Speaking at the India Today Conclave, titled 'Gaza Riviera: Solution or Sacrilege?', Dr. Zaina Jallad, professor at American University in Beirut, opened up on the Israel-Palestine conflict, denouncing US President Donald Trump's plan to build a Riviera in Gaza.
Talking to India Today TV's Foreign Affairs Editor Geeta Mohan, Dr Jallad shared personal experiences of growing up in Palestine and the impact of the October 7th attack on Israel as well. Jallad further highlighted the role of Hamas, Israel's blockade, and the lack of support from the Arab world.
Talking to India Today TV's Foreign Affairs Editor Geeta Mohan, Dr Jallad shared personal experiences of growing up in Palestine and the impact of the October 7th attack on Israel as well. Jallad further highlighted the role of Hamas, Israel's blockade, and the lack of support from the Arab world.
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00:00A very good evening. The session is on the Israel-Hamas-Israel-Palestine conflict.
00:09There are two very important sessions. We begin with the Palestine session that
00:13is Palestine stateless and in crisis. Israel-Palestine conflict has been a
00:18longstanding one which has led to many a conflict and failed peace efforts but
00:26October 7th changed a lot of that in terms of how the world is viewing Israel,
00:32how the world views Palestine, the question of the statehood for Palestine
00:37but also leading to one of the biggest humanitarian crisis that exists today.
00:43I'm being joined by Dr. Zaina Jalad who is a professor at the American University
00:49in Beirut. She also happens to be born and brought
00:55up in Ramallah and comes with a very personal story because her entire family
01:01continues to live in Palestine whether it's the West Bank or Gaza.
01:06We don't have a lot of time so Zaina I'll begin with what you're wearing today
01:12because when we were waiting for the session to begin we were fascinated by
01:17what she was wearing and there's a personal story there so let's start with
01:21what you're wearing today Zaina and then we'll go to the crux of what this conflict
01:27has been all about and how it has affected Palestinian lives.
01:33Thank you Ghida and thanks a lot for having me in India.
01:37It's a pleasure to be with all of you here today.
01:39To answer your question what I'm wearing, I'm wearing a Palestinian embroidered
01:46jacket and this tells the story of the Gazan children.
01:53So it's Palestinian embroidery, the side in blue is the sea of Gaza,
01:58the Mediterranean and here is the mother accompanied by her kids with the hope for
02:04peace and the life but the back of it is the destruction of the Adwan Hospital
02:09and the destruction of life in Gaza and this jacket was done as a part of support
02:15to rebuilding the hospitals in Gaza so it was part of an initiative to support
02:20rebuilding hospitals in Gaza after the massive destruction so this is what I'm
02:25wearing.
02:26You also come with a personal story Zaina.
02:29Your entire family is in Palestine. For people in India, people in many parts
02:35of the world, they understand the Israel-Palestine conflict as one that does
02:40not touch or affect them but today after the October 7th attack many are interested
02:45in knowing how will there be peace when there has been such a massive humanitarian
02:51crisis that we're seeing and such a toll to the Palestinian life.
02:57In such a scenario, when you have family back home, what have you left behind?
03:03What does the day after look like to you?
03:07First, I'm really sad that we are here to talk about such a very, very dark reality
03:15and such a destructive moment. I was very happy this morning to be in
03:20a position where we are learning about medicine, AI, Ozempic, what does it do to
03:25people and then realizing like I'm coming with a very, very heavy story to tell,
03:33right? So I was born in Ramallah.
03:35I am from Palestine. My dad is from Palestine.
03:39My grandfather is from Palestine and we go to maybe the times of Jesus or even
03:44before that. So what I left in Palestine when I came
03:48here, I left my everything behind. I do not belong as much as I'd like to
03:54identify as a global citizen or the citizen that I connect with people like you
03:59and everyone in the room but I just belong to that land.
04:02I was born there. My story is there.
04:05My family is there. My language, my education, I was there
04:11and I will always be there. I'm the salt of that land.
04:15And when I was born there, I was the generation of the first intifada.
04:21People think of Palestine as a very complicated context.
04:25So growing up there, I grew up where we were not able even to go to school.
