Helena Cobban, talk on Hamas at Westmoreland Church, April 21, 2024

In March 2024, the Middle East Committee of Westmoreland Church, which is a very active  "UCC" congregation located on the borderline between Maryland and Washington DC, invited Helena to go and speak to their members on the topic "Hamas: A Primer."

The event took place on April 21, 2024, and took the form of a conversation conducted, for the first 35 minutes, by longtime Middle East Committee member Robert Mertz. In the second half of the program, several attendees at the gathering asked questions, both in-person from the church parlor, and online via the event's well-populated Zoom feed.

This episode contains the recording of nearly the whole of the April 21 event. Here is the "resource list" referred to toward the end of the episode:

•Online resource list: bit.ly/Keys-4-H

•Sign up for Helena’s (roughly weekly) newsletter at: eepurl.com/b-5d_9

•Learn about her company’s many books on Gaza, Palestine, etc, at: Justworldbooks.com

Transcript

Helena Cobban: 0:00

Hi, everybody. I'm Helena Cobban. I'm the president of Just World Educational, a small educational nonprofit headquartered here in Washington, dc And I also have a publishing company that I run called Just World Books, which has published many excellent titles by Palestinian and Zionism questioning Jewish authors. I grew up in England, and over the course of a long career of writing about Palestine and other global issues, I have conducted numerous reporting tours in Gaza, other parts of Palestine, and all the other parts of West Asia, the area also known as the Middle East, where large concentrations of Palestinians exiled from their homeland have long been forced to live. And I've had the opportunity over the course of many years to interview numerous leaders of and activists within Hamas and all the other Palestinian political movements. In March, 2024, the Middle East Committee of Westmoreland Church, which is a very active UCC congregation, located on the borderline between Maryland and Washington, DC , invited me to go and speak to their members on the topic, Hamas a primer. I was pleased to take up this invitation as it is my strong belief based on the copious available evidence that this Palestinian organization has been subjected for decades now to systematic demonization and smearing by the Israeli authorities and by many political leaders here in the United States. And it's also my strong belief that the terrible now genocide level strife within Gaza and the rest of Palestine cannot be brought to an end unless all the longstanding attempts to destroy Hamas and to exclude it from any peace efforts are also ended. In short, if the peoples of Palestine and Israel are to win the kind of hopeful sustainable peace that they yearn for, and so sorely deserve, then a way must be found to integrate this movement Hamas, within the peacemaking diplomacy, rather than continuing to exclude and to try to destroy it. And for this to happen, it would be very helpful if citizens and leaders around the world, including here in the United States, could gain a much fuller and more accurate understanding that is generally available of the roots development and dynamic of this sizable movement within the Palestinian Body Politic. The event at Westmoreland Church took place on April 21st, 2024, and took the form of an , of a conversation conducted for the first 35 minutes by longtime Middle East Committee member Robert Mertz . In the second half of the program, several attendees at the gathering asked questions, both in person from the church parlor and online via the events well-populated Zoom feed. All those questions were thoughtful and seemed to represent a sincere desire among these attendees to learn more and understand more about Hamas. The recording that follows Missed out the lovely welcome and centering prayer that Middle East Committee head , Maryn Goodson delivered, and also the portion where Robert Mertz introduced me along with the first question that he posed to me. Also, later in the recording, you'll hear me and Maryn Goodson referring to a list of resources that appear on the screen. That list of resources can be found in the program notes accompanying this episode. So now here is the audio of the conversation in Westmoreland Church. Robert Mertz's, first question to me was, what is Hamas? And here is how the conversation then went. So what is Hamas? My friend Rami Khouri, who's a Palestinian , um, journalist and intellectual and analyst of many years standing, I think five years more than me, he says, when he , people ask him this question, his response is, it's just like the Republican Party. And , um, that is a bit of a jaw dropper , but he goes on to explain that there are very good people in both organizations who, you know, volunteer at homeless kitchens , um, homeless encampments, soup kitchens, organized church suppers, do all kinds of, well, a Muslim equivalent of a church supper. Um, and there are a few really crazy people . Um , and there's a bunch of people in between who have strongly held views, generally are socially conservative. So I think that's a really helpful frame for Hamas to say that it's like the Republican Party. Um, I would also say that it's, you know, when we hear about Hamas in our Western corporate media, it's always about atrocities and violence and intransigence. And what is very little understood is the extensive civilian organization that Hamas has, and from which it was born back in 2007 to , sorry, 1990. Oh gosh, I'm getting so old. 1987. Okay , <laugh> , I've got all this on a later question. So , um, it has extensive social service wings. It has political, educational and military wings, but people in the west tend to hear only about what's happening in the military wing, what that's doing. Um, the, the political leadership is currently based in Qatar, which in case you didn't know, is actually an ally of the United States and hosts a major US military base. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So that's kind of interesting to me. They may be about to be get to , to be , um, thrown out of Qatar, I don't know, in which case they're most likely to move to Turkey, which is also a US ally and a full member of nato. So, you know, there's a lot of things that we need to unpack and understand about this, this organization, it also has extensive diplomatic links with governments around the world , um, governments , um, in the Middle East, or as I call it, west Asia. Um, and governments like South Africa. Um , a lot of governments in , in Latin America, Moscow, China , um, Pakistan, a lot of major governments around the world have a permanent or semi-permanent Hamas , um, liaison relationship. So, you know, it's not just what you see on the news.

Robert Mertz: 7:08

Well, that's a very good open opening. Um, and I, I can remember , uh, apropos of what you just said that Pamela and I had lunch with a American woman in Gaza back in 2005 who said that Hamas would probably win the elections because they fixed the potholes in the roads and they had schools and clinics and things like that. And it wasn't just about their , their militancy or their political agenda. Um, anyway, I don't wanna jump ahead. What can you tell us about the charter and what Hamas' objectives were and are?

