Matt Bowles: Hey everybody, it’s Matt Bowles. Welcome to The Maverick Show. I wanted to record this special episode to update you on what is happening right now in Palestine, share some historical and political context, provide you with some additional media and educational resources, and highlight some of the incredible protests that are going on around the world.

And most importantly, leave you with some specific action items you can take as soon as you finish listening to this episode. To help de-escalate the violence and bring about a ceasefire as soon as possible, no matter where in the world you are or what country you’re from. Now the first time that I went to the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Israel was back in 1998.

Bibi Netanyahu was prime minister then too. The following year, I did a master’s degree in international peace and conflict resolution. And focused largely on the Israel and Palestine conflict. And I’ve been doing peace and justice work around the issue ever since I have so many dear Israeli and Palestinian friends, so many Jewish, Arab, and Muslim friends in the United States that I’ve done amazing organizing work with over the last 25 years. And it crushes my heart that not only are we further from peace and justice than at any point in my lifetime, but we are now witnessing a genocide against the Palestinians. You know, when I’m traveling around the world, anytime I visit a place where genocide has occurred, I spend a lot of time there reckoning with what happened.

So, when I’ve traveled to Bosnia or Germany or Cambodia, or just last year, Rwanda, you may have actually heard episode 212 of The Maverick Show, where Tammer Abiyu and I, who went to Rwanda together, and on the episode, we talked about the Rwandan genocide, as well as the genocide in Tigray in Ethiopia.

But when I go to these places, I go to the genocide memorials, I go to the genocide museums, I read about what happened, and then I sit there, and I reckon with what happened. And in each case, I inevitably end up asking myself two questions; the first one I asked myself is how an entire society of regular people could get into the mental, emotional, and ideological state that they would either carry out a genocide or cheer it on.

or sit by idly and say nothing as it is carried out? Well, if you’re interested in the answer to that question, all you have to do is look around on social media right now, and you will see the answer before you in real-time. You can see exactly what discourses are being used to get people to either support the genocide or to confuse, convolute, and intimidate people into saying nothing. And the second question I always ask when looking into a genocide is who were the people in the dominant group that spoke out? The ones from the group carrying out the genocide who made the choice, often at a great risk to their own safety, to help the victims of the genocide.

I want to learn about those people. And then I inevitably ask myself, what would I do if it was my society carrying out the genocide? Well, being a citizen of the U.S., which is funding, arming, and backing the genocide against the Palestinians right now, that’s the position that I’m currently in. And we all now have the opportunity to answer that question for ourselves and make a choice of how we want to respond to this genocide. This is our moment to stand up, to speak out, to contribute the skills and resources we have to work together to stop this genocide. We all have a role to play. So, let’s jump right into it. I want to start off by being super clear about what is happening right now in Palestine.

The Center for Constitutional Rights recently published an extensive legal analysis concluding that there is a plausible and credible legal case that Israel is now committing genocide. Dr. Rav Segal, who is an Israeli Jewish professor of genocide and Holocaust studies, concurred that what Israel is now doing is, quote, ‘A textbook case of genocide’ saying, “Well, if this is not special intent to commit genocide, then I don’t know what is”.

International human rights lawyer, Craig Mokhiber, the former director of the New York office of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, who served in the UN for three decades, and just resigned this past week. In his resignation letter, he said, “Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organization we serve appears powerless to stop it. The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people rooted in an ethno-nationalist, colonial, settler ideology, in continuation of decades of their systemic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, leaves no room for doubt. This is a textbook case of genocide”. He also said that the US, UK and much of Europe were not only refusing to meet their treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions, but we were also arming Israel’s assault and providing political and diplomatic cover for it.

I will link up the full text of his resignation letter, which I highly recommend you read in full. And share with other people as it is an excellent analysis of what is happening now and what the alternative could be. I will also link up the interviews with both Craig Mokhiber and Rav Segal, so you can go and watch them and share those as well.

Now, as I record this, Israel is relentlessly bombarding Gaza. It has been targeting hospitals, ambulances, schools, churches, mosques, and densely populated refugee camps. We are now one month into the genocide and Israel has massacred more civilians in Gaza than were killed in the Bosnian genocide. Israel has also killed dozens of journalists and their families as well as 175 medical professionals. The UN reports that over two-thirds of Palestinians in Gaza have been internally displaced and that 88 UN staff were killed by Israel in just one month, making this the deadliest conflict for UN staff ever.