04:29I think I had three or four years of my childhood when I was unable to go to
04:33school. My dad had to wrap and I have this fetish
04:37until today to have a school bag with a Mickey Mouse and some of my friends in
04:41the room, they know this story because I've written about it in my PhD at
04:46Columbia University. So I grew up not going to a regular
04:51school. I was in the seminary hiding and my dad
04:54would need to wrap my textbooks in plastic garbage bags to show as if he was
04:59sending garbage to the bin instead of sending a child to a school without
05:04knowing this child would come back or not.
05:06So this is the kind of childhood that I had.
05:09Determination for education, at the same time hope for a life, hope for a better
05:14future while growing up in a place that is so precarious, so unknown, filled with
05:20violence. I had checkpoints growing up to go from
05:24one place to another. My mother was tortured at the
05:27checkpoint for more than 12 hours and she lost her life the day after.
05:31So that was like the kind of life. What is the day after for me?
05:35The day after for me is a life that I want a better future for me, for my
05:39children, for my Palestinian grandchildren and the future to come.
05:43This is the kind of life that I want. I want life, I want peace, I want love,
05:48I want music, I want dance, I want much more joyful embroidery than a story of
05:54death and killing of Palestinian kids.
05:58Zainab, a lot of people...
06:00A lot of people say and there is a lot of blame that you attribute to politicians.
06:10There have been so many failed efforts of peace but there still was conversation.
06:16Today, we have Donald Trump as the President of the United States of America
06:22and a lot has changed. We were just showing visuals of Gaza
06:27before and after. And you know how this is how Gaza looks
06:32today, certainly not a part of your memory because never has Gaza looked like this
06:37ever through your childhood and there is an entire generation in Gaza that does not
06:43understand what really happened to them, those kids.
06:48But I ask you this, there is a plan that Trump has put in place, a Riviera.
06:55What does it really mean? As somebody, as an expert who knows
06:59what Gaza means to the West, what does Gaza mean to the West?
07:03Is it just a beachfront?
07:05I find this very troubling video behind. This is like the very, very manifestation
07:13of a stereotyping, profiling. Let's paint Palestinians as people that
07:19are barbaric, people that are dehumanized in every sense, people who look different,
07:25who feel different, who speak different. And you have the Riviera and then like
07:30this video where, you know, in 1917, people think of Palestine as a very
07:35complicated question. 1917, a British belfer, James Belfer,
07:42gave a promise based on the view of the government of Britain at the time to
07:48establish a national home for the Jewish people, right?
07:521917. And they promised a national home for the Jewish people who were struggling
07:58in the world, they promised a home in Palestine. So they brought all the Jewish
08:05people to end their suffering to the home in Palestine.
08:09Today, what we are seeing, Trump is giving another promise in 2025,
08:14Belfer Declaration revisited by someone who has nowhere to say on a place that he
08:21has nothing to do with people that he shares nothing with, as if me saying,
08:26you know what, Gita, I don't like your house. I think if Alexander lives in your
08:31house, it would be a much nicer place. So it's coming from a person who doesn't
08:37see Palestinians as even subjects that are allowed to exist.
08:42The level of denial of Palestinians agency, right to life, right to decision,
08:47self-determination, all international and human, forget about international law.
08:53Like I'm not here to talk in an international law language, but the
08:58language of utter denial of people to exist and commercializing everything,
09:04turning everything to a Riviera. What does a Riviera mean?
09:07Yes, Palestinians have the potential to build their own Riviera.
09:11And they are so capable and equipped to build whatever they think of and they
09:16desire. But how can we create the conducive
09:20conditions for a normal human being to be able to live?
09:25This is the question. If today in Gaza, kids are freezing to
09:29death, freezing to death. Starvation is so real that kids have
09:36died out of starvation, not malnutrition, starvation.
09:40So if you have a human being, a child who's being so tortured, so malnutritioned,
09:47so starved to a point of death, and then I come and I say, you don't deserve to
09:52live. Let me do what?
09:54Let me create a Riviera for people who are more competent of deserving to live
09:59on the Mediterranean. This is what?
10:01This is at the heart of it an inciting for a genocide, inciting for the first
10:07expulsion of the Palestinian people. This is a crime of forced displacement of
10:12the Palestinian people. That comes from someone who has nothing
10:15to do with that place. Okay, we will talk about being stateless.
