
5:005 minutesexecutive director of Betelm when he came to the US on a tour to talk about Betelm's new report about uh the whitewash
5:095 minutes, 9 secondsprotocol. And I remember it was a very meaningful exchange for me
5:165 minutes, 16 secondsto learn about butelum took a new step in 2014 after that operation which was the tell me if I'm getting this
5:245 minutes, 24 secondscorrectly but basically Betellum decided not to submit its research to the Israeli to not file complaints anymore within the Israeli legal system.
5:355 minutes, 35 secondsYeah. It was around the same time. Yeah.
5:385 minutes, 38 secondsB oh maybe it was 2015 that that happened but basically the idea was that um no the decision was taken even before
5:455 minutes, 45 secondsthat so it wasn't following uh the campaign in 2014 but but it was before that
5:535 minutes, 53 secondsbut okay no no I mean yeah yeah feel free to say no I mean but Salem went through I guess
6:016 minutes, 1 secondyou know we're here talking about political journeys and individual go through political journeys and in that
6:096 minutes, 9 secondssense battelum is organization that way before I joined because I joined battelum only two and a half years ago
6:166 minutes, 16 seconds[gasps] but way before I looked from the side and said okay this is organization know how to change and and you're
6:236 minutes, 23 secondspointing on a moment that I also feel was critical in the organization development but also in our involvement
6:326 minutes, 32 secondsas a community the understanding that the Israeli system is completely
6:396 minutes, 39 secondsinvolved and and compromised is part of what we are struggling against and trying to fix things from within
6:486 minutes, 48 secondswon't going to work. We cannot count on the political system to correct itself because what we are struggling with lies
6:576 minutes, 57 secondsat its DNA. I think Betelm as an organization also understood that and and kind of decide no we're not going to play this game anymore. uh we're not
7:067 minutes, 6 secondsgoing to keep filing those complaints to the army to the like working within the Israeli legal system letting them have
7:147 minutes, 14 secondsthis kind of facade of legality and a morality while the outcome is actually
7:217 minutes, 21 secondscomplete impunity. What I'm what I'd love us to do is really I I hope I'm I'm hoping we can talk both about like what is it what has it meant for you to kind
Chapter 3: Yuli’s upbringing in Israel
7:297 minutes, 29 secondsof undergo that journey both within your society and what has it meant to you for you to
7:367 minutes, 36 secondsreally face and reckon with this system as an as an individual and as a as a human rights worker. So um or a human rights defender, right?
7:447 minutes, 44 secondsUm [clears throat]
7:457 minutes, 45 secondsso I actually do want to start with your upbringing. I just read your book, Who Do You Think You Are? this incredible journey that you underwent after kind of
7:547 minutes, 54 secondsafter your experience leading breaking the silence and all of the attacks that were levied against you guys uh during that time. And I think the reason your
8:028 minutes, 2 secondsbook spoke to me so much is because obviously these are the things that I think about. What are the stories that we're raised within that tell us who we are and how we how we are in the world
8:108 minutes, 10 secondsand and set the limits of our imagination. Right? So, I would love to ask you to start by telling me what are the stories that you were raised in.
8:218 minutes, 21 secondsI grew up in Israel, right? I was born in the early 80s and what I would describe as kind of liberal
8:318 minutes, 31 secondsum environment very the way I thought of it very patriotic
8:388 minutes, 38 secondsloving my country [snorts] also loving the land. I I I grew up really I was
8:468 minutes, 46 secondskind of a kid that really loved nature and love to be outside still till today.
8:528 minutes, 52 secondsSo I think I felt a real connection to the place I was growing in and also very Zionist quite leftist at least that's
9:019 minutes, 1 secondhow I used to thought of myself and I think I I of my family and of the environment I was in we [clears throat]
9:089 minutes, 8 secondscan and should talk about what this left meant back then and and how much of today I think of of of of what to be a
9:179 minutes, 17 secondsprogressive to be leftwing means but but back then that was the idea I think I grew up on a story that first of all
9:269 minutes, 26 secondsIsrael and the Israeli system is something good. It is basically what
9:329 minutes, 32 secondsbrought my grandparents or or allow them to continue living after surviving the Holocaust. That's from one side of the
9:419 minutes, 41 secondsfamily. the other side of the family. I have a grandmother who came to Israel in the 50s from Morocco with her mother and
9:499 minutes, 49 secondssister also from kind of Zionist motivations.
9:559 minutes, 55 secondsUm but for them Zionism was to get to the Holy Land and to kind of get to the
10:0210 minutes, 2 secondsplace the land of the Jews. First there was this ethos that I I I grew up upon which was basically again very positive.
10:1110 minutes, 11 secondsI'm smiling because I'm trying to get back there and today I I know a lot of things that I didn't know back then,
10:1710 minutes, 17 secondsright? About the things that you cannot see or you don't see or you're unable to see when you grow up within this kind of
10:2510 minutes, 25 secondsparadigm. Yeah. So, a lot of love to my country and also the ability to be very critical. So I I was growing up in the
10:3310 minutes, 33 seconds80s knowing that there is an occupation. H the occupation is somewhere behind the green line. Uh
10:4310 minutes, 43 secondsit is done by part of of our society which are basically the bad guys. Uh settlers, whatever you want to call
10:5210 minutes, 52 secondsthem, the right wing. And the notion was that we are in this what we need we're basically living under a just system
10:5910 minutes, 59 secondsthat need to be corrected. and the all all we need to do is some kind of minor corrections which is a legitimate
11:0811 minutes, 8 secondsuh internal discourse. Uh but basically we live in a democracy. I think I was holding this sentiment and with this
11:1511 minutes, 15 secondssentiment also joining the army when I was 18. Uh to be sincere without thinking about it too much. I mean it
11:2411 minutes, 24 secondswas just something that you do. I joined the army in the year 2000. So it was the the beginning of the of the second
11:3211 minutes, 32 secondsantifada and I even stayed some extra time. So I stayed I I I I was an
11:3911 minutes, 39 secondsofficer. I stayed I served five years in the army. So all the years of the second inif.
11:4511 minutes, 45 secondsYou wrote a lot in your book about your grandfather um who I believe Sab and and your Saba fought in 48,
11:5311 minutes, 53 secondsright? He came in the 30s actually with his parents from Poland and he joined
12:0012 minutesthe theel. So he fought in the militias against the British occupation.
12:0712 minutes, 7 secondsAnd what were the stories that you learned from him?
12:0912 minutes, 9 secondsFirst of all, I admired him always. He was a really very quiet man, very wise. Very very
12:1812 minutes, 18 secondswise. I think something about
12:2112 minutes, 21 seconds[sighs and gasps]
12:2312 minutes, 23 secondshow to struggle for something you believe in and take risks. So when we were young, he used to take us me and my
12:3212 minutes, 32 secondsbrothers kind of to to see the museum of the el and the lei and and and kind of the the Jewish militias that that fought
12:3912 minutes, 39 secondsthe British. And I I I remember I I really admired him because he was the kind of those stories again were part of
12:4712 minutes, 47 secondsthis bigger story of what enables life in Israel. I held myself not to say in
12:5512 minutes, 55 secondsIsrael Palestine because back then it wasn't Israel Palestine. It was just Israel as a child. You mean it was just Yeah. Yeah. Now just now I'm talking to
13:0313 minutes, 3 secondsyou and I want to say that what enabled us life in Israel Palestine but no that wasn't Israel Palestine. it was only Israel. So again, it's not it's not a
13:1213 minutes, 12 secondsnaive uh understanding of things. It was just sometimes very kind of I I I I I I
13:2013 minutes, 20 secondsreally was interested in that and learned a lot about it and yet the boundaries of the stories today know to
13:2613 minutes, 26 secondssay that were very um confined like like I I I could see something only within
13:3413 minutes, 34 secondsthese boundaries. But Selum's reports now talk about the Nakbas, talk about colonialism, all these things.
13:4013 minutes, 40 secondsWere those words that were at all in your consciousness?
13:4313 minutes, 43 secondsNo. No. Nakba. I don't think it's a word I heard before. I don't know.