Helena Cobban: 7:41

Okay, so , um, let's go to the key points , um, slide. Um, so Hamas was founded, and I've got the dates right here , um, late 1987 at the time of the outbreak of the first Palestinian Intifada against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. So prior to that, there had been extensive Muslim social service networks, social , in the occupied territories that had been actually kind of encouraged by the Israelis because they were an alternative or counter to the secular nationalist networks in those occupied territories. So then when the Infa broke out, the Muslim Brotherhood, which was that parent organization, said, we have to be jump into the political game as well as prior to that they had been mainly focused on sort of piety and religious observance, and that , you know, that is a very long term thing just to build a pious society. So then , um, in August, 1988, Hamas issued its first charter, and it was a deeply kind of religious focus, and it stated that the usurpation by the Jews of the Land of Palestine was directly descended from the crusader kingdoms of the 11th to 13th century. So kind of like eight century long grievance that here, once again, non-Muslim powers were coming in and usurping , um, Muslim Palestinian land. And then in 1993 , um, I was actually on the White House lawn when Yasa Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister, its et Rabin . And , um, president Clinton signed the Oslo Accords, which was a, an agreement between Israel and Arafat's organization, the PLO . And they agreed to finish negotiations by mid 1999 for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the occupied Palestinian Territories, which would be like a Palestinian, independent Palestinian state alongside Israel with mutual recognition and presumably some form of mutual non-intervention between these two independent states. And they would complete that negotiation by the end of 1999. Hamas at that point, strongly opposed the division of the, the land of Palestine. So they strongly opposed Oslo. Um, and then, and under Oslo, as you may recall, yes , Arafat and the PLO returned to , um, the West Bank and Gaza, not to East Jerusalem, sadly, which is part of the occupied West Bank. And Arafat and his headquarters set up in Ramallah um, a Christian Palestinian town a little bit out of of Jerusalem. Hamas was so strongly opposed to that whole process. And then shortly thereafter, in February, 1994, a US-born Israeli settler, Baruch Goldstein went on armed rampage in the ancient Elon Musk mosque and killed 29 worshipers. It was, it was just horrendous, obviously, for everybody who was there praying. And actually, a a bunch of the, the worshipers got together and were able to subdue him and I , I think they managed to strangle him before he killed any anybody else. But after the Goldstein Massacre, Hamas started sending suicide bombers against civilian targets in Israel. And , um, it was a terrible time for Israelis, and it was a terrible time for Palestinians as well, because obviously the Israelis had the military in the West Bank in Gaza, and they cracked down very hard. And Arafat's , PLO and fateh helped Israel to crack down on Hamas. So remember the, the promise was-- sorry, Leon, you need to go to the next one-- that there would , the , the negotiations for a , um, an independent Palestinian state would be completed by 1999. Parenthetically at the United Nations Security Council, just this past week, our government, the United States government vetoed a resolution that called for recognition of an independent Palestinian state. So these issues are still very live today. Um, so by 2000, it had become clear to the Palestinians there was not going to be an independent Palestinian state. So you had the outbreak of the second Antifa in which Hamas and some of the fatted grassroots actually collaborated. And once again, the Israelis cracked down very harshly. Then in 2005, then Prime Minister Sharon pulled Israel settlers and, and troops outta the interior of Gaza, because it was too difficult for them to, you know, control what was going on in Gaza. They kept tight Israeli control of all of Gaza's borders, which is why under international law, everybody says that even after 2005, Israel remained the occupying power in Gaza because it retained effective security control over everything that went in or out. And that means that it continues, has continued since 1967 to be , um, bound by the Geneva conventions , um, regarding what an occupying power can do. And parenthetically, there, you know, a military occupation is supposed to be a short term thing like the US military occupation in, in Germany, after 1945 lasted seven to nine years, Japan, seven to nine years, US military occupation of Iraq lasted nine years. This occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has gone on for 57 years. You know, it's become deeply entrenched and, and hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers have been implanted in the occupied territories, which is completely outlawed by the Geneva Conventions. Anyway, 2005. Um, so Sharon , the United States and Fateh agreed as part of this, like rearrangement of the Israeli occupation to hold new elections for the PA Parliament to be held in January, 2006. This is what Robert had been talking about , and really intriguingly Hamas agreed to join those elections. There had previously been parliamentary elections in '96, and because, because they were under the auspices of Oslo , um, Hamas did not participate in 96. In, in 2006 , two things happened . One was that Hamas agreed to take part in these elections, which were still under the auspices of Oslo and the two state framework, but also the US and Israel agreed to let them do so. And there must have been, I'm sure there were, you know, some negotiations over how that was done. Actually, Hamas didn't use its own name. It called itself the Change and Reform Party. And they participated in good order in elections that were , um, by t he C arter Center and other o pen organizations to have been free and fair elections in January 26th. I think we need to go to the next one. And g uess who won the elections? Hamas won the elections, so that was a complete blow to the U S and Israel, who had been obviously rooting for and hoping, and, and supporting Fateh in those elections. So they immediately started planning a coup to overthrow the PA's, newly elected pm and they, t he following year, 2007, they, um, l o they, they were just about to launch the c oup. Hamas actually preempted it so t hat that's when you h ad the separation of Hamas exercising civilian c ontrol in Gaza and fatter, exercising civilian control over little kind of points of land. Little, little tiny blobs of land within the West Bank, but not the whole o f the West Bank, as you know, a ll the settlers t here. So we'll go on to the next one. Um, Leon , um, in 2007, Israel started its tough siege of Gaza with US backing, and it's punctuated that with periodic , um, punishment , um, campaigns that are very deadly. Um, sometimes 1500 people would be killed, sometimes 200, sometimes 500, and they call those mowing the lawn, which I think is an obscene expression. But in Israel and Palestine, everybody knows what it means. So under this , um, circumstance of siege with periodic assaults in May, 2017, the Hamas leaders, and remember what I said at the beginning, these are not just the Hamas leaders in Gaza. These, this is Hamas. Wherever there are Palestinians, there is Hamas, you know, in, in inside Israel amongst the Palestinian refugee communities , um, in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan in the Gulf. Um, so in 2017, the leaders all got together and adopted a new revised charter. And it's very important that people understand the changes that they made in this charter. It removed all the antisemitic language that had been in the earlier charter. It was much more focused on Palestinian political issues and less on the kind of piety stuff. I shouldn't call it. I shouldn't, anyway, you know what I mean? <laugh> . Um, and it opened the door a little bit more toward accepting a two state solution. Something that, you know, as I noted, had been presaged in 2005, 2006, when they agreed to take part in these elections. And they stressed that Hamas is now quite separate from the Muslim Brotherhood, which they had to do, really, because the Muslim Brotherhood is very harshly oppressed in Egypt in particular, and has been since 2013. So, you know, since Egypt is the only country that has a tiny land border with Gaza , it it's important for them to have a continuing relationship with the government in Egypt. So, sorry it took so long, but yeah, <laugh> , there's a quick history. No,

Robert Mertz: 18:58

I think it's very important and very important to understand, particularly the point that you make about the fact that they've , their , their sort of geographic scope is now focused on the West Bank and Gaza . It's not focused on, on what is called Israel today. Um, well , so let's jump forward then to October 7th, and what was actually the purpose of that?