10:19But before that, is there a realization that maybe what Hamas did really ensured
10:28in many ways that one, not enabled, ensured that Palestine has no bargaining
10:33chip at the negotiating table, not with the U.S., not with the West, not with the world?
10:39That's a very good question. That's a very good question.
10:43Hamas is a political party. Hamas and its charter recognize Israel,
10:50recognize the right of Israelis to live based on the partition plan and the
10:55international law language. The biggest image, let's create always a
11:01devil, let's create the biggest elephant in the room.
11:04If we have someone that we create as the devil, then it's easy to blame.
11:09It's easy to, but they did this, but they did that.
11:12Hamas is a political party. They won the elections in 2007, right?
11:18So they were the elected government. What did the world do?
11:23The Americans decided to sanction the Palestinian government.
11:27Europeans decided to boycott Hamas. The entire world bashed Hamas.
11:33And then what happened? Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza.
11:37So before talking about October 7th, let's talk about October 6th and go back from
11:4320, 20 what? 22? Until 2007. So there was a full blockade on Gaza.
11:52Sea, land, and air. And do you know what does it mean to live in a blockade?
11:58I'll give you an idea of what a blockade was in Gaza.
12:01So Israel, when it imposed its full siege on Gaza, it created what became known as
12:07the world's biggest open air prison. Meaning what?
12:12No import, no export, no humanitarian aid, no access to the sea, no access via land,
12:19and no access via what? Sea, land, and air.
12:24And what did they do? They created a list for humanitarian aid.
12:28What is allowed to enter as a humanitarian aid and what is allowed to exit as a
12:34humanitarian aid. Can I give you examples of what was on the list?
12:39So the list classified items as essential, necessary, and luxury.
12:46Chocolate was on the list of banned items into Gaza because it was luxury.
12:53Wedding dresses was banned because they were luxury.
12:57IV syringes, MRI machines, chemo. What goes on the necessary also?
13:07Coriander, cloves, cardamom. And what was also on the list?
13:13Pasta and ketchup. It took from 2007 until 2010 when at the
13:21time it was Senator John Kerry. He came to Gaza and he was shocked to
13:25come to his hearing that pasta was banned for security reasons.
13:30He asked the Minister of Defense, where is the security threat in pasta?
13:35And then the Israeli Minister of Defense had to revisit that and allowed for pasta
13:41to come into Gaza. That was 2009.
13:45So you have a full population locked up by sea, by land, by air, no access to
13:53education, no access to health, no access to resources, no access to natural
13:59resources. They were not even allowed to fish in
14:02their own sea. Imagine a woman cannot wear a wedding
14:07bridal gown, like the level of dehumanization.
14:11No one was allowed. Fertilizers were not allowed.
14:15So you have a full destruction of a system turning people, reducing the level
14:20of humanity, crushing their dignity and then, oh, they are revolting.
14:26Why we didn't hear about the Gazans all the past 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 60, 70, 80
14:32years ago. 70% of the people in Gaza are refugees.
14:37Where do they come from? They come from Haifa.
14:41They come from Jaffa. They come from Tel Aviv.
14:44They were all displaced, internally displaced in their own lands that they
14:49were pushed into Gaza. And yet, again, now we're seeing it
14:53happening one more time. But, Zainab, look at the larger
14:57geopolitics of it because we have very less time.
14:59I have to ask you this. Israel comes with a lot of support and
15:02backing. Israel has the United States of America.
15:04Israel has the backing of Europe. When they say that they are under threat
15:09and they are, it is an existential threat for a very small country such as Israel
15:13as well. Where is the Arab world for Palestine?
15:17Where have they stood? What have they done?
15:20Apart from the words that we see up post-October 7th, what have they really
15:24done to resolve the Palestine question?
15:27I'm not sure about the existential threat. Israel exists.
15:32Israel has free market economy deals with the EU.
15:36Israel is represented in Eurovision. The creation of Israel was the product of
15:42the wrongdoings of the West. Israel was never created on the
15:48shoulders of guilt and blood and wrongdoing of the Muslim world or the
15:52Arab world or the Palestinian nation. Israel is not faced with any existential
15:58threat. Look at its economy.
