Under israeli occupation. We will speak to a palestinian father whose fiveyearold son milad died in a fiery bus crash on a School Field Trip. Abed salamas quest to find out what happened to his son was immediately hindered because he was a palestinian living on the wrong side of the israeli separation wall. Abed will join us, along with the journalist Nathan Thrall, author of the new book a day in the life of abed salama anatomy of a jerusalem tragedy. The aim of the book is to immerse people viscerally in the lives of palestinians living on the others of this wall and to make them feel and understand what that life is like. One of the things that struck me more than anything as i was working on it was how much pain there is just beneath the surface in every single Palestinian Family. Amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. On capitol hill, two Republican Leaders emerged wednesday as leading contenders to replace Kevin Mccarthy as speaker of the house, a day after his ouster by farright republicans brought congress to a standstill. One contender is ohio congressmember jim jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee and leader of the farright House Freedom caucus. Former wrestlers at Ohio State University have accused jordin of failing to intervene as a team doctor sexually abused young men in the 1990s. He was one of the wrestling coaches. Also announcing a run for the speakers gavel wednesday was republican majority leader Steve Scalise of louisiana. A reporter told the New York Times he once described himself to her as like david duke without the baggage, referring to the former Ku Klux Klans men and white supremacist. President biden called on republicans to quickly elect a new speaker and to change what he called the poisonous atmosphere in washington. Biden said hes worried congressional gridlock threatens to derail white house efforts to win new funding for u. S. Aid to ukraine, though biden said his administration has enough funds in reserve to continue sending arms shipments for now and suggested he has a path around congress if it fails to approve more funding. Pres. Biden we can support ukraine and there is another means by which we may be able to find funding for that, but i am not going to get into that now. Amy on wednesday, the Biden Administration said it supplied ukraine with thousands of assault rifles and more than a million rounds of ammunition seized in the persian gulf by the u. S. Navy. The Justice Department says the arms were being sent by irans revolutionary guard to Houthi Rebels in yemen in violation of a u. N. Arms embargo. Meanwhile, peace activists are demanding lawmakers push for a diplomatic solution to the war in ukraine instead of sending more weapons. On wednesday, Capitol Police arrested 11 members of the antiwar group codepink as they occupied the office of vermont independent senator bernie sanders. Codepinks Medea Benjamin read a statement sanders delivered in february 2022 calling for a peace talks between russia and ukraine. So lets sit down, lets negotiate, and lets, put a diplomatic solution. Lets, but they diplomatic solution. That is the bernie we want, not the other who is okaying billions and billions of dollars in weapons and says you cant talk to putin. We have a oneword answer to that, we say try. Try. We want to see what the result of biden talking to putin is. Amy in climate news, new data show global average surface temperatures last month shattered the previous record for september, rising to a staggering 1. 8 degrees celsius above preindustrial levels. Thats well above the paris climate agreements limit of 1. 5 degrees of warming and half a degree warmer than the previous record. This follows the hottest august and the hottest july ever recorded. In northeastern india, at least 14 people are dead and over 100 are missing after extreme rainfall in the state of sikkim caused a dam to partially collapse, washing away roads and bridges and flooding an army base. In brazil, scientists are blaming an unprecedented heat wave for the deaths over 150 endangered pink river dolphins in a lake in Brazils Amazonas state, where water temperatures reached 102 degrees fahrenheit. Brazilian Authorities Say the amazon rainforest is facing a severe drought that could affect a half Million People by the end of the year. This comes as a new study in the journal science advances finds monsoon rains that sustain the amazon rainforest are nearing a critical destabilization point and could soon drop by 30 , leading to a dieback of the forest. The Biden Administration has waived 26 environmental laws to speed the construction of the u. S. Mexico border wall in texas. They circumvent the National Environmental policy act, the clean air act, the Safe Drinking Water act, the endangered species act, and the native american graves protection and repatriation act, among others. Its the first time President Biden has used his authority under the real id act to waive environmental laws. In a statement, the center for biological