Helena Cobban: 19:24

So , um, October the seventh really came as a huge shock to everybody in Israel. It wasn't just the number of people who were killed, which was roughly 1,160 . It wasn't just the number of people who were , um, kidnapped. It was the fact that the entire security concept that Israel had followed since 1948 was punctured overnight, like within hours, like all their extensive military that, you know, is capable of flying hitter and yarn and bombing people here, there, and everywhere that is , has been capable with the help of Google and other, you know, us high tech industries of controlling all these people in the occupied territories. Suddenly, they were incapable of stopping this breakout from the concentration camp that Gaza had been since 2007. So, you know, it , the Hamas people who did it were , um, smart, sophisticated. They had been planning for a very long time. They had looked at all the like, surveillance towers that, that Israel maintained around Gaza, and they figured out how to use drones to disable this entire concentration camp surveillance system , which , you know, and , and the Israelis had been, been relying on that to keep the concentration camp enclosed as a result, not just the, the Hamas operatives. Hamas had a plan they were going , and which they, which they followed. They were going to disable the surveillance system. Then they were going to break out through, I think, maybe five or six locations and go to pre-planned Israeli military units, including the command of, I think it's the Gaza Command headquarters, which was in this , um, place called ra , where there was also the music festival. But the , and they took over all these command posts and took the commanders with them and killed many military people in these command posts. As you know, if you read , um, the accounts of who works killed on , on October 7th that are in, and other Israeli newspapers, something like , um, 40% of the people who were killed were either military or they were , um, the guards for these little kibbutz and Israeli , um, communities. There, there were of course, a lot of civilian casualties. There were civilians taken hostage. So I think taking the hostages was a big part of the goal, but the main part of the goal was to puncture the Israeli sense of self-satisfaction. And, and, you know, that they had a working strategic concept that relied on all this high tech stuff, and they didn't have to put their soldiers on the front line . And they completely punctured that. It took the Israeli military about between three and five days to be able to regain control of all that area because , you know, their , their military was in chaos. It had been blinded. And many of the key people in the military around Gaza in what they call the Gaza envelope, which was designed to envelop Gaza, it , it , it had completely failed. They did send in , um, Apache helicopters and tanks to try to regain this land . And in the course of those battles, many civilians were killed. It's not clear which were killed. It is clear that some were killed by the Israeli military, some were killed by, by the Daza people. And the other point about this is that once Hamas had broke , done the break breakout from the Gaza concentration camp, other people in the concentration camp were like, wow, you know, I'm going out of here. I'm gonna go and loot. I'm gonna go and see my grandfather's farm, you know, that he had been forced to leave in 1948. He was like, wow, we get out of the concentration camp. So there was a lot of just completely uncontrolled, like incursion of, some people call them the riffraff of Gaza, but you know, people, just regular people. So you had a lot of things going on there. Um, of course, the way it's portrayed by the Israeli media machine is that Hamas were focused on killing and raping Israelis and kidnapping civilians. That , that , that is the , you know, the story that they have unbelievably successfully been able to pedal , including to President Biden, who, you know, came out within a few days and said something like, I've seen pictures of the 40 beheaded babies. There were no 40 beheaded babies. You look at the, you look at the , um, accounts in ha or other Israeli media, there was, I think one toddler age two who was killed. There were a handful of children up to the age of 18. I forget exactly how many, there is no record anywhere of any of these either children, babies, adults being beheaded. But, you know, they had so successfully gotten into Joe Biden's brain that he said this thing, like, I've seen pictures of the 40 beheaded babies, you know, and, and now we have actually the whole story about, about the, the mass rapes came out very much later because that was another deliberate campaign. Now, of course, there were some terrible killings. There were, you know, some , um, abductions of civilians as we know, but this was not what, what Hamas had been intending. I I have to say that when I started writing about this, I would call what happened on October 7th from Hamas' point of view, a catastrophic success. Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> <laugh> , you know, they did beyond a doubt puncture Israeli self , uh, sense of, you know, that they have a strategic concept that works, and there's still , the Israelis are still, you know, in the government and the military and the think tanks, trying to figure out how you repair that strategic concept. And, you know, it was always based on deterrence. So deterrence has to be reestablished through, you know, even more violent acts. That's , that's how deterrence works , whether you're talking about US deterrence or, you know, Soviet deterrence back in the day, or , or Israeli deterrent now. So that , that's kind of the best that we can do. I do have some resources that I'm gonna share at the end here on, on the slide , um, because I've pulled together a sort of a , a first reading list. There was an, you know, an excellent in-depth , um, in-depth investigation carried out by Aljazeera in into the military actions that happened on , on January 6th, which is definitely worth looking at . So you , you'll find references to this in the reading list that I'm gonna share later.

Robert Mertz: 27:37

In addition to the bilateral , um, considerations you just illuminated, were there any, any things happening in the sort of broader Arab world or including, say, the, the west , uh, that were perhaps changing the , uh, the dynamics, the political dynamics that , that Hamas was reacting to?

Helena Cobban: 27:58

Um, absolutely. And it's not just that they were reacting, they were also acting. Um, I wrote an article , um, came out a couple of months ago about the big changes in the global balance of power that happened in 2023 prior to October, that actually enabled and provided the, the context in which Hamas could act. And the biggest one of these was that in March, I think March 11th, March 17th, 2023, the Chinese government was able to unveil a, a diplomatic initiative that nobody in the west knew they were undertaking, which was a reconciliation between the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia. So why is this important? This is important because for many, many years, Saudi Arabia has been like the linchpin of US planning, how do we contain or roll back Iranian power and suddenly the government of, of Saudi Arabia is having a reconciliation with Iran. That's bad enough, but who gets to broker the reconciliation China? Well, how did that happen? Like nobody in this country had an idea that it was underway, which also is, is a sort of a blow to the conceit of the people in the American military that they can surveil everybody's diplomatic communications worldwide. They didn't have a clue was happen . So , but the , what happened for the, for, in terms of Hamas is that this thing between Saudi Arabia and Iran for a long time was stoked by the West on the basis of its Shiites against Sunnis. So the Sunnis are, you know, most of the Arab countries with some exceptions, and the Shiites are Iran. So suddenly they , they're making friends again. Now that's important for Hamas because until 2011, Hamas, which is a so Muslim organization, had had a very close military and operational relationship with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is a Shiite organization. And then when the , when the, when the Syrian civil war happened, which had a lot of sectarian, Shiite versus Soni aspects to it, Hezbollah was fighting with the , the Syrian government, and Hamas was fighting against the , not openly, but supporting the people who were fighting against the Syrian government. That operational relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah was broken by the Syrian civil War from roughly 2012 until this reconciliation between , um, Iran and Saudi Arabia that happened last year. So, you know, you may not have noticed, I don't know what's happening on here, but Okay . Um,

Robert Mertz: 31:19

The viewers are objecting or

Helena Cobban: 31:21

Having questions <laugh> , somebody's

Robert Mertz: 31:24

Coughing in the background.