16:00What is the minimum wage in Israel? $1,500 something dollars?
16:08Which threat we're talking about? There is a strategy to bring the
16:12measuration of the Jewish people. Anyone, any Jew from Ethiopia, from
16:17Russia, from Ukraine, from Brooklyn, is welcome to be a citizen without
16:23defining in the constitution who is a Jew. Until today, there is no constitution in
16:28Israel. There are no borders for Israel and there
16:31is no definition for who qualifies as a Jew because the strategy is the
16:35measuration of the Jewish population so you have more people, one ethnic group in
16:43one land while minorizing Arabs and denying their existence as Palestinians.
16:49So Israel is not a threat, existential threat.
16:52It's like the biggest fear. Again, we need to say, oh, Israel is that.
16:56No, Palestinians, they recognize Israel. They recognize its right to exist.
17:01It's a fact. The entire world is recognizing.
17:04It's a fact. The recognition of Israel in the United
17:07Nations in 1949, it was a contingent recognition based on the implementation
17:15of the Resolution 194 which is the right of return of the Palestinian people.
17:20If the membership, the creation of Israel was made by international law and the
17:25international community based on a contingent condition of the return of the
17:29Palestinian people, I do not see Israel is at a threat.
17:36There is no existential threat. The existential threat is the
17:39strangulation and the extermination of the Palestinian people.
17:43This is what we are seeing. Arabs, what did Arabs do?
17:47Arabs, unfortunately, they have a lot to offer and instead what we are seeing is
17:53today Israel is controlling a lot, is controlling a lot.
17:57They are controlling lots of resources, lots of natural resources.
18:02They are advancing in tech, they are advancing and with all of their support
18:06universally, they are the ones who are being so blatant and so capable of
18:13launching so many wars, of killing thousands and thousands and thousands of
18:18children and no one is saying no.
18:22In all this, where do you see a future for Palestine because, again, I'm repeating
18:27it, Palestine and Gazans have no bargaining chip.
18:33Trump has put an ultimatum. He's already said that should you not
18:37release the hostages that Gaza will be wiped off the planet, which means a large
18:43part of the Palestinians as well, not just the land.
18:46In such a scenario, where do you see the resolution for the Palestinian crisis
18:51head?
18:53And he said also, not only that, he continued it by saying the ones who hold
18:58bodies, they are sick and twisted, right?
19:02And you know Israel holds like more than thousands of Palestinian corpse, including
19:0759 kids. Like they kill the kids and they continue
19:10to hold their bodies, right? So the same language, why I'm saying this,
19:15because the same logic that applies is always pick and choose, pick and choose.
19:21International law works here, so let's apply international law here.
19:24But Zainab, Trump has picked a side. Trump has picked a side.
19:29It's not good to tell me. How will there be a solution to the
19:33Palestine? The solution for Palestine is simple.
19:37The question of Palestine has been an occupation is supposed to be a temporary
19:42situation. There is no occupation that lasts for
19:45more than 70 years and then we say, oh, he picked a side or they picked a side or
19:49we're picking a side. We need to be today on the right side.
19:53We need to say no today for the mass killing and mass violation of human rights
19:58of the Palestinian people. What kind of side we are siding on if
20:02we're allowing for the death of kids? We run out of language even.
20:07Today, Palestinians, we see an emergence of language to articulate our pain and
20:13suffering and no one is listening. We have new language.
20:16Eco side, scholastic side to say the death of the students, the death of
20:21universities, urban side, social side, like we are even being creative in
20:27inventing language to tell the world, please say no to death.
20:32Please sanction Israel. Please freeze membership.
20:37We are seeing development on the international plane.
20:39This is not enough. What will happen to Palestine?
20:42Palestinians will always continue to exist.
20:45Palestinians, if we're saying you have no right to international law, you have no
20:49right to self-determination, what are we saying to this world?
20:53We're saying just the logic of brutality, the logic of death will prevail and I
20:59think we need to be today more honest with ourselves, more ethical with
21:03ourselves. Why should we watch a genocide being
21:06live streamed and we're okay with that?
21:08Say no to death. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Zainab Jalad.