diversity said every acre of habitat left in the Rio Grande Valley is irreplaceable. We cant afford to lose more of it to a useless, medieval wall that wont do a thing to stop immigration or smuggling. President bidens cynical decision to destroy a wildlife refuge and seal the beautiful rio grande behind a grotesque border wall must be stopped. Previously, President Biden had said he would build another foot of border wall. In the occupied west bank, Israeli Forces killed two palestinians and wounded dozens of others during late night raids. Israel has killed at over 200 palestinians this year, including at least 27 children. Elsewhere in the west bank, armed Israeli Settlers violently attacked a palestinian American Family farm in the town of deir dibwan, near ramallah, sunday night. The attackers set the property on fire, spray painted the word revenge on a door, and destroyed the familys olive grove. Meanwhile, emergency medical workers in gaza have reported a spike in ankle injuries among protesters. Israeli forces, including snipers, appear to be deliberately shooting at palestinians legs and ankles, wounds that are extremely difficult to treat and can lead to amputations. Human Rights Groups also say the brutal tactic is unlawful. Recent protests in gaza have condemned israeli raids in the west bank, the storming of east Jerusalems Alaqsa compound by jewish settlers, and the blockade of the gaza strip. After the headlines, we will spend the rest of the hour looking at the devastating reality for palestinians living under israeli rule. In egypt, opponents of incumbent president Abdel Fattah Elsisi say theyve faced violence and other obstacles preventing them from registering their candidates for decembers election. Under egyptian law, candidates have until october 14 to secure at least 25,000 signatures from supporters. But dozens have been arrested attempting to submit signatures, while others have faced attacks by wellorganized mobs of progovernment activists. This is rania elsheik, who says her delegation was attacked by thugs as they attempted to register signatures. When we felt the fight was brewing, we tried to move aside. I was pulled by my hair and they started beating my colleague on his shoulder. Amy ahmed tantawy, an outspoken critic of president elsisi and the most prominent figure hoping to run against him, temporarily suspended his Campaign Last week after dozens of his supporters were arrested by police. Meanwhile, researchers at citizen lab and Googles Threat Analysis Group found tantawys personal smartphone was infected with predator spyware and that egyptian authorities were likely behind the hacking attempts. Mohammed anwar alsadat, head of egypts reform and development party, called on elsisis government to reverse course to provide free and fair elections. If the election is not held in the way the entire world expected to be, i say this will lead to really bad results for the reputation and credibility of this regime and even for its future. Amy back in the united states, damning new information has emerged in the bribery indictment against new jersey senator bob menendez, his wife nadine, and two of their codefendants. Nadine menendez hit and killed a pedestrian in a 2018 car crash in bogota, new jersey. Not only did she not suffer any legal repercussions, she received a new car following the lethal crash. According to Police Reports and dashcam video, Nadine Menendez claimed the 49yearold victim jumped onto her windshield. She was not held by police or tested for drugs or alcohol after the crash. Video of Police Questioning her immediately after the crash shows an officer treating her deferentially. Our job is to investigate everything that happens. Obviously, the more information i did not do anything wrong. Look, i understand. But it does expedite our investigation when people can help us out. If we can clear you from any wrongdoing, i want to get you home and comfortable and not here. You know what im saying . Nothing against you. Amy the fatal crash took place before nadine was married to the senator but while they were dating. She received a brand new Mercedes Benz four months after the crash. According to Court Documents in the bribery indictment, the 60,000 car was gifted to nadine by wael hana and jose uribe, two codefendants in the bribery case. Prosecutors accuse senator menendez of offering to put pressure on the new Jersey Attorney Generals Office to go easy on an associate of mr. Uribe. According to the indictment, hana senator ben cardin who has replaced menendez as chair of the Senate ForeignRelations Committee just blocked 230 5 million in u. S. Military funding to egypt. A judge has set a trial date of may 6 in the bribery case against the menendez couple, hana, uribe, and another businessman, fred daibes. And President Biden has another approved 9 billion in student loan relief, affecting some 125,000 borrowers. More than half the amount will go to 53,000 people who have been working in Public Service for at least a decade. The rest will be split to provide relief to those enrolled in incomedriven repayment plans and borrowers with disabilities. The latest move to lessen the burden of student debts comes months after the Supreme Court blocked bidens plan to up to to cancel up to 20,000 in student debt for tens of millions of people. Despite the rightwing courts ruling, the Biden Administration has been able to pass 127 billion in relief for over 3. 