13:5213 minutes, 52 secondsAs a teenager, I really cannot remember hearing the word knock by. might hurt it sometimes but
14:0014 minutesmaybe in the university and I think in my 20s and I think it was mostly because um there was this right-wing
14:0814 minutes, 8 secondsorganization IMU that came out with this pamphlet of Nakbaharta kind of attacking the concept of the Nakba I think that
14:1714 minutes, 17 secondswas the first time that I really kind of delve into the even the concept of Nagba no I was growing up in a first of
14:2614 minutes, 26 secondstotally Jewish society, right? Uh completely Jewish. Uh which is very common in Israel, right? We live in
14:3314 minutes, 33 secondsapid. It's not we we live in separate communities. So I never knew any Palestinians. You're calling it the
14:4214 minutes, 42 secondsNakba. And um it is true. I would call it the same. But but but learning about it as a child, it wasn't the Nagba, right?
14:5014 minutes, 50 secondsYeah.
14:5014 minutes, 50 secondsUm I mean it was it was the war of independence. smoked. That was the war
14:5814 minutes, 58 secondsof 1948 was for me growing up and probably the most again back then if I
15:0515 minutes, 5 secondsif I'm looking back the most just war that someone can think of and you know very well the narrative right the UN
15:1315 minutes, 13 secondsdecided to to divide the country and to split it in a fair way between Jews and
15:1915 minutes, 19 secondsArabs. The Jews accepted that the that offer, the Arabs didn't. They started a
15:2615 minutes, 26 secondswar and the rest is history. That was the really that was the story. I mean, I I I I almost want to apologize for it,
15:3415 minutes, 34 secondsbut I but I also don't want to apologize for it because you know what we're doing here, I guess, is kind of to track back
15:4115 minutes, 41 secondshow the system operates, right? and and it it is a sophisticated system that works on the
15:4915 minutes, 49 secondsmentality of the people under it. So so so yeah that's what it was. It wasn't the Nakba. It was the independent. This is the story that I was raised on.
15:5715 minutes, 57 secondsSo tell me about your decision to get involved with breaking the silence. H throughout my 20s something did happen
Chapter 4: Breaking the Silence
16:0516 minutes, 5 secondsto me and that was that I I was a student and for the first time
16:1316 minutes, 13 secondsin my life I joined demonstrations in the West Bank. So it was again the early 2000s um the separation wall was built
16:2316 minutes, 23 secondsback then and there were demonstrations every Friday against the wall. um
16:3016 minutes, 30 secondsPalestinians who the separation wall was was just put in place and was taking parts of of of of Palestinian land.
16:3816 minutes, 38 secondsRight? So there was demonstration. I'm saying was because today we don't see it anymore. This kind of uh popularizing
16:4516 minutes, 45 secondsbecause the the crackdown and the [gasps] oppression uh is is too much.
16:5116 minutes, 51 secondsAnd I have to say that I was curious. So I joined one of of of of this demonstration. I I remember the first
16:5916 minutes, 59 secondstime I went to Bin is a village the area of let's [snorts] say Ramala Modí I
17:0717 minutes, 7 secondsdon't know how in the center of the West Bank and then I I found myself very quickly like the demonstration started
17:1417 minutes, 14 secondsit was a very peaceful demonstration and then in kind of in a minute the Israeli army showed up they stood there and
17:2217 minutes, 22 secondsstart firing at us rubber bullets and and and gas grenade And I remember I was
17:2917 minutes, 29 secondsshocked because first of all the first time I'm standing in front of Israeli soldiers that are kind of pointing their
17:3717 minutes, 37 secondsgun at me. I'm like what? It's already a bit confusing. And but more than that I
17:4317 minutes, 43 secondssaid how come I mean there were children there the whole community was there women
17:5217 minutes, 52 secondshow come they are firing and for me that moment was the first crack like how come if I live in democracy how come this
18:0118 minutes, 1 secondscene is even possible and then I'm going back home in Tel Aviv and it's like life is usual like nothing happened
18:0918 minutes, 9 secondssaid okay that's how it goes. like every week and then I start visiting the West Bank more and more and seeing things
18:1818 minutes, 18 secondsthat I never saw before and felt first of all very angry and I felt that I have
18:2618 minutes, 26 secondsbeen lied to that there is a story and again I'm in my mid20s right after I was in the army it's after the second antif
18:3318 minutes, 33 secondsfather like I'm against the occupation but I don't know basic things about how this system of oppression works
18:4118 minutes, 41 secondsAnd towards the end of my uh 20s I I for me it was I think quite clear that okay that's something we should uh fight for.
18:5118 minutes, 51 secondsSo I joined Ber in the silence. I have to say that back then I was still quite naive about what we're doing and for me it was
18:5918 minutes, 59 secondsstill kind of let's correct the system my idea.
19:0219 minutes, 2 secondsSo you saw giving these testim like tell tell me about like you guys gave testimonies or collected testimonies right? Yeah, for me those testimonies of soldiers was the idea was very simple.
19:1219 minutes, 12 secondsWe will bring soldiers. They will expose the wrong of the occupation, right?
19:2019 minutes, 20 secondsWhat they did, what what they saw,
19:2119 minutes, 21 secondswhatever uh violations of human rights under the occupation, people will see it, understand it wrong, change their mind,
19:2919 minutes, 29 secondswe'll fix this policy, uh we'll make peace, everything will be fine. And then came 2014. And 2014 for me as well was a
19:3819 minutes, 38 secondsa crucial point. I saw something that I never saw before. Even though there were military operations before uh 2014, I
19:4719 minutes, 47 secondsrealized for the first time that what I'm seeing is actually a calculated and
19:5319 minutes, 53 secondssystematic strategy. Its results are not um kind of a diversion from from from
20:0020 minutesit. They are part of it and the results were horrific. those result what Israel called collateral damage were more than
20:1020 minutes, 10 seconds2,000 people that got killed during 50 days of of of of fighting and among them more than 500 children. So that was the
20:1920 minutes, 19 secondsfirst like understanding something systematic wrong. But I think more than that and maybe it relate to what you said before. [sighs and gasps]
20:2720 minutes, 27 secondsIt was the first time I felt this huge gap between me and my society because for me it was unbearable.
20:3620 minutes, 36 seconds[sighs]
20:3720 minutes, 37 secondsThe cost like the price tag of this fighting was unbearable. 500 children in
20:4320 minutes, 43 seconds50 days. And first life goes on and second people around me see that as kind of a
20:5220 minutes, 52 secondsreasonable necessary price tag for keeping us safe and I'm saying what
21:0121 minutes, 1 secondwhat kind of distorted world view base of values we we hold if
21:0821 minutes, 8 secondsthat is reasonable that didn't make sense everyone around me not not the people in breaking silence but my family, my friends,
21:1821 minutes, 18 secondsthe society I live in, for them it was uh it just made sense. You just said a bunch of things that like really struck me and resonated for me that I I want us to get into a little bit more together.
Chapter 5: Acknowledging apartheid
21:2821 minutes, 28 secondsI think this idea of like like the knowing and not knowing like there knowing that something is happening but not allowing yourself to actually really
21:3621 minutes, 36 secondssee it and face it fully seems to me like I can say as a person abroad watching Israeli society right now that question all the time like do people
21:4421 minutes, 44 secondsactually know what's going on? That's something people are asking me constantly.
21:4721 minutes, 47 secondsI'm glad you mentioned the fact that there were there were these military campaigns that had already happened and there was already a siege that was going on for
21:5421 minutes, 54 secondsmany years before 2014. And for me as well, it was really just the moment that I was paying the closest attention is
22:0122 minutes, 1 secondthe reason that it was such a breaking moment for me. I I think also just this idea of like I think it's important for us to kind of talk about 2014 and talk
22:0922 minutes, 9 secondsabout these all these moments because these to me are the building blocks for how we got to the moment that we're in
22:1522 minutes, 15 secondstoday where the idea of collateral damage, the idea of self-defense, the idea of this is what we have to do.
22:2322 minutes, 23 secondsThese are all the justifications that were in the water in Israeli society that has allowed them to turn a blind eye to a genocide, right?
22:3122 minutes, 31 secondsOr to take part in a genocide.
22:3322 minutes, 33 secondsAnd to take part in a genocide without Yeah. Yeah. I I completely agree. And I agree also that 2014 was a
22:4122 minutes, 41 secondsum a moment where again most people couldn't see it, but anyone who who was able to see that was a very extreme
22:5122 minutes, 51 secondsmoment. Not only Israel is accepted, but also the world accept it.