Helena Cobban: 31:26

So yeah , um, maybe we could ask people to mute the , um, I don't know , whatever everybody , uh, please mute on the , uh, thank you, <laugh> . So, yeah. Um, since, since, you know, roughly late spring of last year, Hamas and Hezbollah have been back in touch with each other. And , um, you know, Hamas has big organizations in the , um, Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Um, and they are back in, you know, in , in good touch with Hezbollah in Lebanon. So that's real , been really important. Um, and now for example, you see the biggest support, overt support for Hamas and for a ceasefire in Gaza that you see anywhere in the Arab world comes from this organization in Yemen called the Julius . Their real name is Anah . They are essentially a Shiite organization, but they are very, very active in support of ceasefire to the embarrassment of the US Navy . So , you know , I think that reconciliation was a , was a big thing . And there , there were other big geopolitical shifts in 2023 that that preceded October 7th. Yeah .

Robert Mertz: 32:44

So that we , we've had in the past, and you've very be beautifully illustrated the differences between , um, the , the Hamas and some of the other actors, including domestic and international. What about where do we go from here? Does the, how does Hamas , which has now changed its charter to focus on West Bank and Gaza, which would be similar to fat , I would assume , uh, does this mean that there's possibility for a coordinated Palestinian quality , or is there, does the , there's the lingering conflict between FTA and Hamas preclude that

Helena Cobban: 33:24

Great question. One that I've , uh, been working on quite a lot. So I think there are two dimensions to this. The first is relations between fat and Hamas , which, you know, have , have been very fraught for a long time. Um, but they have also periodically throughout all this past period had attempts to, to reconcile their differences. Um, so most recently, I think it was in February of this year, high level leaders from both fat and Hamas did engage in, you know, talks about reconciliation and where did they take place in Moscow, you know, so it's really fascinating to see the geopolitics of this as well as the local politics. Now, there are other, there are Arab countries like Algeria that are also pushing very hard for a reconciliation between fatter and Hamas . So it may well happen. Um, so that's the internal Palestinian , um, dimension. Of course, the US government is deeply opposed to this reconciliation. Um, as of now, I , let's hope that changes. So as to whether Hamas is edging toward recognition of Israel and accepting a two state solution, I think it's early to say that I think they've put out some useful, like messages that of their readiness. To me, this, this is most reminiscent of what happened with the PLO back in the 1970s and 1980s, because the PLO had originally had as its goal, the creation of a secular democratic state in the whole of , um, historic Palestine that is, there would be no separate Israeli state. And then in the 1970s, they started moving, and I was working as a, as a journalist in Beirut at this time. They started moving toward the idea of accepting what they called , um, a , a , a mini state in just the, the territories occupied in 1967. And when I wrote my book on the PL , which came out in 1984, they were still working towards this. And actually in , uh, the late eighties, my spouse, bill Quant and I were involved in helping to open a diplomatic channel between the PLO , and then it was the end of the Reagan administration. It was George Schultz. And there was, you know, we, we helped to, to establish that so that they could test each other. And that, you know, for better or for worse, it part of, you know, what, what preceded the Oslo Accords in 1993. So that was hard for, for , for Fata and the PLO to, you know, to, to jettison. Its its claim for like the whole of Palestine being a secular democratic state. And to say, we will put up with, you know, just a mini state . So Hamas is going through something very, very similar right now. Um, and, and you know, the , the , there's so many parallels. Like when when fat did it originally, they said, you know, that the mini state would be a step on the road to the , to , to , to the secular democratic state in the whole Palestine. That's what you hear from Hamas . Now, the ones, the leaders who are saying, you know, well, perhaps we could have a, a , a , an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, parenthetically, that would be alongside Israel. So what stands in the way of this happening right now is a lot of things. One is our government, as I alluded to earlier, which is refusing to recognize the Palestinian's, right, to an independent state. Although the Israeli's right to an independent Jewish state in Palestine at the, in level of international law, stems only from the part , the UN's partition resolution of 1947, which said there will be a , a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine. So, you know, if one of them gets the , uh, the birth certificate and the other has the birth certificate, annu , well, first of all, it's not for the United States to be able to do that, except that we have the veto. So we have to figure out how to over , it will take a global effort to overcome these really damaging US vetoes . And, you know, we need here in the United States to be part of that global effort to overcome these , the US veto on a ceasefire and to overcome the US veto on an independent Palestinian state. So, okay. Do , do we think that , um, Hamas and the vast majority of Palestinians would be satisfied with an independent Palestinian state just in the lands occupied in 1967? I don't know. I'm not Palestinian. That's for them to decide it. Would the Israelis be satisfied with an independent Israeli state that is just in the areas that it occupied prior to 1967? I don't know. I would say that is far. I mean, that , that , that it , they are gonna be far more of an obstacle because they have gotten used to ruling over the whole of Jerusalem. And that annexation has been recognized by our government. They've gotten used to ruling over Golan, and that annexation has been supported by our government, and they've gotten used to having, putting their settlers who of course are heavily armed and often extremely lethal to their Palestinian neighbors. They've gotten used to having those throughout the whole of the West Bank. So, you know, the, the obstacle in the way of a two state solution or a two state situation to two state formula, let's call it the obstacles, are not currently mainly on the Palestinian side. They are mainly on the US Israeli side, but what is, what is supportive of the independent Palestinian state alongside Israel? And the two state formula is the vast majority of the governments of the world say that this is what needs to happen. So, you know, that's where you have diplomatic momentum still, and I , I can't predict.