5 million borrowers. Debt activists are calling on biden to cancel all remaining student debt. Federal loan payments resumed october 1 after a pause of more than three years during the pandemic. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Coming up, a day in the life of abed salama anatomy of a jerusalem tragedy. Stay with us. [music break] amy anta oumri performed by umm kulthum. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Today we spend the hour looking at the devastating reality for palestinians living under israeli occupation. The acclaimed journalist Nathan Thrall has just published a new book titled a day in the life of abed salama anatomy of a jerusalem tragedy. Abed salama is a palestinian father who lives in anata, a segregated palestinian neighborhood on the outskirts of jerusalem that is surrounded on three sides by the 26foothigh israeli separation wall many refer to it as the apartheid wall. In february 2012, tragedy struck abeds family. His fiveyearold son milad died in a fiery bus crash during a School Field Trip to a theme park. Abeds quest to find out what happened to his son was immediately hindered because he was a palestinian living on the wrong side of the separation wall. He held the wrong id to pass Israeli Military checkpoints and did not have the right papers to enter the city of jerusalem. Nathan thrall, who lives in jerusalem, first wrote about this tragedy in a remarkable 2021 essay for the new york review of books. On wednesday, Juan Gonzalez and i spoke to Nathan Thrall and abed salama. Nathan began by discussing why he wrote about abed salama and the tragedy his family faced. This event is very parents Worst Nightmare and awful, awful tragedy under any circumstances. But it was made so much worse by the unique circumstances in which it took place by the fact that the victims were palestinian. So that it took place on a road that is controlled by israel, patrolled by israeli police, but on the others of a separation wall, concrete wall that separates and segregates tens of thousands of palestinians from jerusalem, born and raised in jerusalem, residents of the same city i live in, but who are cut off from the city that they were born and raised in specifically because of their ethnic identity. And these people live in the same city as me, but they live an entirely different existence. And the parents of the kids on this bus live in a walled ghetto encircled on three sides by the separation wall and a fourth side by different wall that runs in middle of a segregated road famously called the apartheid road. And inside that walled ghetto, which sits just underneath the manicured grounds of israels most Prestigious University you can look down on it, from Hebrew University down onto this ghetto with trash and burned in the street because the Municipal Services are nonexistent their, with no sidewalks, roads in total disrepair. When i drive into this area to visit abed and other families, i have to pull off to the side just to let a bus pass on the main artery for tens of thousands of people. I am rolling down my window and pulling in my side mirror to let a regular bus pass me. And this is just the everyday reality of all of these people. They receive bursar urgently no services from the city that they pay taxes to. They are forced to prove that they have maintained the residency and the right part of this enclave or else israel will strip them of their blue ivy which allows them to blue id which allows him to travel. They live in terror of this id being taken away from them. Some of the parents have green ids, some have blue. They are all from the same families. The outcome for them on this day was. Different. There were real consequences to having a different colored permit on that day. Abed was one of the parents who was not able to go and look for his kid in jerusalem when he was told that is where his boy was. And other parents did. There were bystanders because Emergency Services came so very late. All of the kids had been evacuated by just ordinary people in private cars before the first Israeli Emergency Service provider arrive. Those people themselves drove off in all kind of directions depending on what color id they had and whether they could pass through a checkpoint. There was total chaos. Parents did not know where their own children were. This awful event allowed me in telling the story to describe the entire elaborate system of segregation and subjugation and apartheid in which all of these people live. Amy abed, i hate to take you back to that day, but it is such an important story for people to