22:5522 minutes, 55 secondsI'm interested in kind of breaking down with you what are these kind of psychological justifications in Israeli society that say this is okay, this is not okay. There's a good Israel here,
23:0523 minutes, 5 secondsthere's a bad Israel here. And what you wrote about in the book was this idea that like giving public testimony about the West Bank was okay. But when you guys
23:1323 minutes, 13 secondspublished a report about 2014, that was a new crossing of the red line. And that is what led these fascist groups and the
23:2123 minutes, 21 secondsgovernment to kind of go after you and designate you guys as enemies of the state.
23:2523 minutes, 25 secondsThere was something different about 2014. Gaza is different also for Israel is Gaza is kind of always been first of
23:3223 minutes, 32 secondsall the ultimate other you know if we're talking about demonization of Palestinians. There is the general demonization of Palestinians and then
23:4023 minutes, 40 secondsthere is the specific deumanization of Palestinians in Gaza. And that's what I wrote about and and we were very well
23:4723 minutes, 47 secondsaware of in breaking the silence. The West Bank can be explained in the eyes of in the mindset of Israelis as this
23:5523 minutes, 55 secondssomething that the our problem are the settlers. We need to to to get the settlers out of the West Bank. Never
24:0324 minutes, 3 secondsmind that it's it's unrealistic. But if we get the settlers out of the West Bank, everything will be fine. We can
24:0924 minutes, 9 secondsmake peace. again in the eyes of this specific kind of part of Israeli society
24:1724 minutes, 17 secondslet's call them um liberal Zionist or they call themselves left Zionist left but whatever which I was part of right
24:2724 minutes, 27 secondsthat cannot work in Gaza because Gaza is not about at least since 2005 is not
24:3424 minutes, 34 secondsabout the settlements and in this Israeli mindset we left Gaza in 200 05
24:4124 minutes, 41 secondswe we we withdraw the settlements the the we took out all our civilians out of Gaza and and and something very bad is
24:5024 minutes, 50 secondsstill happening there. They are still hating us. Why is that? And and and then
24:5624 minutes, 56 secondsa war start again the 2014 again the mindset of Israel is it is a military campaign. It is a war that we have to do
25:0525 minutes, 5 secondsbecause you know what? We need to go back into this military and security mindset of Israelis.
25:1325 minutes, 13 secondsMost most of us grew up knowing that we are in zero sum game that in order to
25:2025 minutes, 20 secondskeep us safe, we have to the Palestinians, we have to keep the Palestinian down, right? And we can use
25:2825 minutes, 28 secondsdifferent means to do that. They are firing rockets. we need to go in and fight every few years. The military expression for that was mowing the
25:3725 minutes, 37 secondsgrass, right? For Israelis to come and say there is a problem with the way we fought in Gaza or the the fighting
25:4525 minutes, 45 secondsitself in Gaza, that is something that was completely kind of what are you doing? I mean, even for the leftist, it
25:5525 minutes, 55 secondswas something that no, no, no, don't touch it. We worked tirelessly on on collecting testimonies from soldiers who
26:0226 minutes, 2 secondstook part in that campaign. And it took us a few months to to to to publish a report about it. And before we published
26:1026 minutes, 10 secondsa report, I remember my father came to me and said, "You are doing such a good work in the West Bank. Why do you need to touch Gaza? Leave it. Live it." But
26:1926 minutes, 19 secondsthe apartheid mindset is the is really to kind of hold within you the partition of the space. So the West Bank is one thing. Gaza is another story. What?
26:3026 minutes, 30 secondsThere is no the fact that there are Palestinians there and there. Okay. What? [gasps]
26:3626 minutes, 36 secondsYeah. And I think we touched a very kind of exposed nerve there within Israeli society which uh the response was very harsh.
Chapter 6: Being targeted for speaking out
26:4726 minutes, 47 secondsSo tell me about the response.
26:5026 minutes, 50 secondsLooking back, I think today I understand it as actually the first major crackdown on civil society and human rights
26:5926 minutes, 59 secondsorganization in Israel. So it was mid 2015. First of all, it was very scary because
27:0727 minutes, 7 secondsit started very fast and very I would say holistic. In one moment all the kind
27:1527 minutes, 15 secondsof um elements of the state was it felt like that are turning against us us back
27:2427 minutes, 24 secondsthen breaking the silence but human rights organizations in general.
27:2727 minutes, 27 secondsYou were by the way an organization of 15 people right back then. Yeah. You were a tiny group of people.
27:3327 minutes, 33 seconds15 people. I was the oldest. I was I think 32 or something [laughter] like that and I was the oldest person in the
27:4027 minutes, 40 secondsorganization. Right. So, so not only 15 pe 15 kids, come on. Like [gasps] most of us were in our 20s. Campaign started
27:4827 minutes, 48 secondsh it started from the political kind of level. The prime minister himself took part in it. Ministers, attacking us,
27:5927 minutes, 59 secondsslurring us, um accusing us for countless things that were the vast
28:0628 minutes, 6 secondsmajority of them weren't true. basically put on us kind of the the the the
28:1328 minutes, 13 secondsmarking us as the ultimate traitors that came from the political spectrum and and and the Israeli media caught it
28:2028 minutes, 20 secondsimmediately. There were few legal cases that were brought against us. Um the
28:2628 minutes, 26 secondsincitement was really [snorts] it was just insane and you know you you get it all at once. So you you see your face on
28:3428 minutes, 34 secondsTV, on social media. We're talking about 2015. It was all over Facebook. Really harsh incitement that all also got to
28:4328 minutes, 43 secondsour private lives. You guys had a a right-wing organization planted moles inside of your organization and had
28:5228 minutes, 52 secondspeople recording you in your meetings pretending to be one of your own,
28:5628 minutes, 56 secondssomeone that you loved and cared for very dearly.
28:5928 minutes, 59 secondsYeah. who was recording you and they did this in a bunch of other human rights organizations also and then published basically tried to tried to entrap you
29:0829 minutes, 8 secondsguys and entrap you as uh people doing espionage right yeah yeah definitely so
29:1729 minutes, 17 secondsand that actually you know all this attack became very personal it was scary to walk on the street by the way the
29:2429 minutes, 24 secondsmost um damaging thing that they succeeded in doing in in in real life was regarding
29:3329 minutes, 33 secondsBalem and not breaking the silence and that resulted in the arrest of of of few of our colleagues for actually for
29:4229 minutes, 42 secondsalmost two weeks under kind of security charges, right? So, so and in a trial that kept going until it ended with
29:5129 minutes, 51 secondsnothing. One of the one of the of the of the of the the most troubling outcome personally to me was the fact that that
29:5829 minutes, 58 secondsthey really succeeded in instill within us this deep feeling of paranoia. the fact that you cannot really know who to
30:0730 minutes, 7 secondstrust and these were horrible horrible days because you know the occupation keeps going the violence against
30:1530 minutes, 15 secondsPalestinian keeps going and we have to deal first of all with ourselves that's already felt terrible but also with this
30:2430 minutes, 24 secondskind of you don't know who you can trust anymore I mean people I worked with are now turning against me and and and I
30:3230 minutes, 32 secondsremember those moment in breaking silence when we're sitting there and people are looking at each other and I
30:4030 minutes, 40 secondssaw I saw the mistrust. Now it's people that struggle together, right? You are
30:4630 minutes, 46 secondssupposed to have trust on each other. I have to say that it was really harsh. I think that looking back I'm also trying
30:5630 minutes, 56 secondsto say but almost grateful for that experience because if until then I still
31:0331 minutes, 3 secondshad this kind of illusion that I living within um and I'm smiling because it's hard for me
31:1131 minutes, 11 secondsto say it today but within a democratic place [gasps]
31:1731 minutes, 17 secondsand it's funny to say it because you know today it's how come I mean I left I I lived under apartheide all all my
31:2431 minutes, 24 secondslife. But anyway, that was the moment where I think it was it it was clear to me that now if if a system can turn so
31:3231 minutes, 32 secondsquickly, all these systems are supposed to protect us, right? We are [gasps]
31:3731 minutes, 37 secondsI mean the legal system, the the the police, the the the media can turn on us so quickly. I think that
31:4731 minutes, 47 secondswas a moment of of of profound understanding that I'm not in Kansas anymore.
