Rula Daood and Alon-Lee Green on Standing Together
Episode
65 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Productivity, Relationships, Software Development
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓Building Political Will Over Solutions: Standing Together focuses on creating societal demand for peace rather than prescribing specific state configurations. Their organizing work targets both Jewish and Palestinian citizens to build power for ending occupation, recognizing that pressure must come from within Israeli society, not just external governments or international movements.
- ✓Two-People Reality Framework: Any viable path forward must acknowledge that seven million Israelis and seven million Palestinians both call this land home and neither population will leave. Solutions demanding one group's displacement are fantasies that prevent practical progress. Peace requires compromise where both peoples achieve independence, equality, and freedom simultaneously.
- ✓Asymmetrical Information Bubbles: Palestinians in Nazareth wake to Instagram feeds showing Gaza destruction while Jews in Tel Aviv see only hostage families and rocket attacks. Standing Together bridges these separate realities by organizing joint Jewish-Palestinian demonstrations, creating shared narratives about how both populations benefit from ending endless war cycles occurring every eighteen months.
- ✓Fear as Political Weapon: Israeli politicians weaponize fear and despair to make occupation seem inevitable, like weather forecasts beyond human control. Historical precedent shows rapid shifts are possible: Egypt transformed from Israel's most feared enemy to peace partner within five years after the nineteen seventy-three war, demonstrating how organized movements create conditions for breakthrough agreements.
- ✓US Blank Check Problem: Biden administration provides unconditional support to Netanyahu's right-wing government rather than supporting Israeli people's interests in peace. This approach strengthens the same government that hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against for ten months before October seventh, missing opportunities to leverage US influence for ceasefire and political solutions.
What It Covers
Brené Brown interviews Rula Daoud and Alon-Lee Green, co-directors of Standing Together, a grassroots Jewish-Palestinian movement in Israel mobilizing citizens for peace, equality, and ending the occupation through building political will rather than choosing sides.
Key Questions Answered
- •Building Political Will Over Solutions: Standing Together focuses on creating societal demand for peace rather than prescribing specific state configurations. Their organizing work targets both Jewish and Palestinian citizens to build power for ending occupation, recognizing that pressure must come from within Israeli society, not just external governments or international movements.
- •Two-People Reality Framework: Any viable path forward must acknowledge that seven million Israelis and seven million Palestinians both call this land home and neither population will leave. Solutions demanding one group's displacement are fantasies that prevent practical progress. Peace requires compromise where both peoples achieve independence, equality, and freedom simultaneously.
- •Asymmetrical Information Bubbles: Palestinians in Nazareth wake to Instagram feeds showing Gaza destruction while Jews in Tel Aviv see only hostage families and rocket attacks. Standing Together bridges these separate realities by organizing joint Jewish-Palestinian demonstrations, creating shared narratives about how both populations benefit from ending endless war cycles occurring every eighteen months.
- •Fear as Political Weapon: Israeli politicians weaponize fear and despair to make occupation seem inevitable, like weather forecasts beyond human control. Historical precedent shows rapid shifts are possible: Egypt transformed from Israel's most feared enemy to peace partner within five years after the nineteen seventy-three war, demonstrating how organized movements create conditions for breakthrough agreements.
- •US Blank Check Problem: Biden administration provides unconditional support to Netanyahu's right-wing government rather than supporting Israeli people's interests in peace. This approach strengthens the same government that hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against for ten months before October seventh, missing opportunities to leverage US influence for ceasefire and political solutions.
Notable Moment
Rula describes being strip-searched at an Israeli airport before a trip to Italy after years without travel, receiving the yellow non-Jewish sticker. This humiliation crystallized her understanding of being treated as a second-class citizen and security threat in the only place she calls home, catalyzing her political awakening.
Episode Transcript
Hi, everyone. I'm Brene Brown, and this is Unlocking Us. This is part two of a three part series focusing on Palestine and Israel. It's a follow-up to an essay I posted on our website last week. The, reactions were swift, and while there was some support, and there was also a lot of dissent, a lot of disagreement. I think it was a huge disappointment to a lot of people. There were a lot of comments like I missed a bunch of things that I should have gotten right. And my intention with these podcast episodes with a new essay is really not to change your opinion of me, not to change your political beliefs or opinions, but to share what I'm learning and unlearning, I think, for the purpose of being a better global citizen. And really, most importantly, highlighting incredibly important work that I think could make a difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands, millions of people. All three of the podcasts will drop this week. We have a new podcast partner, Vox Media. I asked if we could not go into a full podcast launch, but if we could do these three podcasts, non monetized, non commercialized, no revenue attached to them, their immediate response without even blinking was absolutely this is important, go for it. So I wanna a big thank you. Say a big thank you to them. In these three podcasts, I am talking to Israeli and Palestinian activists on the ground. I am also talking with a Middle East analyst who studies Palestine and really looks at The US involvement, not only in Palestine, but in failed peace agreements between Israel and Palestine, and why. Why the brokering has never worked? And I read the book twice, You'll Meet Khalid Al Gandhi, in the third podcast, Still Processing and Learning. There's a new essay, a follow-up essay on brenebrown.com addressing some of the comments from my original essay. I am glad you're here. I'm glad you're listening. I am talking to two folks today that, first of all, their organization Standing Together was mentioned by the other peace activists that I talked to as examples of what it means to work towards creating the political will for peace. The guests today are Rula Dawood and Alan Lee Green. The organization is Standing Together, and before we jump into the conversation, let me tell you a little bit about staying together first. It's a grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality, the end of the occupation, economic inequality. They're doing incredible work, and their work is, right now, is a very critical tipping point, so I I can't wait for you to meet them and hear what they're doing. They need our support. The future they want, this is what they write, peace and independence for Israelis and Palestinians, full equality for all citizens, true social economic environmental justice, and they believe this is …
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