In a single month, over 4, 000 Palestinian children have been slaughtered, their body parts strewn through the rubble, and parents who have kids who are still alive are now writing the kids’ names on their arms and legs, so they’ll be able to identify the bodies if the kids get killed.

The nonprofit Save the Children reports that the number of Palestinian children killed in Gaza in just the first three weeks of the genocide surpassed the total number of children killed in an entire year across all conflict zones combined globally across 20 countries and the UN Chief Antonio Guterres publicly declared that Gaza has become a ‘graveyard for children’. Israel is killing a Palestinian child every 10 seconds, and Human Rights Watch has documented that Israel is using the illegal chemical weapon, white phosphorus, which is a way to inflict the maximum harm on any civilians that don’t die immediately from the bombing.

Now, on top of the unrelenting aerial bombardment, Israel’s blockade of food, water, fuel, and electricity has caused the limited healthcare system in Gaza to completely collapse. Half of the hospitals in Gaza, including the only cancer treatment center, are now completely inoperable due either to the Israeli bombardment, or lack of fuel due to the Israeli blockade. And some doctors are now attempting to perform operations without anesthesia under mobile phone flashlights. Toilets cannot be flushed, bodies cannot be buried, and people are now drinking polluted seawater to try to survive as Israel continues to bomb and destroy the remaining water facilities in Gaza. Diseases like smallpox and scabies have started to spread and Gaza is at risk of a cholera outbreak. Two point three million Gazans, half of them children, are hemmed into an open-air prison that has now been turned into a death camp.

And those that don’t die from the bombing will soon start dying from lack of food, water, healthcare, or disease. This is what genocide looks like. And this genocide is being funded with U.S. tax dollars, carried out using U.S. weapons, and backed and enabled by President Biden and our elected members of the U.S. Congress. It’s even been reported that the U.S. now has military officers on the ground, advising the Israeli military on the tactics being used to carry out the genocide. It’s unfolding on international television for the whole world to see. But after a full month of the genocide, over 10, 000 Palestinians were killed, still only 20 out of 535 elected members of the U.S. Congress publicly supported a ceasefire. That is less than 4%.

And the U.S. government continues to use its U.N. Security Council veto to prevent a ceasefire and obstruct the rest of the world from intervening to de-escalate the violence. And so, the genocide not only continues but escalates. As I sit here recording this, Israel has just cut the communications and internet services across Gaza, and it’s being reported that tonight is perhaps the heaviest and deadliest night of bombings yet. So, for folks who are new to this issue, I want to just start off with some very basic high-level background on how we got here.

The state of Israel is a settler colonial enterprise. Established in 1948 on the murder, dispossession, and land theft of indigenous Palestinians, it has continued its colonial expansion through violence every day since. If you are familiar with the genocidal processes used over native nations in the United States, that is a very relevant and helpful framework for understanding what’s been going on in Palestine over the last 100 years. I am going to link up the book, The Hundred Years’ War by Rashid Khalidi, as well as the book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Israeli Jewish historian, Ilan Pappé, in the show notes, if you are interested in reading more about this history.

Now, in order to understand what is going on today, it is imperative first and foremost to emphasize the extent of the power asymmetry here. Israel, currently has the 11th most powerful military in the world, including a nuclear arsenal, while the Palestinians have no military, no state, and no protective institutions to defend themselves.

So, what’s happening is that a nuclear superpower, backed by the world’s number one, most powerful global superpower is committing a genocide against an impoverished community that in the Gaza Strip is 70 percent refugees and 50 percent children. This is a crucially important context for everything. Now, the state of Israel was established in 1948 in what’s known as the Nakba, when Israel violently displaced over 700, 000 indigenous Palestinians and then continued its ongoing ethnic cleansing and land theft ever since.

Israel’s internationally recognized borders comprise 78 percent of historic Palestine. But since 1967, Israel has been illegally militarily occupying the remaining 22 percent of Palestinian territories, which includes the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. So, for over half a century, Israel has ruled over the entire thing in violation of international law.