31:5231 minutes, 52 secondsAnd that kind of pushed me to start a journey um to understand what it is. If it's not a democracy, democracy, so what it is, I think listening to you,
32:0232 minutes, 2 secondssomething that also really strikes me is that I know what you guys were saying at the time to defend yourselves. Like you guys were really doubling down on
32:1132 minutes, 11 secondsyour patriotism, your commitment to this country, to this system, to making it better. and re it really struck me reading your book the way you wrote
32:1932 minutes, 19 secondsabout like the more I tried to like reaffirm my commitment to the system the more I tried to make that distinction between Israel and the occupation the
32:2732 minutes, 27 secondsmore Israel said to me no Israel is the occupation and you are a dissident you are a traitor you're outside the system
32:3532 minutes, 35 secondsright right so I think these were the days where the first days where I started to think about the Israeli system as a regime,
32:4732 minutes, 47 secondsnot as a state, not only as a as a mechanism and not as a government and not as a state with occupation,
32:5632 minutes, 56 secondsbut as a regime of occupation. And also,
33:0133 minutes, 1 secondyeah, you know, I'm I don't want to say ashamed, but but but I see the um how
33:0833 minutes, 8 secondsuncorren it was to try to fight this with this uh patriotic of no,
33:1633 minutes, 16 secondsno, no, we're the good guys. We served in the army. How come you were attacking us? I mean [gasps]
33:2333 minutes, 23 secondsagain back then it was very frightening that this fear was uh just a fear of of kind of
33:3233 minutes, 32 secondsrevealing something profound about my society about who we are um that I really didn't want to see. It was to
33:4133 minutes, 41 secondsrealize that it not it is not the legitimate Israel and then the occupation that is illegitimate
33:5033 minutes, 50 secondsbut that I I'm truly part of something that is deeply wrong
33:5833 minutes, 58 secondsand that is again very personal because you know you you start by asking me about the story I grew up upon
34:0834 minutes, 8 secondsthat was me I And Zionism in that sense was me to be patriotic and and to love
34:1434 minutes, 14 secondsIsrael was part of who I am. It completely didn't make sense anymore.
34:2134 minutes, 21 secondsI am going to read I do have to read just one line from the book that I just I thought was really beautiful and it's exactly what you're talking about right
Chapter 7: The journey of anti-Zionism
34:2834 minutes, 28 secondsnow, which is that in all of my years of resistance, I couldn't fathom that just beyond the turn, a step beyond the wall,
34:3534 minutes, 35 secondslay the potential for my liberation.
34:3734 minutes, 37 secondsNo one leaps into this liberating abyss with a smile on their face. It's always with terror in their eyes. Then I'm going to skip ahead. You wrote again,
34:4634 minutes, 46 seconds"This story could no longer keep me safe. I was shoved over the edge beyond the dream, beyond who I was. And here I am, the one who excelled at this game,
34:5834 minutes, 58 secondsfollowed the rules that they set, did whatever it took to prove my loyalty and love for this country. I became a
35:0535 minutes, 5 secondsdissident." You know, your book is about basically running away from Israel after this experience and having to kind of go
35:1235 minutes, 12 secondsout and process the trauma of becoming public enemy number one in your own country.
35:1935 minutes, 19 secondsAnd what I can feel sitting here with you right now is actually a
35:2635 minutes, 26 secondslike a rootedness in the honesty of facing this thing fully and not having to make excuses or justifications and holding on to contradictions. It's like
35:3435 minutes, 34 secondsI can feel I don't know if it feels that way for you but that's Yes, it does. And you know I I'm this
35:4235 minutes, 42 secondsbook was written quite a long time ago and I mean back then in days and I'm thinking about it now I'm quite happy I
35:4935 minutes, 49 secondsI I wrote it because you know I'm not there anymore. I mean today I'm holding this
35:5635 minutes, 56 secondsum dissident identity is first of all it's natural to me now
36:0536 minutes, 5 secondsit's obvious that what I'm doing and and and I wake up every morning resisting the Israeli regime that's my identity
36:1436 minutes, 14 secondstoday there was a moment where this new identity of of of a dissident was a very
36:2136 minutes, 21 secondsfrightening one And I think that's a moment where really you need to let go of something
36:2936 minutes, 29 secondsthat you thought you were. Again, only a story and a very very manipulative story. I have to say, yeah, I'm quite
36:3836 minutes, 38 secondshappy I catch that moment because today I don't feel anymore these fears and and and and anxiety about walking away from death. [sighs and gasps]
36:5036 minutes, 50 secondsBut but it's important to remember that most people don't walk away and I remember for myself like I did not I did not walk away from my own Zionism
36:5836 minutes, 58 secondswillingly. And I think most people think people who are still struggling and see those of us who are quite confident and
37:0537 minutes, 5 secondsrooted in the positions that we're taking think that it was like an easy thing to walk over here. More than that,
37:1237 minutes, 12 secondsI think many of us that are already there lose the ability to we lose patience for people who haven't done
37:2037 minutes, 20 secondsthis journey, you know, and it is a journey and you go through phases and then there is the face of the anger and
37:2937 minutes, 29 secondsthen the the the the guilt and then I mean you're going through things, right?
37:3437 minutes, 34 secondsThe last thing you want is is is to go back there. And everyone were still stuck there. Sometimes we tend to be
37:4437 minutes, 44 secondskind of dismissive and and and and to not remember how it is. Now again, it
37:5137 minutes, 51 secondsis complicated because I I also don't want to go there. I don't want to and I don't want to free anyone from the
37:5837 minutes, 58 secondsresponsibility to walk this path. But I think it's also important to acknowledge
38:0638 minutes, 6 secondshow strong and sophisticated political systems like this are and
38:1538 minutes, 15 secondsparadigms like this are. You know, I I also I think I I write about it in the book and I use this examples from time
38:2538 minutes, 25 secondsto time that I was also born to be an heterosexual woman. Nobody told me that
38:3238 minutes, 32 secondsthat's a paradigm. It's something that you just born into. I usually say it's like a glasses that you put on your eyes and and and you don't even aware that
38:4138 minutes, 41 secondsthey are there but they are kind of limiting the what you can see and you are not aware that there there are
38:4838 minutes, 48 secondsthings beyond that. So I was born to be a heterosexual woman and I had to curve my way out of this identity and it took
38:5838 minutes, 58 secondsme 25 years to do so. and to really and and it was scary. That was scary. And
39:0639 minutes, 6 secondsfor many many queer people that I know maybe today less than than than decades ago, but but in my age it was scary to get out of this paradigm.
39:1739 minutes, 17 secondsSo again it is different but the personal experience I think is is is a bit alike because Zionism is also a
39:2539 minutes, 25 secondsparadigm and also kind of this story um is who you are and then you know you ask
39:3339 minutes, 33 secondsyourself what am I if I'm not that what is waiting for me outside who is waiting for me outside what am I going to lose
39:4339 minutes, 43 secondsthe optimistic part is is is the end of what you read once Once you over, you can breathe. I really appreciate you
Chapter 8: Yuli’s experience in South Africa
39:5139 minutes, 51 secondslike saying all this and I'm I'm totally here with you. The stories the the the stories that justify are much louder and
39:5939 minutes, 59 secondsmuch more aggressive while the reality that we can see is also much more blatant and in our faces. It's sometimes hard to explain to people who didn't
40:0740 minutes, 7 secondsgrow up in those systems like what what those blocks are to to people actually like seeing the reality fully. In our
40:1540 minutes, 15 secondscase, you know, it took me a long time to understand that I actually was born into apartheid. It's a very specific and very sophisticated kind of political
40:2440 minutes, 24 secondsmachinery that really kind of capture and and design your mentality uh in a
40:3140 minutes, 31 secondsway. And for me, in order to understand that, I had to go very far away. I found
40:3940 minutes, 39 secondsa way out of it. what I would call maybe today I would say my
40:4640 minutes, 46 secondsjourney to unlearn Zionism started not in in Palestine not not not
40:5340 minutes, 53 secondsnot in Israel Palestine but in South Africa I got there after I finished I I I I I
41:0241 minutes, 2 secondsfinished my uh position in in breaking the silence I I I told you I was completely burned out. I felt like I I I
41:1141 minutes, 11 secondshad to go away and also to try and make sense of these contradictions that that I lived in. And when I got to South
41:2041 minutes, 20 secondsAfrica, I found myself very much kind of attracted kind of pulled by the
41:2841 minutes, 28 secondsAfricaners there, the white South Africans who were the one who held the
41:3541 minutes, 35 secondsapartheite regime for 50 years. I immediately felt something very very
41:4141 minutes, 41 secondsfamiliar when I met them and only there I was able to understand something very
41:4841 minutes, 48 secondsdeep about apartheid and the way it works on the mind not only of its subjects that are the victims that are
41:5641 minutes, 56 secondsconsidered the non-human the lesser human whatever but also of apartheite there's a system
42:0542 minutes, 5 secondsthat works on the mind of the people that are marked as the superior group.