Robert Mertz: 40:49

No , um, I think you've covered an awful lot of territory, and I think maybe we should open it up to, to questions at this point, because I'm sure there are a lot

Helena Cobban: 40:59

Of , before we start the questioning, I think we ought to set some ground rules, and that is we'll try to alternate , we'll be checking the chat, but if you have a question or comment, please stand, identify yourself and , uh, pose the question. And no one will speak the second time until everybody has had a , who wants to speak has had an opportunity. And Robert, can you handle that? I can try, but that sounds good . Do you want me to ask , answer each question as it comes, or do you wanna group the question?

Robert Mertz: 41:30

Well , let's see what they're , I think , um,

Helena Cobban: 41:32

See if there's a pattern . Yeah .

Robert Mertz: 41:33

Okay . So who would like to throw the first stone ? So

Speaker 4: 41:39

Proximity has its advantage . Does indeed, he , I know Bill Fry , I have comment in question that is very complicated. The comment is, I think your characterization of October 7th as a catastrophic success is quite ap . Uh, it accomplished a lot in terms of collateral incidents , ramifying through the international system that could not have been predicted confidently , but which are part of the success amass has enjoyed . At the same time as an identified terrorist organization, amass has paid a price in its marginal legitimacy outside of gospel . At the same time, it has triggered Israeli responses, which have diminished Israelis legitimacy. So that's a big part of the success story, tainted with terrible losses and defeat. My question is very complicated for years, friends of Israel and Palestine, and look for the two state solution , and a large part of the prostration voiced by Palestinians often has been a failure of the Palestinian community inhibited as it has been by occupation to be able to develop a successor leadership that could be in a position to negotiate effectively. Now, that's still a large part of the puzzle before us, which Palestinians can in fact take charge of a movement toward a two state solution. A part of this, and here's my complexity, is that the decimation of Gaza as surely reduced the non-military functions of Hamas drastically. They certainly cannot operate social services and education in the same way. But one , imagine a transition in which the restoration of those social services distinct from Hamas military activities could be undertaken by international institutions as a prelude setting a foundation for a Palestinian successive takeover of those functions, and frankly, sanitizing them. So they're disconnected from Hamas as a part of a move to a Palestinian state.

Robert Mertz: 44:07

Very complicated and interesting question. <laugh> , have a go.

Helena Cobban: 44:11

Okay. Um, first , thank you for good questions. Um, I agree with your initial observations, except when you said that because of what happened on October the seventh, Hamas has lost support in the region. It has not, Hamas' support in the region has never been higher. So that, that's important to remember. I mean, if you look at the , the massive demonstrations from Jordan, if you look at the massive demonstrations in Yemen, the reason you don't see them in Egypt is because of the, you know, are Egyptian , um, allies are cracking, have cracked down on. But Hamas' support in the West Bank , um, in Lebanon, Syria, all around the region has skyrocketed since October 7th. So, you know, I I, that's just one thing I, I would note. So the question, your question as to if it's lost, its civilian networks in Gaza, does that provide a pretext for international institutions to come in and , uh, in your words, sanitize, redirect, reestablish a sanitized , um, version? So my answer to that would be that first of all, Hamas' civilian and social services networks do not exist only in Gaza. They exist in the West Bank, they exist in Jordan, they exist wherever there are Palestinians. So, you know, the, the genocide in Gaza has been unbelievably damaging, obviously. I mean, anybody, any of us who have friends in Gaza, any of us, it's, it's just horrendous to see it happening in real time . The destruction, not just of so many people, so many homes, so many neighborhoods, but so many fine institutions like universities, the , the , uh, municipality of Gaza, which had all the municipal records going back to, you know, the days of the Ottomans, I mean, it , it's a destruction of an entire society quite deliberately undertaken. So of course, that is a setback for Hamas' civilian networks. But I , I'll say a couple of things. One is obviously that there are Hamas network civilian networks elsewhere. Another is that because of Israel's policy pursued over 57 years of strangling gaza's society, if you had had, it's hard to do these hypotheticals, okay? If, if you'd had everybody who was living in Gaza in 1967, whether they were refugees from 1948 Israel, or whether they were indigenous Gaza , and most of them were refugees and still are refugees, if they had been sitting there and allowed to continue to have children and grandchildren and flourish and build these institutions without Israel's restrictions, then the population of Gaza, instead of being 2.3 million would probably be about 6 million today. But Israel's stifling of Palestinian family life means that a majority of people who feel very, very close to Gaza are living outside. There's a wonderful poet in Houston called Fadi Yoga . There , you know, there are dozens of Palestinians all around the world who are unbelievably talented. And let's not forget that the people who built the states in the Gulf were Palestinians and some Egyptians back in the 1970s. So it's not that Palestinians lack skills, you know, administrative skills, political skills, beautiful poetic and writing and literary skills. They have all of that. But colonial suppression policies have kept them divided and, and not, and , and prevented them from having a place to, to build and flourish on their own. You know, I grew up in England at a time of colonial repression, or more to the point a time when the British Empire was crumbling, but with, with huge colonial punishment undertaken in places like Kenya or Malaya or Aiden or elsewhere, you know, the British military was, was killing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people per year in a desperate last attempt to hold the empire together. It failed. And the very people like the au or you know, the , uh, what were they called ? Not the NLF or whatever in Aiden that the British Military and Political Plus had been saying, we can't talk to them. They, you know, they are murderers, they are terrorists. They make , they do this, they do that. At the end of the day, they had to talk to them . So who ended up ruling, you know, in, in Kenya, it was the brother organizations of the mal map who ended up ruling in Aden , who ended up ruling in Malaya . So I see exactly the same thing in the last throes of a colonial empire. The Imperial Center will get very violent and will do all kinds of things like, oh, we designate them as a foreign terrorist organization. Oh, I'm so scared, you know, get real , you know, the era of white colonialism is over. We've got to accept the fact that the majority of the people of the world, the majority of the governments of the world, the governments that produce the majority of global GDP all want this occupation to end. So, you know, we can deal with that.

Speaker 5: 50:33

Steve, Steve France , a Redeemer Episcopal church. Um , I'm struck by the fact that you , you're putting , see that you're putting most of your , uh, chips on two state solution , which , um, for some years now has been widely , uh, ajudicated. And there's the idea of a , the idea of a paradigm shift that no longer a diplomatic or state to state kind of a crisis to be solved by those parties . Um , but it is a human rights issue for the world to deal with , but more like South Africa. So , um, how , I mean , how do you account for that ? Um , just abandoning the , the new paradigm of human rights, and isn't it a danger that those power are a negation of the Palestinian voice? And if we don't , it's as long as the Israelis and the Americans don't listen to Palestinians, no hope .