Israel maintains the longest belligerent military occupation in modern history, administers a brutal apartheid regime, and has been committing horrifying human rights abuses against the Palestinian civilian population on a daily basis for decades. For example, the Israeli government regularly bulldozes civilian homes, storms and desecrates holy sites, beats elderly mosque worshipers on their prayer rugs, attacks funeral processions, and beats the mourners. And the list goes on.

Now, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places on earth, made up primarily of Palestinian refugees that Israel already dispossessed from their homes in 1948. And the majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents today are children. Since 2007, Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza, which prevents residents from leaving and prevents crucially needed food and medicine from getting in.

This collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population for the last 16 years has predictably resulted in an extreme humanitarian crisis, such that prior to the October 7th attacks, the majority of residents were unemployed and in poverty, 62% did not have enough food to eat, and 90% did not have access to clean drinking waters, and hospitals had a severe deprivation of adequate medical supplies.

In the Israeli government’s own words, it had turned Gaza into the world’s largest open-air prison. In addition to the longstanding collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza from the blockade, in 2008, Israel also adopted the Dahiya doctrine as a matter of policy, which the UN fact-finding commission describes as “The application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure and great suffering to the civilian population”. Israel has a military policy that they call mowing the grass, which refers to carpet bombing Gaza, which always includes the massacring of civilians as well as the destruction of hospitals, schools, residential buildings, and other civilian infrastructure necessary for survival.

There have been five major bombing campaigns in Gaza or what Israel calls mowing the grass since 2008. So as a matter of policy, Gaza civilians are first hemmed in, then starved and malnourished, and finally bombed. And this has been the routine for 16 years prior to the October 7th attacks. The Israeli government also regularly abducts Palestinians, including children, and throws them in Israeli jails where they are routinely tortured.

Prior to October 7th, over 5, 000 Palestinians were imprisoned by Israel. 170 of them were children and over 1, 200 had not been charged with anything. They had no due process and no recourse to any domestic or international law. They were simply civilian hostages. And when Hamas took the hostages on October 7th, they immediately declared their intent on that day was to swap them for the Palestinian prisoners. And they have reiterated that offer for an all for all prisoner swap multiple times since.

Now, Israel has done prisoner swaps with Hamas in the past. For example, in 2011, when Netanyahu was also prime minister, Israel negotiated with Hamas and agreed to release over a thousand Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli prisoner that was being held by Hamas.

Now Israelis know this, and some of the families of the current Israeli hostages have been demanding that Netanyahu accept Hamas’s offer and negotiate all for all prisoner swaps to free the hostages being held by Hamas. But this time Netanyahu has so far refused. Instead, what Israel did was endanger the Israeli people and foreign national hostages that are being held by Hamas by bombing Gaza, where the hostages are being held. The other thing that Israel did was abduct thousands of additional Palestinians. According to the Israeli human rights group, Geisha, most of these newly abducted Palestinians were not charged with anything and are being held in secret without legal recourse in stark violation of international law.

They are ostensibly civilian hostages. Israel continues raiding Palestinian villages in the West Bank at all hours of the day and night and is currently abducting about a hundred Palestinians a day. And the Palestinian lawyers have confirmed that the new prisoners they’ve been able to get in touch with are being subjected to starvation and thirst and prevented from, accessing their medical needs, including cancer treatment. Most of them have been physically assaulted and many of the prisoners have had their limbs, hands, and legs broken, as well as other forms of degrading treatment and torture.

Several videos have emerged in recent weeks of Israeli soldiers beating, stepping on, abusing, and humiliating detained Palestinians who’ve been blindfolded, stripped, and have their hands cuffed. And, at least, two Palestinian prisoners have died while in Israeli custody shortly after they were arrested, and both men who died in custody were being held without trial or charge. Now, it’s relevant to note that more Palestinians are living in the West Bank than live in the Gaza Strip. And Hamas has virtually no presence in the West Bank. So, let’s talk a little bit more about what else is going on in the West Bank.