42:1142 minutes, 11 secondsYou know, I met people in South Africa who told me they told me that during the 70s and the 80s when apartheid was at
42:1842 minutes, 18 secondsits peak, they were sure they were the only democracy in Africa.
42:2442 minutes, 24 secondsNow [sighs] you're smiling and I remember I was also smiling because that's you know I I I know that
42:3442 minutes, 34 secondsright [clears throat] we are the only democracy in the Middle East and I start to ask myself how come I mean when you look sometimes you need to look far in
42:4242 minutes, 42 secondsorder to understand something about yourself and understood that this system works very much with this blindness. It
42:5142 minutes, 51 secondscreate the space in a way and and and kind of shape the uh demographically shape the space in a way that really
43:0143 minutes, 1 secondenables you to believe that you live in democracy. Now it's very easy to have a democracy when you kind of split the the area in a way that is comfortable.
43:1343 minutes, 13 secondsDecide who will be a citizens citizen who will not. install immigration rules
43:1943 minutes, 19 secondsthat enable people to immigrate in um and and we can go on and in that sense
43:2643 minutes, 26 secondsthat's exactly you know the that the mindset that I grew up in but there was something else about South Africa and
43:3443 minutes, 34 secondsthe apart there and that has to do with militarism chauvinism and this basic
43:4243 minutes, 42 secondsnotion and idea that the only way to keep ourself safe is to keep fighting.
43:5143 minutes, 51 secondsAnd you know, just like in South Africa,
43:5443 minutes, 54 secondsthere was a mandatory military service that every white dude had to go when they were 18 and they had
44:0344 minutes, 3 secondstons of wars with all the countries around. I said, "No, this is too familiar." And again, not because of the
44:1144 minutes, 11 secondsof kind of historic details. There are tons of differences between Israel and and and South Africa and the
44:1844 minutes, 18 secondsIsraeli aparttheid and the South African apartheid. But there is something about how this system works with fear and
44:2644 minutes, 26 secondsblindness and can convince you that that's right that is the the the the right and the just and the and the moral
44:3444 minutes, 34 secondsthing to do is to fight for your countries to oppress other people. That is the only way you can keep yourself safe. I I think in order to understand
44:4344 minutes, 43 secondshow Israelis got to where they are today,
44:4944 minutes, 49 secondswhich is in my view, and it's painful to say it, but a completely genocidal society. You have to understand this
44:5744 minutes, 57 secondsbackground. You have to understand how this blindness was instilled into us from the day we were born. Look, I want
45:0645 minutes, 6 secondsto talk about the genocide report and I want to talk about the work, but I I think for me there was something about what you did that felt very life
45:1345 minutes, 13 secondsaffirming for me was the the kind of act of putting your full self into the story and kind of
45:2145 minutes, 21 secondswrestling with like you as a political actor and you as a a person inside of a system and then also really allowing the fullness of your
45:2945 minutes, 29 secondsyour family story, your personal journey to really kind of like spill out on the page. age and and be messy and wrestle with that.
45:3745 minutes, 37 secondsJust just to say one thing, I don't think I allowed myself to do anything. I don't think I had any other choice. I
45:4445 minutes, 44 secondsmean, you know, it has to do with what and and and maybe it's also can can has has to do with something that
45:5145 minutes, 51 secondswhat we expect from people now. I think what I see at least in around me in Israel is many people [clears throat]
45:5745 minutes, 57 secondsare being pushed by this moment to kind of over this barrier because reality is so unbearable.
46:0846 minutes, 8 secondsIf you keep these previous assumptions,
46:1146 minutes, 11 secondsthese previous as long as you live within this story that we're good, they are the bad guys that it just crush with reality. So, so,
46:2446 minutes, 24 secondsso for me it happened in 2015. For you,
46:2646 minutes, 26 secondsit happened in in in in in different times. But once you're
46:3246 minutes, 32 secondsbeing pushed there, I mean, what else would you do except continue walking,
46:3746 minutes, 37 secondsright? It's it's like you have to go through it. It's um and and and I see people now facing the
46:4546 minutes, 45 secondsgenocide, seeing something that in a way they are being pushed much harder and in much more violent way than we were.
46:5446 minutes, 54 secondsThere is a genocide taking place and Israel is conducting the genocide and Israelis are doing that.
47:0347 minutes, 3 secondsNot the settlers, not something far away. People are are need very fast to go through a very harsh political journey. Yeah. [snorts]
47:1447 minutes, 14 secondsAcknowledging the wrongs of Zionism is one thing. acknowledging the fact
47:2147 minutes, 21 secondsthat Israel is a genocidal society and that the Israeli system is a genocidal one.
47:3047 minutes, 30 secondsIt's it's it's harsher, right? No, I I'm I I I want everyone to go there, but I just know how devastating it is.
Chapter 9: ‘Our Genocide’
47:4247 minutes, 42 secondsSo, let's start with the name of the report. Mhm. Our genocide. Yeah.
47:5047 minutes, 50 secondsStrange name, huh? Yeah, but tell me is quite unique in the sense that we are an Israeli organization, but we are Israelis and Palestinians who are
47:5947 minutes, 59 secondsworking together and struggling together to bring upon a fundamental political change. What we are calling on is a
48:0748 minutes, 7 secondsregime shift is to change the again the DNA the the fundamental elements of the political system we live under because
48:1548 minutes, 15 secondswe believe it it is one that that abuse human rights in its essence. Genocide is
48:2248 minutes, 22 secondsan intentional act uh that is aimed to destroy a group that is done by um governing
48:3248 minutes, 32 secondsa force right. It can use different tactics, different mode of actions but but the ultimate goal is not necessarily to kill each and every person within
48:4148 minutes, 41 secondsthis group but to destroy the group as such to make the group disappear. In order to do so, you have to dehumanize
48:4948 minutes, 49 secondsthe people in this group because genocide is never something that is being done by a small group of people or
48:5748 minutes, 57 secondsjust it is always something that is done with the cooperation usually support of of the entire
49:0549 minutes, 5 secondssociety. Maybe part of it is also turning a blind eye but with the support of of of of entire people. In order to
49:1249 minutes, 12 secondsdo that, you have to dehumanize the the group that you you attack. But Selum is not the first group to use this word.
49:2149 minutes, 21 secondsNo.
49:2249 minutes, 22 secondsUm, but Selum actually in terms of the human rights community was actually quite late, right, in comparison to first of all Palestinian organizations
49:3049 minutes, 30 secondsand many genocide scholars around the world who were kind of coming out and using that word. I'm curious what you saw as
49:3849 minutes, 38 secondsthe specific role of Betalam in terms of contributing to this conversation. First of all, you're absolutely right.
49:4649 minutes, 46 secondsWe only came out with this report uh this July, right? and and of course Palestinians were saying it from the first day of the attack and and human
49:5549 minutes, 55 secondsrights organization, UN institutions already identified as genocide and also wrote some really profound
50:0250 minutes, 2 secondsinvestigations and report analyzing the situation both on the legal terms and and and otherwise. Part of what took us
50:1150 minutes, 11 secondstime is not to realize that we are facing genocide. I think that all of us understood quite early in the process.
50:1850 minutes, 18 secondsWhat took us time is exactly that is to understand what is our role as an Israeli organization in the face of genocide. I would never thought I would
50:2750 minutes, 27 secondsf like this position to ask myself what do I do in the face of genocide. We had the ability to just come out and say
50:3450 minutes, 34 secondsit's a genocide. We thought that it be it would be unwise for two reasons.
50:4050 minutes, 40 secondsFirst it would be very risky not for the only for the organizations but also again we are organization of Israelis
50:4850 minutes, 48 secondsand Palestinians who are working together. We have in our team Palestinians from the West Bank, from Gaza, from Jerusalem and from within
50:5650 minutes, 56 secondsIsrael and we knew it's going to put them and us in risks. So we had to do
51:0251 minutes, 2 secondsthe kind of legal um security groundwork in order to ensure our
51:1051 minutes, 10 secondsability to go out but also the conceptual work and to really understand what we're coming with and and to know
51:2051 minutes, 20 secondsthat we're coming out with something that will benefit struggle. None of us thought that the moment Betellum will stand will stand up and say it's a
51:2751 minutes, 27 secondsgenocide the genocide will stop. And here I come to the name. I think what what we understood we could do throughout conversation and and and and
51:3651 minutes, 36 secondsreally trying to to work together in that sense Jews and Palestinians from all around is to tell the story of this specific genocide which is our genocide.