Helena Cobban: 51:46

Um, so what you are , I think you're asking, it's sort of one state or two states , um, as an, as, you know, whether we should go back to the old PLO goal of a secular democratic state in the whole of Palestine, or as Hamas would say now, an Islamic , uh, state in the whole Palestine with, you know, guaranteed rights for, for the other peoples of the book. Um, which would they , they are very much opposed to anything for secularism , um, as I understand it. So my first answer to that is that I am not a Palestinian, it's not for me to decide whether to continue a struggle for a, a single democratic state in the whole of Palestine, or whether to accept a, a partial , take, a partial victory of a , you know, independent Palestinian state alongside state of Israel, which would require, of course, that all the claims of the Palestinian refugees need to be addressed. They can't be swept under the carpet. And they, they've been various attempts to do this over the years. None of them have worked at all, of course, 'cause the Israelis are not about to let people go back who are refugees. So back in, I wanna say 2002, I was part of a a an international group of Quakers . Um , and by the way, I'm a member of the friends meeting of Washington. I don't think that came up for what it's worth. Um, I then, I was a member of Charlottesville friends meeting . Um , so I was part of an international group of Quakers that did a fact finding mission. We , um, I think there were about 15 of us, mainly from the United States, but also from Canada, South Africa, Britain, and , um, a Palestinian Quaker. And we undertook a , a fact finding mission three weeks , um, inside Israel, the occupied territories, Jordan, and part subsections of our group went to Lebanon, Syria , um, and Egypt. And it was, you know, then we came back together and wrote a report in the report in the manner of Quakers. You know, we had to struggle a long time to come up with , um, a , a unified text, but we did, and we said that, you know, we should support either a one state or a two state outcome, but as , as in on the basis that everybody's rights would be , um, respected, which I think is a good position for a non Palestinian body to, to take, it's really for the Palestinians and the Israelis to decide whether they want to, you know, live in equality in one state or live as two equal states, and that there are complex issues involved. Um, I go right now with the international momentum of the two state solution, you know, because that is where you can, like, you , you can really, at the diplomatic level, leverage that. And I, I took sometimes with , um, a friend in Dublin, you know, in 1923, the Irish Liberation Movement Now , so, so Ireland was the first country that was subject to English settler colonialism back in the days of Cromwell. And they implanted Protestant settlers into Ireland and tried to suppress the Catholics. And it took the Irish Catholics a long time. I'm trying to think how many centuries. But anyway, in 1923, they finally managed to get independence for not the whole of Ireland, but for however many counties it is in the south of Ireland. And they took that as a win. And they still have to put up with the fact that there is this, well, it's long been Protestant dominated little thing in the north of Ireland called Northern Ireland. So you have the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But here's the thing, there was a new prime minister elected in Northern Ireland and Greece . Do you know what her party, is she insane <laugh> in Northern Ireland? I mean, you know, back in the seventies, I could not have believed that . So you never know, like 1923 was 101 years ago. History is, you know, quite intriguing if you look back at it or if you think forward to it. So I would say, you know, it's not for me to decide one state or two state , but what has international diplomatic momentum is two state right now.

Speaker 6: 56:58

There's some questions on ,

Helena Cobban: 57:01

Okay , let's take that first

Speaker 6: 57:02

Question. Let's take this question first .

Helena Cobban: 57:04

You'll have to do that because I can't, we can't see that.

Speaker 6: 57:07

It says , uh, how would you counter the statement often made by us politicians and others that calling for a ceasefire means ha mo winnings .

Helena Cobban: 57:22

Can you identify the questioner?

Speaker 6: 57:25

Jennifer

Helena Cobban: 57:25

Bing . Jennifer Bing is an old friend of mine, <laugh> , she's a Quaker leader on this issue from Chicago. So, hey Jennifer, and thanks for the good question. So I mean, Jennifer is a Quaker since when does anybody seriously think that calling for a ceasefire means, you know, it is something that we should not do. I have been calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine since February 24th, 2022. Um, I think calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, it, it just makes so much sense. And then in either , in any case, you know, like during the Vietnam war, like calling for a ceasefire, did that mean that the North Vietnamese win? Actually, shouldn't the North Vietnamese have won? What the heck were the Americans doing there in the first place? But, you know, so yes, we call for a ceasefire and then let you know the diplomatic process play out. Let the, of course, the hostages need to be released. And so do you know, thousands of Palestinian political prisoners? And that's what they're negotiating about, I hope right now. And then you can have an independent international investigation if this is what people want into exactly what happened on October 7th and exactly what has been happening in months since October 7th. Let's look at everybody's record from October the sixth until today. But hey, how about we look at everybody's record since June 6th, 1967 until today. So, you know, October 7th was a, a really terrible day for Israelis in the many different ways that I have described. But the 18,570 days that preceded it have been really terrible for Palestinians living under military occupation.

Robert Mertz: 59:50

Can I just make a , just a second? Uh , I just like to recommend a book, hope you agree , uh, by Danoff , uh, it's called Killing a King , and it is written , uh, I happened to be in bed watching the 11 o'clock news until in Jerusalem when Ravi was assassinated, and Don Ro was the US News and World Report correspondence in Jerusalem at the time, and wrote a book about the rise of , uh, radical right wing on both sides, both on the Israeli side and on the Palestinian side. So when Helena talks about, you know, it's not gonna be a kumbaya moment for anybody when they look at this , uh, the situation in their respective quality , the Jews gonna have to deal with extreme right wing , and if anybody doesn't , if you don't read the paper, you dunno what's going on in the West Bank. And the Palestinian is the same, but it , it's not as if this is going to be a simple sit around the table and agree on splitting differences, I'm afraid . Um ,

Speaker 6: 1:00:50

Handle one more from the chat . Okay , sure . Uh , from Carol Johnson , and I'll summarize a couple of three comments. Uh , the saga , uh, sad saga of UN and what's the status ?