The Israeli government has long been supporting pogroms by Israeli settler vigilantes that kill Palestinian civilians, including children, burn their homes, olive trees, and crops, destroy their livelihood, run them off their land, and then take their land. Prior to October 7th, in the first three quarters of 2023, the UN Humanitarian Agency OCHA recorded over 700 settler attacks that resulted in Palestinian casualties, property damage, or both. That is an average of three settler attacks per day, every day for the entire year. In the first three quarters of 2023, over 250 Palestinian civilians were killed, including 47 children.

So, on average, Palestinians were being killed by the Israeli military or settlers every single day. What’s important to understand is that all of this daily terrorizing of Palestinian civilians is what Israel officially refers to as a state of calm. This framing allows Israel to declare any resistance by Palestinian to this daily terror and abuse as being Unprovoked because it is disrupting the calm.

Let that narrative sink in for a minute because it is commonly used by the mainstream media in the United States as well. Now I want to reiterate that these settler pogroms have been taking place in the West Bank where Hamas has virtually no presence. And despite the fact that Hamas has virtually no presence in the West Bank, after the Hamas attack of October 7th, the Israeli government publicly announced that they are arming these Israeli settler militias in the West Bank with thousands of additional assault rifles, plus helmets and body armor. And those settler vigilantes have now dramatically escalated the pogroms rampaging through Palestinian villages across the West Bank.

Killing Palestinian civilians, burning their homes, and taking their land. There is no Hamas-related pretext here. This is just settler colonial expansion in action. And it’s been going on for decades in 2023 alone, Israeli settlers have taken over 40 square miles, over 100 square kilometers, of Palestinian land in the West Bank.

So, Israel’s colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, and ongoing territorial expansion has been going on for over 75 years. And so has the Palestinian decolonial resistance. Now, Hamas did not exist at all for the first 40 years of Israel’s existence. So historically, the majority of decolonial resistance was secular and often left-wing. It’s also important to understand that there is a very long and robust tradition of Palestinian nonviolent resistance. But when Palestinians use nonviolent resistance, the media rarely covers it, and Israel consistently responds by killing them.

In 2018, as one of many examples, the residents of Gaza formed 14 decentralized organizing committees comprising youth groups, worker syndicates, women’s groups, legal rights bodies, cultural associations, NGOs, and all political parties to organize the great return march to demarcate Palestinian land day. The residents plan to march on the border fence that imprisons them with the agreed-upon guidelines of no arms, no uniforms, and no party flags, just a cross-section of all Gazans carrying the Palestinian flag.

On May 14th, when it happened, Israel responded with a massacre. They shot 1, 350 people in one day, and 60 of them died. 2, 700 were injured. Even when Americans come over to do nonviolent solidarity activism with Palestinians, Israel often kills them too. And this has been going on for decades Twenty years ago, when an activist colleague of mine from the U S 23-year-old Rachel Corey participated in the Palestinian-led international solidarity movement and was attempting to nonviolently prevent a home from being demolished in the West Bank. The Israeli military just ran her over with the bulldozer and killed her.

So, Israel has historically used extreme levels of violence to crush all avenues of nonviolent resistance. Now it’s also important to understand that under international law. The Palestinians have a legal right to use armed resistance against the Israeli occupation forces as long as it’s done in accordance with the laws of war.

And for decades, as I mentioned, the armed resistance was almost entirely secular and often left-wing up until the late 1980s, when the Israeli government made a strategic decision to start supporting right-wing Islamist movements and to promote the rise of Hamas, which was founded in 1987. Israel’s goal was to destroy secular Palestinian nationalism, divide the Palestinian people, and break the back of the decolonial resistance through a divide-and-rule tactic.

1987 was also, the start of the first Palestinian Intifada, which was a largely nonviolent, secular, decentralized Palestinian uprising. Then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin notoriously gave the order to break the bones of stone throwing children and Israel proceeded to kill or imprison most of the secular left wing and nonviolent organizers paving the way for the ascension of Hamas.

Now, it’s important to understand that over the course of all of this history, Israel has consistently operated with Abject disregard for international law. All of the things I’ve been describing here from the military occupation itself, to the settlement expansion, to collectively punishing civilians, to killing nonviolent protesters are all violations of international law.

Many of them are clearly documented as war crimes and crimes against humanity by international human rights groups. Yet, Israel is seldom. held accountable, not even for a single one of the 25-plus journalists that it killed before October 7th. And certainly not for the dozens of journalists and their families it has killed afterward.