51:4951 minutes, 49 secondsOur because we are the people of that land. And a genocide is something being committed on the Palestinian of of Gaza.
51:5751 minutes, 57 secondsand it it is oriented and directed to erase the Palestinians of Gaza. But
52:0452 minutes, 4 secondsgenocide as as a as a phenomena of political violence also has this characteristic that it works to
52:1252 minutes, 12 secondserase humanity. humanity itself, the notion of human beings because it has to
52:2052 minutes, 20 secondsto do with dehumanization, with making people believe that a group doesn't have a right to exist, doesn't
52:2952 minutes, 29 secondsworth to exist. And in that sense, what we felt we can do is tell the story and try to make sense of how this genocide
52:3752 minutes, 37 secondslooks like and and to come from both the perspective of the victims. We know what
52:4552 minutes, 45 secondstakes place on the ground. We have the information, we have the but also to use the fact that we are coming from the
52:5352 minutes, 53 secondsgroup of the perpetrators. So we speak Hebrew, but we also speak Israeli. We understand something fundamental about
53:0153 minutes, 1 secondthe Israeli system that we believe is important to understand in order to fight it, not in order to justify it. In order to struggle a political system,
53:0953 minutes, 9 secondsyou have to understand it. And that's what we try to do to explain our genocide both its tactics and its model,
53:1753 minutes, 17 secondswhat kind of elements we find in it. So the different tactics that Israel uses in order to to to destroy Palestinian
53:2553 minutes, 25 secondssociety in Gaza. So we're talking about mass killing, about the mass forced removal of people, the mass destruction,
53:3153 minutes, 31 secondsthe taking apart society and and above it this kind of thick layer of of of of dehumanization and ongoing incitement to
53:4053 minutes, 40 secondsgenocide. But we also wanted to contextualize the genocide and to try and explain how we got to that moment.
53:5053 minutes, 50 secondsBecause you know if you ask most Israelis what the story what happened they will tell
53:5753 minutes, 57 secondsyou the story started on October 7. They came they attack us and then everything that came after is a story of
54:0554 minutes, 5 secondsself-defense and is completely legitimized because of the atrocities of October 7th. Now in that sense Israelis
54:1354 minutes, 13 secondsare not unique. Every people throughout history that committed genocide were justifying what they are doing while it
54:2254 minutes, 22 secondstook place by means of of of self-defense in the face of some kind of an existential threat. It is always
54:2954 minutes, 29 secondsthat's what we have to do. We have no other choice. They brought it upon themselves. You can go on. We thought
54:3654 minutes, 36 secondsthat as an Israeli organization we can tell another we can kind of challenge this story. The
54:4454 minutes, 44 secondsfirst thing we want to do is to explain that genocide is not an event. Genocide is a process. And though this the
54:5454 minutes, 54 secondskilling started on October 2023, the killing, the destruction, it couldn't have happened without prayer conditions
55:0255 minutes, 2 secondsthat were set there decades ago. And you cannot understand our genocide, the Israeli genocide over the Palestinians
55:1055 minutes, 10 secondswithout understanding what happened close to 80 years now of a regime of everything we talked about of apartheid
55:2055 minutes, 20 secondsof separation of ongoing dehumanization of Palestinian in general and specifically the Palestinian of Gaza. We
55:2755 minutes, 27 secondstalked about 2014. you he you have to understand I mean there is a connection of how we could have Israel could have
55:3455 minutes, 34 secondskilled more than 2,000 people in in 2014 more than 500 kids in in in 2014 and
55:4255 minutes, 42 secondsjust keep going and the fact that it it is able to do what it is doing now. So,
55:4855 minutes, 48 secondsso all this thing is kind of again every genocide throughout history had its enabling conditions. Of course,
55:5555 minutes, 55 secondsapartheid and being part of this settler colonial apartheidistic
56:0356 minutes, 3 secondssetting is what brought us there and what enabled it. One of the ways that we're seeing a kind of one could even
56:1156 minutes, 11 secondscall it genocide denial but or whitewashing that's happening here in a in the kind of Zionist discourse that I'm
56:1956 minutes, 19 secondspaying attention to is there's an attempt to say what happened after October 7th was a just war and the just
56:2756 minutes, 27 secondswar went ary something bad happened along the way right or um there are settlers in the West Bank who are these
56:3456 minutes, 34 secondshooligans who we need to rein in those kind of lawless bad actors or even within the Israeli military that you know I mean at
56:4256 minutes, 42 secondsthis point around the world the the entire world has been radicalized by what we have seen Israeli soldiers
56:4956 minutes, 49 secondsthemselves posting and broadcasting to the world about what they've done in Gaza right I mean it is it is the the documentation of the genocide that
56:5756 minutes, 57 secondsIsraeli soldiers themselves have provided for the world that is like along with the live stream that we've seen from Gaza is one of the things that
57:0457 minutes, 4 secondshas catalyzed a very profound anger against Israel. And yet, and still in communities that we know and are
57:1157 minutes, 11 secondsconnected to, I'm hearing things of these are just bad apples. These are a couple soldiers who have done this. The war just went arry. And I think looking at the Betellum report and hearing you
57:2057 minutes, 20 secondstalk, I'm something that's interesting to me is the way that Betselm not only has a systemic analysis about kind of the history of how we got to the
57:2857 minutes, 28 secondsgenocide, but you your the genocide report first of all warns about the potential for the genocide to move from
57:3657 minutes, 36 secondsGaza into other parts of historic Palestine into the West Bank in particular.
57:4057 minutes, 40 secondsBut you also talk about the repression against Palestinian citizens of Israel as part of the story of the genocide.
57:4757 minutes, 47 secondsMhm. Yes, because we understand again genocide as as as as an act of
57:5657 minutes, 56 secondsa political system that is in place of a regime, right? It's not something that is being done by small part of the
58:0458 minutes, 4 secondssociety or only by the army and but something that is done by people
58:1158 minutes, 11 seconds[snorts]
58:1258 minutes, 12 secondsreally by people and with the recruitment of the entire society into that. So, so [gasps]
58:2058 minutes, 20 secondsyou know, we're talking about the genocide in Gaza because genocide does take place in Gaza, but the system that
58:2758 minutes, 27 secondsnow has genocide in its toolkit as another tool that can being used is the
58:3458 minutes, 34 secondsIsraeli system [snorts] and it is the same system that is in control over the West Bank and in 48 territories.
58:4258 minutes, 42 secondsWhat does the system want to happen? So at the time and and and me personally,
58:4758 minutes, 47 secondswe understand the system as an apartite system and as a as as as an outcome of a colonialist settler settler colonialist
58:5658 minutes, 56 secondsprocess, patterns or whatever you want to call it that actually from its beginning was
59:0359 minutes, 3 secondsthe goal was was was very clear and by the way was announced to preserve Jewish supremacy over the entire land under
59:1159 minutes, 11 secondsIsrael Israel control. Now our understanding that it has been done by different means throughout the decades
59:1959 minutes, 19 secondsby ethnic cleansing by I mean the Nakba is is is a part of it by military occupation by separation you name it and
59:2959 minutes, 29 secondsthen on October 2023 this system was kind of moved into a new
59:3759 minutes, 37 secondsphase in which it has again another tool the most destruct destructive and and
59:4559 minutes, 45 secondsand and and cruel probably tool one can imagine and that is the tool of genocide to destroy the population itself. Now
59:5459 minutes, 54 secondswe're not saying that at the moment a genocide is taking place in the West Bank because we haven't got there yet.
1:00:011 hour, 1 secondBut we do say that it's the same system.
1:00:041 hour, 4 secondsYou want to break it down. It's the same army. It's the same commanders. It's the same soldiers that are now deployed in Gaza committing these horrific crimes on
1:00:141 hour, 14 secondsa daily basis in Gaza held holding zero accountable accountability for that and
1:00:211 hour, 21 secondsthen are moving to the West Bank to control there. It's the same leadership political leadership. It's the same ideology
1:00:291 hour, 29 secondsI mean that is in control not only in the West Bank but also inside Israel.