Helena Cobban: 1:01:10

So un yeah . Um , un obviously was , um, established in, I wanna say 1950 or so , um, with the express mission of by the United Nations with the express mission of providing relief and work services to , um, the Palestinian refugees from the war of 1947 through 1949. Um, and it provide these services to Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem , um, in Gaza, in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. And , um, it has done the best job you can imagine, actually, of providing not only shelter, very rudimentary shelter, but also medical services and educational services. The, the , the Palestinian refugees are the best educated population. And you know , however , you , you , you measure this within West Asia, far and away, like the number of people who have doctorates, the number of people who run universities, who run oil companies, who, as I mentioned earlier, developed all the state apparatuses in in the Gulf. I think

Speaker 6: 1:02:37

The , uh, question also , uh, centered on what happened, the , the Israeli government , uh, had some kind of slanderous program.

Helena Cobban: 1:02:50

So, so this was the exact day after the , um, international Court of Justice issued its ruling on that. There had been a , there was a plausible genocide going on in Gaza, and suddenly the Israeli kind of deflection machine said, oh, and by the way, we think that some of the staff members of ONA have been working with Hamas . So therefore, you know, we, we want to like, really , um, crack down on Ona and all the , the people who receive generous APAC funding in Congress and people in the, in the Biden administration, you know, just jumped immediately and said, oh, yes, we got to cut off funding to, to anwar the , the real beef against on . I think for the Israelis, there are two beefs against Anwar . First of all, it's part of the United Nations, and if you've seen the performances of Israel's current and some of their recent ambassadors to the United Nations, you can see the deep hostility and disdain and, you know, just summing their nose at the United Nations and international law, that that's how they re regard the United Nations as a whole. But then Anwar in particular keeps alive the claims of the Palestinian refugees because it, you know, that that's the , the population it is designed to serve, and that the , the rights of the Palestinian refugees include the rights to return to the homes and properties , um, that they left. Now, of course, in the context of a negotiation, maybe some of those claims could be settled , um, in other ways, but that's for a negotiation at a very high level. In the meantime, if the Israelis are capable of dismantling Ona , and they, they have been largely, they have been to some extent, successful in dismantling on's capabilities in Gaza. They have not dismantled on's capabilities in the West Bank and Jordan and Syria and Lebanon and the other fields where Anwar continues to serve. Um, but what they've been trying to do in Gaza is to replace Anwar with other aid organizations, including the World Central Kitchen. But of course, that didn't go very well, because then they killed the seven Internationals who were working for World Central Kitchen. So , um, the , the needs of the people of Gaza are so huge, but they are part of the continuing needs of the Palestinian people for , uh, in national independence, dignified life and sovereignty.

Speaker 7: 1:05:45

Did you

Helena Cobban: 1:05:46

Wanna add ?

Speaker 7: 1:05:47

No , that's okay . Diane ? Yes . Um , we all ready ? Oh , Diane , number of , um, we , we , it's a temptation to be ready for the last war .

Helena Cobban: 1:06:01

Sorry, I can't quite hear

Speaker 7: 1:06:02

You. It's , it's a temptation to be ready for the last war all the time. You see what , uh, I think succession is really crucial question here. Uh , we don't move from one leader to another. Um , you compared Hamas to the Republican party. Uh, there've always been world class jerks in the Republican party, but there's also, until fairly recently been a lot of very decent people, there was still Mc bias . Now there aren't, and that hasn't been that long, but , and now that the Republican party has really shown what it is to be <inaudible> , the decent people are leaving. And it's been years, it should happened faster, but it's been five or six years. Hamas has been Hamas for a long time. Leadership matters, followership matters. And Israel people have been really upset with Netanyahu for a long time with huge demonstrations against him. I don't know if there's been any , uh, disagreement voiced by any Palestinians, and I am really afraid to ask why. I don't think it's because they have free speech capacity and , um, succession until you have the possibility for succession in both Palestinian entities and among the Israelis, the wackos on the far ends are just going to go totally crazy. And for the first time, Israel has been accused of genocide so many times. This is the first time I have to say, good Lord, it really looks like it. The , the wackos are winning and we have to do something about that. And finally, now, the two state solution is something that people on the Palestinian side will accept instead of rejecting outright. Why did the Palestinian people have to wait so long for possibility of a two state solution , two state solution, if it had come 70 years ago , there would be thriving states ? I don't understand.

Helena Cobban: 1:08:32

Well, it's a big question. Um, I'll take the last part of it. Um, why the Palestinians have not come out in favor of a two state solution. You know , um, growing up in England, as I did, I saw there was this thing that empires and colonial projects do to survive, and it's called divide and rule, and it's been going since the days of the Romans, perhaps longer. So , uh, that's a big part of what's happened for the Palestinians. The Israelis have, you know, as I said earlier, they, they kind of fostered the Muslim Brotherhood for many years as a counter to the secular nationalists. And now they , more recently they've been playing off batter and , and Hamas, and , and sadly, in many cases, those divide and rule policies work. You know, look at India and Pakistan, look at, you know, north Northern Cyprus and Southern Cyprus. I mean, empires are devilishly good at this. So it's hard for the Palestinians to be able to, you know, overcome , um, those kind of deliberate policies of divid and rule. That's one thing. The other is, you know, you talked about the Republican party having gone over to the wackos, and you, you kind of seem to be saying that the , um, Israelis and Palestinians have both been going over to the wackos on their respective sites. I disagree. Hamas are not wackos. You know, I have actually, as I, as Robert mentioned, I've interviewed a number of their, their leaders. They are capable, thoughtful people with a definite point of view. They have very widespread women's networks that I have spent a few days working with. I went with , um, some women , um, Hamas activists to , um, at one of their preschools. The pedagogy in that preschool in Gaza was better than the pedagogy in most preschools in this country, in terms of like encouraging the children to ask questions, showing them how to write your name, but also encouraging them to play together well in creative ways. You know, people don't know that about the Hamas social services, which is an essential part of the broader organization. So, you know, I, I don't think you can say it's been handed over to the wackos . I think what you can say is that Hamas has a huge amount of support politically amongst Palestinians, everywhere for its attempt . Its successful breakout from the concentration camp, regardless of the, the horrible punishment that came afterwards, but also for its desire for Palestinian independence and sovereignty. So, you know, I don't think these are wackos. There are some wackos, but Hamas is absolutely not the same as, for example, isis, which you know, was fostered in, in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq and the US deliberate dismantling of the state apparatus in Iraq. And then you had ISIS coming out, you know, and defying everything and using extreme brutality, including against civilians, against, you know, religious minorities against everybody that they could in order to make a very violent point. Hamas is not like that at all. They are not wackos. No,