Even when the Israeli military shoots an American journalist in the head, while she’s clearly wearing her press designation as happened in 2022 with the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh. There is no accountability of any kind, and the reason is that since 1967, the United States has been the colonial patron of Israel, which finances arms and politically protects it from accountability.

The United States gives Israel about $3.8 billion in military aid every year. And the United States has used its UN Security Council veto to block over 50 UN resolutions attempting to get Israel to comply with international law. And so, Israel continues to operate as a rogue state. Creating a warfare environment that is thoroughly untethered from any international legal norms.

And Israel has for years been telling Israeli citizens that all of these policies are designed to increase their safety and security. And if there was one thing that the gruesome carnage of Hamas’, October 7th attack demonstrated very clearly. It was that these Israeli policies were in fact doing the exact opposite.

And not only do Israel’s policies make it less safe for Israeli Jews, but they also make it less safe for all Jews around the world. Anti-Semitic incidents are soaring across the world right now. And they always soar when the Israeli government commits horrific war crimes and then says that it’s doing it in the name of all Jewish people.

That claim predictably spikes anti-Semitic attacks, but it is a lie. They are not doing it in the name of all Jewish people. They are doing it in the name of the Ideology of Zionism, which is a white supremacist settler colonial ideology rooted in the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians. And not all Jewish people support that. In fact, right here in the United States, thousands and thousands of anti-Zionist Jewish activists have been mobilizing against the genocide, calling for an immediate ceasefire and chanting not in our name. Um, if there is one thing I have learned about this conflict over the past 25 years, it is that the safety and security of Israeli Jews are directly tied to the safety, security, freedom, and liberation of the Palestinians, these things are not at odds with each other in any way, but rather directly aligned and interdependent.

The reality is that there was consistent Palestinian resistance to Israel’s colonial violence and oppression for decades before Hamas ever existed by many groups. And even if Hamas were destroyed in every single Hamas fighter was killed, there would be consistent resistance to Israel’s colonial onslaught and now genocide long after Hamas is gone.

The only way to stop the resistance is to end the oppression of Palestinians and ensure that all people, Israelis, and Palestinians have freedom, dignity, and equal rights. But instead of doing that, Israel is choosing to commit genocide to finish ethnically cleansing all of historic Palestine and try to erase the Palestinians once and for all.

Members of Netanyahu’s Likud party are publicly calling for another Nakba. That would be larger than 1948. The Israeli Ministry of intelligence recommended the forcible and permanent transfer of Gazans out of Palestine once and for all, and the Israeli government’s rhetoric has culminated in the logic that there are simply no innocent civilians in Gaza.

They have made clear that their goal is not accuracy, but destruction and have referred to all Palestinians as human animals, like all genocides Israel’s scorched earth campaign of Wanton destruction and the vitriolic colonial hate rhetoric that accompanies it, is all rooted in the complete dehumanization of the Palestinian people, which is a necessary element for their erasure and as the hateful drumbeat of dehumanization is echoed across social media.

The irony, of course, as James Baldwin famously remarked, is that hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated. And this is an immutable law. Now standing in stark contrast to the rage filled vengeance of Israel’s death machinery, are the shining examples of humanity.

Starting with the unshakable dignity of the Palestinian people amidst the apocalyptic hellscape in Gaza, children in Rafah celebrate birthday parties in the rubble. Doctors sing in unison and pledge never to leave their patients and refugee children in Gaza, face down the nuclear superpower that is trying to annihilate their people and declare that they will never leave their land because they have a right to be there.

In the United States, 5,000 Jewish Americans led by 25 rabbis organized a massive nonviolent civil disobedience action at the United States Capitol, where hundreds of people got arrested demanding an immediate ceasefire, chanting, “Not in our names”. Jewish Voice for Peace organized thousands of American Jews and allies to shut down Grand Central Station in New York City and take over the Statue of Liberty, demanding an end to the genocide against the Palestinians.