1:00:331 hour, 33 secondsAnd the logic of the genocide is something that we see all over. Just to mention it, let's talk about the Israeli detention centers. We sit here and while
1:00:431 hour, 43 secondswe are sitting here, close to 11,000 Palestinians are being held in this detention center. The vast majority of them without a trial and will be
1:00:521 hour, 52 secondsreleased without knowing or or without being charged for anything. Now, a bit more than a year ago, we published a
1:01:001 hour, 1 minutereport called Welcome to Hell in which we identify these detention centers,
1:01:051 hour, 1 minute, 5 secondscivilian and military Israeli detention center as torture camps. We called it that way because we know that each and every per Palestinian that is being that
1:01:141 hour, 1 minute, 14 secondsenter these camps, these detention centers will suffer a severe torture.
1:01:221 hour, 1 minute, 22 secondsWe're talking about close to 100 people that got killed within these detention centers. Now, I I'm using it as an
1:01:281 hour, 1 minute, 28 secondsexample for a mindset that first of all really erase the humanity of people.
1:01:361 hour, 1 minute, 36 secondsSecond, that is able to enforce the most severe violence upon people
1:01:431 hour, 1 minute, 43 secondswith really no limits. And what characterize genocide, the logic of genocide is that it leaves people
1:01:501 hour, 1 minute, 50 secondscompletely exposed without any way to protect themselves,
1:01:551 hour, 1 minute, 55 secondstheir families, their communities. And that is something that you see very clearly in the West Bank, but also inside Israel. And it doesn't mean that
1:02:031 hour, 2 minutes, 3 secondseach and every Palestinian with between the river and the sea suffering the same amount of violence at any given moment.
1:02:101 hour, 2 minutes, 10 secondsWe know the situation in Gaza is much much much worse but the potential is there. There is no for sure not none of
1:02:191 hour, 2 minutes, 19 secondslocal mechanism to stop it because we see what takes place but also no international mechanism that now stop
1:02:261 hour, 2 minutes, 26 secondsthis crazy machine from going on and and and and keep this destruction and killing and and in that sense I think
1:02:341 hour, 2 minutes, 34 secondspeople have to understand that we're really facing a very very not only
1:02:411 hour, 2 minutes, 41 secondscruel but a system that is completely out of control that really has at the moment no boundaries and in that sense
1:02:491 hour, 2 minutes, 49 secondsyeah we're talking about the Israeli regime as a complete illegitimate one because a regime that conduct genocide is an illegitimate regime and a regime
1:02:581 hour, 2 minutes, 58 secondsthat hold on apart tide as a system of supremacy and oppression is an illegitimate one we got to a point where
1:03:061 hour, 3 minutes, 6 secondsI think it's it's it's it's also our obligation to to stand up and say it this regime need to be taken down and to
1:03:141 hour, 3 minutes, 14 secondsreplace with something else something just and and and democratic and and and the holds values of human rights. As
1:03:211 hour, 3 minutes, 21 secondslong as as it doesn't happen, we are all under under risk. The Palestinians are the the the the main and the the
Chapter 10: Israeli society
1:03:301 hour, 3 minutes, 30 secondsimmediate victims of this system. But you know, I I live in Israel. I grow my my child in Israel. And there is nothing
1:03:401 hour, 3 minutes, 40 secondsthat feels safe to me to live under a regime that can in a minute erase the humanity of millions of people. We're
1:03:471 hour, 3 minutes, 47 secondsseeing abroad these videos of soldiers who have raped Palestinian prisoners
1:03:541 hour, 3 minutes, 54 secondswho are responsible for some of the most like horrific graphic types of abuse. the level of violence and sadism that a a group of people is
1:04:041 hour, 4 minutes, 4 secondshas stooped to and is inflicting on another group of people every single day and they're being cheered by their families and communities. And that's the society that you live in.
1:04:141 hour, 4 minutes, 14 secondsLike do you feel like you're walking around the street and you're wondering like who if those people are the people
1:04:211 hour, 4 minutes, 21 secondssitting next to you when you're No, I don't need to wonder because I know they are. I live today in a society that became completely genocidal.
1:04:341 hour, 4 minutes, 34 secondsI know they are because I I hear them uh on the street, on the bus. Uh but I can
1:04:411 hour, 4 minutes, 41 secondsalso open TV. the level in which the public discourse, the discourse in the media, the political discourse in Israel
1:04:501 hour, 4 minutes, 50 secondsbecame so genocidal that the genocidal discourse was completely normalized into our lives. Um,
1:04:591 hour, 4 minutes, 59 secondsso, so I know that I mean you can you can open TV and hear a discussion whether it is beneficial or not to
1:05:061 hour, 5 minutes, 6 secondsstarve people, whether it will harm Israel internationally if we let or not
1:05:131 hour, 5 minutes, 13 secondslet humanitarian aid into Gaza to or or or
1:05:201 hour, 5 minutes, 20 secondswhat it will do to Israel image if we bomb hospitals, right? Or or kill babies. I mean th those are discussions that are really insane.
1:05:301 hour, 5 minutes, 30 secondsReally insane. Now as a daughter of Holocaust survivors and also as a young woman was very much obsessed with the
1:05:381 hour, 5 minutes, 38 secondsHolocaust. The question that I asked myself was the question that I think most people were. How come how come
1:05:441 hour, 5 minutes, 44 secondsnormal people could have been take part of it or or ignore that or and
1:05:521 hour, 5 minutes, 52 secondsnow I know I know I know that there is a very strong kind of story behind it again a story of self-defense of that's
1:06:021 hour, 6 minutes, 2 secondswhat we have to do. It has to do with fear. It has to do with anxiety.
1:06:071 hour, 6 minutes, 7 secondsI think in order to understand our genocide, one can have to understand
1:06:141 hour, 6 minutes, 14 secondsthe effect of the October 7th attack on Israeli society. And again, not to say that the story began there, but this
1:06:221 hour, 6 minutes, 22 secondsattack was a real inflict a real trauma on Israeli society. Personally, it was the most frightening day of my life.
1:06:311 hour, 6 minutes, 31 secondsRight. Uh but but but but also of any Israeli I know there is not a house in Israel that wasn't affected and knows
1:06:401 hour, 6 minutes, 40 secondssomeone that was a victim of that really brutal and criminal attack. But what happened after that? Because instead of
1:06:481 hour, 6 minutes, 48 secondsunderstanding that we did something wrong if we got there that it is unsustainable to hold a political system
1:06:561 hour, 6 minutes, 56 secondsof violence and oppression of millions of people and and to keep the violence in one side of the fence that it bound
1:07:041 hour, 7 minutes, 4 secondsto spill over. Instead of understanding that and kind of rethink what happened to Israeli society is exactly the opposite. They said, "Okay, it was a
1:07:121 hour, 7 minutes, 12 secondsmilitary failure. We have to correct that and let's do more. Let's do more of this dehumanization, of this violence,
1:07:201 hour, 7 minutes, 20 secondsof this of this brutality."
1:07:221 hour, 7 minutes, 22 secondsAnd yeah, it's heartbreaking. But you know, something that you can hear in Israel again and again, and I'm sure you
1:07:291 hour, 7 minutes, 29 secondsheard it from Israelis, is that after October 7th, I lost my ability to be empathic.
1:07:371 hour, 7 minutes, 37 secondsRight? You can come to goodies good people and ask them but you see the kids in Gaza how come? But a society that
1:07:451 hour, 7 minutes, 45 secondsbecame so blind so kind of numb to to to to the suffering of the other who became
1:07:531 hour, 7 minutes, 53 secondsso cruel. I I think it's also a society that you need to feel sorry for because it will break. It is already breaking from the inside.
1:08:021 hour, 8 minutes, 2 secondsYou know you're talking about a society that's gone completely off the rails. a society that's also breaking apart internally because of the level of
1:08:101 hour, 8 minutes, 10 secondsviolence that they have tolerated tolerated and inflicted both and this question of accountability. Right.
Chapter 11: Where do we go from here?
1:08:181 hour, 8 minutes, 18 secondsRight.
1:08:201 hour, 8 minutes, 20 secondsAnd a regime that has lost legitimacy and I think it has been shattering to just I mean Israel has decimated an entire society.