Speaker 5: 1:12:18

I think you have time for one more question , um, either here or online. Do you have, okay . Okay . I'm Richard <inaudible> and I'm a member here at Moreland . It's a two part question, but I think third part more important than that has to do with your parallels between Hamas and the Republican party , <laugh> , which I , I , I think in the sense of , you've explained that Hamas has a whole lot going on, that basically its their society together in ways that people need. And so the first part of the question is , uh, do you , it seems that we must negotiate, we, is there at least the international community must negotiate with from us . 'cause they're going, the structure that is from us is gonna be part of anything going forward . So first question is, do you think you will need to negotiate with them ? The second question is, would their name at least that's presented to the world need to be different in order to basically size that Hamas issue . Could that be done ? Good

Helena Cobban: 1:13:28

Motion . And can we ask Sarah to pose her question and then , no , I really wanna answer this one . So , um, Can Hamas be folded into the negotiations? Yes. They've indicated exactly how they want that to happen, which is not by posing themselves as a counter to the PLO , but by having a reconciliation with the existing forces in the PLO that is fatter and the democratic front. And by the way, we do need to underline that. It's not just Hamas that is a part of this resistance movement in Gaza. It's also Palestinian Islamic Shihad . It's the popular front for the Liberation of Palestine and a few other smaller organizations. So, but Hamas is clearly the big kid on the block. So they have been involved in Moscow and elsewhere in Egypt, in a lot of, in Jordan, really in a lot of different places with their counterparts from fatter with a , with a view to how do we bring Hamas into the PLO . And the reason to do that is because it is the PLO that has the international legitimacy. It's, you know, it , it's complicated, but yeah, it is the PLO that signed the Oslo accords with Israel that gave birth to the, to the pa and then to the concept of the Palestinian state . So they're not seeking to supplant the PLO , they're seeking to be admitted and embraced in the PLO . And that is going ahead as to whether they would change their name. They may, they may not. You know, when they ran in the elections in 2006, they changed their name to the change in reform party. Everybody knew who they were, but you know, if, if that's what it takes, it , it can be done.

Speaker 7: 1:15:27

Sorry . Thank you. Um , thank you so much for coming. Um , I wanted to , who are

Helena Cobban: 1:15:33

You?

Speaker 7: 1:15:34

Sarah Wilson , member of Western World , um, and current moderator. Um, two questions that , two issues that haven't come up so far, elections and , um, interested in your point of view on whether , uh, Hamas has opposed free and fair elections in Gaza since it came to power in 2007 , which is why we reported . And second , uh, according to the US governments, Hamas received $500 million a year in funding from various sources and also widely reported. I'm interested in your presumably counterpoint of review , uh, that its leaders, including the gentleman who was on the slide earlier, Liz and Qatar , and is worth about $11 billion a year.

Helena Cobban: 1:16:30

Um, so elections in Gaza, so as I mentioned earlier, they , they did participate in the o PTs , the , um, the West Bank and Gaza elections in 2006 in good order, and then they won them since then. Um, there have been several proposals for follow up elections, but they have never wanted, nobody has ever wanted to have elections just in Gaza. They don't wanna separate Gaza from the West Bank. So that means that you need to have an agreement between fatter , which controls civilian affairs in, in the West Bank and, and Hamas. And it's that level of, of agreement that has not happened, which is why there have been no elections since 2006, since the ones that they won. Um, but you know that there have been no elections in, in the West Bank either, and that's because of the failure of the two, two movements to, to be able to figure out how to work together. So that's the big political challenge , um, about the Hamas leaders living a life of luxury or financing. So yes, they have financing. They have financing from many sources, including from Palestinians worldwide, many of whom, as I mentioned earlier, hold responsible and well , uh, compensated jobs. You know, when you talk about Palestinian refugees, you're talking about a whole socioeconomic gamut from people who live horrible lives in, in primitive huts to people who run, you know, mega million , mega billion international corporations at this point because of the education that they have received. So Palestinians contribute a lot to Hamas and they contribute to other organizations like the popular front or fatter according to what they wanna do and what they're able to do. They receive funding from Qatar , which is an extremely rich, small US supported Emirate in the Gulf. And we know that. Um , so I couldn't tell you what the, what the annual budget of Hamas is. It would probably be impossible to know because they have all these grassroots organizations providing various services in many different fields, and I'm sure they have somebody in their headquarters who knows the budget. If so, I've never met him or her , um, the Hamas leaders abroad, living a life of Riley . I doubt it. I mean, honestly, if you look at people who are , um, very credibly accused of corruption, it is much more in fatter , which, you know, for which the, the pa and its generous budgets from the US Japan and the EU has been a sort of like a continuing gravy train. And that's a continuing story. I've seen very, very few stories of corruption inside Hamas. For example, there was like the Israeli said, oh , we went into this Hamas office in Gaza, this was a few months ago, and we found some diamonds. You know, so clearly Israel haniya is , is like just giving diamonds to his lady friends all around the world or whatever. No. If you are an underground organization, how do you, you know, actually distribute money or distribute, like you , you use the , the gold trade, you use the , the jewel trade to smuggle it into Jordan or to smuggle it wherever. I mean, nobody has ever said credibly that Ismail living in Qatar is living high on the hog. There's a, was a really interesting, lengthy interview recently in HuffPost, a a in which the reporter went to interview two Hamas leaders in Qatar. And, you know, he described the very simple place, it's hard to find a simple place to live in Kaar , let me tell you. But they, they did. So, you know,

Robert Mertz: 1:20:51

It's also been widely reported that Israel has, has encouraged gutter to pay the salaries of Hamas , uh, officials, government officials and so on, in to try to keep the lid on. So I'm not sure you can take credibility for , put credibility in all , and

Helena Cobban: 1:21:11

Yahoo's bragged about that. Just a matter, could we at some point show the next slide? Yes , yes , yes . I'll , I'll , uh, let me just leave that up while she makes presentation. Hold on just sec . Okay . Uh , we have a tradition, two traditions. We open with a prayer quiet moment, and we present our speakers with a bottle of olive oil. And this is , um, a bottle . Robert , you can describe playgrounds for Palestine . Oh , wonderful. So thank you. Okay. The other thing I would add, I will , you see these resources, I will include these resources in the May newsletter so that you don't have to write things down so you're not on that newsletter list. Let me know and I'll see that you get it. So, because I, I like to do a follow up in the newsletters of the previous speaker. So thank you very much for coming. Thank you, Robert. Thank you Paula .