The Jewish American group, If Not Now, is organizing nonviolent sit ins at congressional offices. And getting arrested, demanding that members support an immediate ceasefire and interfaith protest of Jews, Muslims, and Christians together, shut down Philadelphia’s 30th street station. And across the country, activists are shutting down highways, blockading weapons, manufacturing plants, and blocking weapons shipments from being loaded onto boats destined for Israel.

Four hundred congressional staffers risked their political careers to sign a petition calling for an immediate ceasefire. And around the world, labor unions from Belgium to Barcelona have refused to load weapons onto ships heading to Israel and millions of people are taking to the streets all over the world calling for an end to the genocide including the largest protest for Palestine in American history that just happened in Washington, DC on November 4th.

Now over the past month, I’ve attended multiple protests and events in the United States, including a traditional Jewish Mourner’s Kaddish, which brought together American Jews, Muslims, Palestinians, Israelis, and a diverse cross-section of other thoughtful people to mourn the loss of all civilian life. Reaffirm the sanctity and equality of all human beings and call for an immediate ceasefire. The release of all hostages, an end to the Israeli occupation, a dismantling of Israeli apartheid so that all people in the region can live in safety and security and freedom and dignity.

The Palestinian comedian, actor, and producer, Mo Amer from the Netflix TV show ‘Mo’, recently at a ceasefire rally in Washington, DC, about the astonishing level of dehumanization of Palestinians going on in the US government. But he said that the rally itself offered hope because it was a real-life example of the alternative looking around and seeing all of the love and care and humanity and diversity of the thousands of people from all backgrounds at the rally, he said, “This is what it could be”. Now, the genocide against the Palestinians is not only causing a spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes.

It’s also causing a spike in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate Crimes. A six-year-old Palestinian child was stabbed to death in his home in Illinois by a white man yelling, “You Muslims must die”. All of these different forms of oppression and hate need to be confronted at the same time and based on the same set of humanitarian values and the same commitment to collective liberation.

This past week in New York City, Jewish and Muslim communities in Queens came together to teach community self-defense and bystander intervention techniques to help keep both communities safe and to stand together against hate crimes. As we organize to stop this genocide, these beautifully diverse spaces rooted in love, humanity, and commitment to collective liberation allow us to stand together against both rising antisemitism and rising Islamophobia to stand on principled values that oppose settler colonialism and apartheid and to insist that equal value be placed on all human life. This is so important right now, both to support and nourish ourselves as we organize to stop this genocide and also to demonstrate the alternative of what it could be.

James Baldwin said that love has never been a popular movement and that the world is held together. Really it is held together by the love and passion of a very few people. Let’s make the choice to be part of those very few people. I want to give you 10 ways that you can help with 10 things that you can do.

The first one is going to be for and the other nine are going to be for anybody in the world. And I’m going to link all 10 of them up in the show notes. So, Number 1; U.S. citizens anywhere in the world. You can call your congressional representatives immediately and continue calling them as often as possible.

Ask them to support House Resolution 786 for an immediate amendment. ceasefire. If you don’t know who your representative is, or you don’t know their phone number, don’t worry I will put a link in the show notes where you can just enter your address, where you are registered to vote, and it will automatically route a call to your representative’s office. It literally takes 60 seconds, and it matters. They keep track of the number of calls on this issue, just this week, Representative Maxine Waters decided to change her position and support an immediate ceasefire. So, the constituent pressure works. Also, please call both of your senators and ask them to join Senator Dick Durbin in calling for an immediate ceasefire. At the time of recording this, only one out of a hundred senators had publicly called for a ceasefire. We need more constituent pressure.

Number 2; you can donate money from anywhere in the world to groups that are organizing nonviolent direct actions in the United States to pressure the political representatives to demand a ceasefire. These groups are blockading the White House, doing sit ins on Capitol Hill, occupying congressional offices, shutting down streets, freeways, train stations, disrupting business as usual to demand a ceasefire now. And this all-costs money and you can donate to them directly from anywhere in the world. I’m going to recommend two organizations; one is Jewish Voice for Peace, the other is If Not Now, and I will put direct links for donating to them in the show notes, as well as how to follow them on social media to keep up on their protest actions. And get involved if you happen to be in the vicinity.

