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News| | Publish on Thu, 04/03/2025 - 15:25

Huwaida Arraf on Gaza: ‘We will look back and truly feel ashamed’

The Palestinian American lawyer and activist explains why the fight for our civil liberties and Gaza go hand in hand.

Huwaida Arraf on Gaza: ‘We will look back and truly feel ashamed’

Transcript provided by The Real News: Marc Steiner: Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us. We’re talking today with Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian woman, a lawyer born in Israel, an international renowned human rights lawyer, trilingual in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. A nonviolent activist who co-founded International Solidarity Network fighting for Palestinian rights and nationhood. She ran for Congress in Michigan’s 10th congressional district, writes extensively, and puts her mind, body, literally, and spirit on the line for Palestinian freedom. Huwaida, welcome. Good to have you with us. Huwaida Arraf: It’s good to be with you, Marc. Thank you. Marc Steiner: You have been doing this for a while. Huwaida Arraf: Yeah, I had hoped it wouldn’t be this long, but the fight goes on. Marc Steiner: As we had this conversation today, I was looking at the news before I walked into the studio, and Israel has resumed their operations in central and South Gaza. They’ve started their airstrikes, 20 Palestinians were killed, almost all of them health workers. A hundred Palestinians were killed in airstrikes since the beginning of this conflict. I mean, what’s happening in Gaza is almost unbelievable. I think it’s hard for people to fathom the extent of death and destruction that’s taking place. This is not simply a war. Huwaida Arraf: Absolutely. I don’t like to use that term at all because war implies you have two equal sides, and that’s absolutely not what you have here. You have a population that has been oppressed and colonized for nearly eight decades, and for the past almost two decades in Gaza specifically, really has been caged and cut off from essentials. And you take that and over the years also every few years Israel bombs decimate the society, the infrastructure. You have a medieval siege that’s imposed on the entire civilian population that really leaves people not able to control even their daily lives. I mean, forget about just being able to leave the Gaza Strip to go get what you need, to go to school, to visit family, to get the medical attention that you need, what you might be able to find food that day is completely determined by what Israel allows in and what doesn’t allow in. And for the past two and a half weeks before it restarted, this barbaric bombardment of Gaza has been cutting off all food and medical aid and then just cut off also electricity, which means they can’t desalinate water. I mean people have nothing. It is truly a caged, beleaguered star population that Israel has also restarted viciously bombing from the air. So just in the past couple of days, nearly 500 killed, so many children. At least the last number, and I don’t even like to say numbers because it changes by the minute, but over 180 children, babies, infants, and no one seems to be able to stop Israel. No one is willing to do it. And the reports are that the United States, the White House has given the green light. They were briefed on it, and the slaughter continues. It really, I am unable to find words these days to describe the evil that we are witnessing. Marc Steiner: And you mentioned the United States. I mean, the kind of lack of political will in the Biden administration to intervene and stop it. And now we’re faced with a government in this country which actively supports Israel in its destruction of Palestinians and the murder of Palestinians. It is really time for, I think those of us in America to step up and really heighten the protests and the confrontations with our own government to say, no, this can’t take place. So I’m curious as an activist here, where you see that going, where you see what our role is here in the United States to stop this kind of genocide taking place in Gaza. Huwaida Arraf: Absolutely, and that is the question, right? Because I worked for a long time volunteering in the occupied Palestinian territory and welcoming people from around the world to come see what’s actually happening in Palestine. And Palestinians would be so grateful for the international solidarity and for people leaving the comforts of their own home to travel to stand with them. But what we would hear over and over again from Palestinians is just please go back to your countries, especially the United States, and change the policies there because it is the policies of especially the Western countries led by the United States that’s enabling Israel. And so what we do here in the United States really, really matters. I mean, it’s not adequate to just say it’s not our problem, it’s not happening here. It’s thousands of miles away because we are so actively involved

Author Name: Marc Steiner

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