1:08:311 hour, 8 minutes, 31 secondsWe do not know when and how Gaza will be rebuilt. We're having a conversation right now as there is an alleged ceasefire and Israel
1:08:411 hour, 8 minutes, 41 secondsis continuing to kill Palestinians every single day.
1:08:451 hour, 8 minutes, 45 secondsAnd and of course people want to pretend that this thing is just over and that they can go back to normal,
1:08:531 hour, 8 minutes, 53 secondswhich of course we both know is not going to happen and it's not possible.
1:08:571 hour, 8 minutes, 57 secondsWe also started this conversation from like I think you're a person who really believes in political change and believes in people's capac and in
1:09:041 hour, 9 minutes, 4 secondssociety's capacities to change. Like where are we now? What where do you where do you go from here? You're talking about the an illegitimate
1:09:121 hour, 9 minutes, 12 secondsregime. You're talking about total impunity. Like what does it actually look like to to fight for some kind of accountability as
1:09:201 hour, 9 minutes, 20 secondsa path towards a different future? We're having this conversation in New York City where Zoran Madani, who we just elected as our new mayor, is somebody
1:09:271 hour, 9 minutes, 27 secondswho's committed to Palestinian liberation and something really interesting happened to him along the campaign
1:09:341 hour, 9 minutes, 34 secondstrail, which is that he has been asked by this qu this question that is like the boogeyman question in American politics. Does Israel have the right to exist as a Jewish state? Right? And he
1:09:431 hour, 9 minutes, 43 secondshas said repeatedly, it has the right to exist as a state with equal rights. And that makes people lose their minds and it exposes actually what this whole
1:09:511 hour, 9 minutes, 51 secondsconversation is about which is that the people who want the conversation about legitimacy to be in the center are people who want the the supremacy and
1:10:001 hour, 10 minutesthe impunity of the state to be protected.
1:10:021 hour, 10 minutes, 2 secondsRight? In that sense, I think maybe it's it's how to say positive, but something kind of good for the struggle that
1:10:101 hour, 10 minutes, 10 secondshappened out of this insane reality that we're living in is that many of the
1:10:171 hour, 10 minutes, 17 secondsmasks are off. And in the face of extreme reality, we also have to I think
1:10:251 hour, 10 minutes, 25 secondsbe much more concrete and and brave in our demands not from only from leaders but also from ourselves. In that sense,
1:10:361 hour, 10 minutes, 36 secondsin the face of genocide, it is for in my view the obligation of every human around the world to to to stand and say
1:10:441 hour, 10 minutes, 44 secondsthis is not legitimate. Not only for Israelis and Palestinians, not only for the Palestinians in Gaza,
1:10:531 hour, 10 minutes, 53 secondsbut because again genocide is an attack on humanity itself and normalizing genocide in Gaza. I don't know for me
1:11:021 hour, 11 minutes, 2 secondsit's so clear the connection between what takes place on the ground in Gaza and how it been legitimized and how it's been and and and in the West Bank and
1:11:101 hour, 11 minutes, 10 secondsinside Israel and how how much it been legitimized and how much you know basic concept of international law of moral
1:11:191 hour, 11 minutes, 19 secondsnorms have been completely ignored and and life goes on with what takes place in the streets of uh the US and the
1:11:271 hour, 11 minutes, 27 secondsignorement of human rights here And we are in this process and we are in a very
1:11:341 hour, 11 minutes, 34 secondsvery very bad moment and I am quite sure that
1:11:421 hour, 11 minutes, 42 secondswe haven't seen the worst. My homeland is still not at the end. Didn't touch
1:11:511 hour, 11 minutes, 51 secondslike the bottom of I don't know this insanity and and this cruelty and and
1:11:581 hour, 11 minutes, 58 secondsthat we're in. But I also know that systems and regimes like this are unsustainable.
1:12:081 hour, 12 minutes, 8 secondsThey do break apart at one point and then and we have countless examples from history for things that people wouldn't
1:12:161 hour, 12 minutes, 16 secondsthink that are possible. And then a political a radical political change came and then a few years later
1:12:241 hour, 12 minutes, 24 secondseverybody looked back and were how come we haven't thought about it? So I'm thinking part of what enable it to keep
1:12:321 hour, 12 minutes, 32 secondsgoing is kind of what limits our imagination about the alternative. And I know yeah people are afraid here from
1:12:391 hour, 12 minutes, 39 secondshearing that Israel is is has an illegitimate governing system what I would call a regime. Yeah states can
1:12:471 hour, 12 minutes, 47 secondsstay and regime can shift. In Israel it's hard to think of that because we only had one regime in place since the
1:12:541 hour, 12 minutes, 54 secondsstate was established. Right? But radical political changes can and did happen throughout history. And I believe
1:13:031 hour, 13 minutes, 3 secondsthat now we need to be brave brave enough in order to to to demand exactly that and again demand it first and
1:13:101 hour, 13 minutes, 10 secondsforemost from ourselves and then from leaders and politicians around the world. I have no doubt that what enables
1:13:181 hour, 13 minutes, 18 secondsIsrael to go on at the moment that is that this [snorts] kind of support and
1:13:241 hour, 13 minutes, 24 secondsand legitimatization that it gets from countries around the world. I'm not counting on the Israelis themselves to
1:13:331 hour, 13 minutes, 33 secondsunderstand it. I think small part of Israeli Jewish society will understand it and the vast majority of them. It
1:13:411 hour, 13 minutes, 41 secondswill take a long time. Again, I'm learning from history. I know that people that committed genocide usually took years if not decades to reckon with
1:13:501 hour, 13 minutes, 50 secondswhat they did. But again, it's not the internal business of Israelis and Palestinians. Genocide is is a business of humanity as a whole.
1:14:011 hour, 14 minutes, 1 secondI just want to say thank you, Julie.
1:14:021 hour, 14 minutes, 2 secondsThank you for your courage and and your expansiveness. I think I don't know. I'm going to take those final words that you just said as encouragement to keep
1:14:101 hour, 14 minutes, 10 secondspushing because we I think it's both essential to be cleareyed about the real dangers ahead and also to hold that that
1:14:191 hour, 14 minutes, 19 secondsthings can change and they can be a step beyond what we can imagine and we have to keep struggling for that regardless of if we can see it or not.
1:14:271 hour, 14 minutes, 27 secondsInshallah inshallah
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제시해주신 자료는 이스라엘 인권 단체 비첼렘(B'Tselem)의 대표 율리 노박(Yuli Novak)과 시몬 짐머만(Simone Zimmerman)의 대담을 담고 있다
요약: 이스라엘 체제의 DNA와 <학살적 사회>로의 변모
1. 개인적 각성과 이스라엘적 정체성의 해체
율리 노박은 이스라엘의 전형적인 자유주의적이고 애국적인 시온주의 가정에서 성장했다
2. 아파르트헤이트와 학살의 메커니즘
노박은 남아프리카 공화국에서의 경험을 통해 이스라엘이 정교한 아파르트헤이트 체제임을 깨닫는다
3. 체제 전환(Regime Shift)의 필요성
노박은 현재의 이스라엘 정권을 단순한 정부가 아닌, 유대인 우월주의를 유지하기 위한 <체제(Regime)>로 규정한다
평론: 맹목의 커튼을 찢는 내부 고발자의 고통스러운 진실
1. 신화적 정체성과의 작별: 자기 부정을 통한 해방
본 텍스트에서 가장 강력한 대목은 노박이 자신의 <시온주의적 정체성>을 해체하는 과정이다. 그녀는 이를 "아무도 미소를 지으며 뛰어들지 않는, 공포가 서린 해방의 심연"이라고 묘사한다
2. 학살의 일상화와 사회적 영혼의 파괴
노박은 이스라엘 사회가 어떻게 <학살적 사회>로 전락했는지 날카롭게 해부한다. 텔레비전에서 "가자 주민들을 굶기는 것이 국제적 이미지에 도움이 될 것인가"를 토론하는 광경은 인간성 자체가 소멸한 사회의 단면을 적나라하게 드러낸다
3. 인권 운동의 패러다임 전환: 비첼렘의 결단
비첼렘이 이스라엘 사법 체계에 더 이상 진정서를 제출하지 않기로 한 결정(2014-2015년경)은 상징적이다
4. 결론: 불가능한 상상을 시작할 용기
율리 노박은 이스라엘이라는 체제가 현재 <바닥>을 향해 치닫고 있다고 경고한다
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