Number 3; stay informed and get news and analysis beyond the US mainstream media, which is currently operating with an alarming lack of journalistic integrity. For example, CNN just publicly announced that it is embedding with the Israeli military in Gaza and that 100 percent of its footage has to be formally approved by the Israeli government before they air it.

So, I highly recommend that you consume independent media like Democracy Now. You can also stream Al Jazeera English online for free. I highly recommend following three particular journalists on social media who are reporting directly from the ground in Gaza every day, and I will link them up in the show notes, so you can follow them on social media and get the direct reporting. And I also recommend that you follow some serious political analysts and educators, and I will link them up in the show notes as well.

Number 4; raise your voice, speak out, take a public stand against the genocide and let people know that you support an immediate ceasefire. Doing so can make a big impact on your friends and family and followers and empower them to speak out as well. Amplify the voices and share the information and sources that I just recommended. Share them with others. Doing so can help create a ripple effect where you educate and empower other people to speak out and raise their voices and share the information and then they pass it on and do the same for others and on and on it goes.

Number 5; join a protest, a march, a demonstration, or a nonviolent direct action to demand an immediate ceasefire and then end to the genocide. These types of protests are happening all across the U.S. and all across the world. So just look for one near you.

Number 6; participate in the International Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against the Israeli apartheid regime. This is a worldwide nonviolent campaign modeled after the divestment campaign that helped bring down the South African apartheid regime. And it needs to be dramatically accelerated right now. In addition to boycotting the designated products, I recommend that you tag those companies on social media and let them know why you are boycotting them to increase the pressure. I will link up the BDS website in the show notes so that you can check it and then start boycotting the products and companies.

Number 7; if you live outside the United States, you can pressure your government to take a stronger stand against the genocide. So, this past week, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for a humanitarian truce. A hundred and 20 countries voted ‘YES’ in support of that resolution. Fourteen countries voted ‘NO’, and 45 countries abstained. I will link up the list of how every country voted in the show notes so you can see how your country voted. If your country voted ‘NO’ or abstained, pressure them to vote ‘YES’ on the next one. If your country was one of the 120 that voted ‘YES’ in support of the resolution, then pressure them to take the next step and join the diplomatic boycott of Israel. At the time of recording eight countries have recalled their ambassador from Israel, South Africa, Chad, Turkey, Jordan, Bahrain, Chile, Honduras, and Colombia.

And if you’re from one of those eight countries, you can pressure your government to go further and join Bolivia, which is the only country so far that has severed economic ties with Israel entirely. We need to do everything we can as an international community to isolate Israel as a pariah state and exert financial and diplomatic pressure to stop this genocide.

Number 8; you can donate much-needed humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza. I will link up multiple organizations in the show notes and you can select the one that seems to be the best fit for you.

Number 9; you can continue to educate yourself on Palestinian history and politics. Maybe organize a book group, get others involved in learning, share recommendations, and help to educate others. Often times people are hesitant to speak out because they feel they don’t know enough. So, education is empowerment and it’s very important. So, I will include in the show notes a list of books that I recommend.

And number 10; humanize Palestinians by diving into the rich arts and culture of Palestine and encouraging other people to do so as well. Two of my favorite Palestinian poets, for example, are Mahmoud Darwish and Naomi Shihab Nye. And you can find their works anywhere books are sold. I will also link them up in the show notes. You can listen to the music of MC Abdul on Spotify, a 15-year-old hip hop emcee from Gaza that I’ve been following for three years, who raps about what it’s like growing up as a kid in Gaza and his aspirations for peace and justice.

And of course, Watch Palestinian films. There are many of them, both feature films and documentaries, that are available for free on major streaming services, and I will link up some of them in the show notes so that you can check them out. And finally, please share this episode of The Maverick Show. If you find this helpful and valuable, please share it on social media. Share it privately with friends. Encourage them to share it as well. We need to work together to educate, empower, and mobilize to stop this genocide. This is our moment to step up. If you have any questions or need any help developing messaging for your audience. If you need any other resources or if there’s any way that I can support you, I am making myself personally available on this issue. So please feel free to direct message me on Instagram at Matt Bowles Maverick. And I would love to hear your feedback on this episode.

So please just reach out on Instagram, and message me there. Let me know what you think of the episode. I am sending love and solidarity to you, and good night, everybody.