understand. Introduce us to your little boy milad and talk about what happened that day. Hi, everyone. My son milad was only five years old. He was a cute boy, cool boy, funny boy. Love for life. So the day before the accident in the night, he said, father, i want to buy some sweets and chocolates for my trip. It is the first trip with the school. So i took him to grocery, to the market buys his things, favorite chocolates and juice. Then we went back home. He was very excited to join his friends on the journey, the trip. We got to sleep earlier. The next day i wasnt planning to go to jericho for business with my cousin. Early in the morning was very stormy. So i got up. I did not see milad when his mother prepared him and put him in the bus, in the car to school. So after an hour, my cousin, and we took his car all the way to jericho. Then i received a phone call from my nephew asking if milad was on the bus to the school for the trip. I said, yes, he is there. He said, uncle, there is an accident in java road. The bus has crashed. So we went we changed our way from jericho to java road. And that stormy weather. When we arrived before the accident, the place of the accident, before there was an Israeli Military checkpoint, they closed the street. They did not allow us to pass with the car. So i jump out of the car and start running to the accident. On my way up, the reigning and stormy weather, a military jeep was on me. I wanted to start stop them so they would take me so i could continue to my place of the accident. There was nothing. I saw the bus crashed on the side and a big trailer on the others of the street. So i start asking about what happened to the kids . Where are the kids . Everyone there were many, many people around. There was only one fire truck. I did not see any ambulances at the time. I saw only civilian Police Officer from the pa. So the main thing at that time i wanted to know what happened to the kids. Where are they. I started searching and asking, where are they . Where are the kids . So somebody told me they took them to cash took some of them to the hospital near jerusalem. Others told me they took them to a military space, Israeli Military space. And others told me maybe they took them to the hospital in ramallah. I met two guys from jenin. I asked him to take me to the rommel hospital. They took me to the hospital. When i arrived, it was very crowded. Many, many people there. The parents of the victims, police and ambulances, media. It was very, very crowded. I started to search the building of the hospital. So i asked the doctor and the reception about im looking for my son milad. When she looked at the list, she did not find his name. She told me his name was not on the list of this bus. So i started to search in the hospital rooms. I didnt find him. I met other parents who are from our neighborhood. They already found their kids. I asked them if they saw my son or if their sons new anything about milad. Everybody was busy. Everybody said no, we did not find him. Here i started to search again the same hospital. I did not find him. Then somebody told me, maybe they took him to the hospital in jerusalem. I did not have a permit to pass the checkpoints to jerusalem. They didnt allow us to pass because i did not have a green id, palestinian id, so i called my cousin who had a blue id and asked him to search. Maybe one or two hours he called me back. He said, i searched all of the hospitals and milad is not there. So after six or seven hours, everyone from the parents find their son injured or safe except me and seven other, six families. So a doctor from there came to me and he said, you did not find your son yet and we have to take some blood from you to make dna test. I ask him why. He said, we have six bodies for small children and the body of the teacher. So he asked me to call my wife and my son to come to the hospital to take blood from them for the test, dna test. I called them. It took more than an hour to reseed to the hospital. So they took blood from us. My wife was shocked. I was crying. At the same time i was looking at her face and my other sons face. They were shocked. She didnt cry until now. I think she is still in shock. Amy that was abed salama describing the death of his fiveyearold son milad in a fiery bus crashed on the way to a theme park in jerusalem in 2012. We will return to our interview with abed and journalist Nathan Thrall in a moment. Nathans new book, a day in the life of abed salama anatomy of a jerusalem tragedy. Back in a minute. [music break] amy ya binti by rasha nahas. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. As we continue our conversation with abed salama, palestinian father whose fiveyearold son milad died in a very bus crash. Nathan thrall writes about him in his new book a day in the life of abed salama anatomy of a jerusalem tragedy. Juan gonzalez and i spoke with them. Nathan thrall, you write about the dangerous road that milad would die on. You said everyone knew how quickly Israeli Forces would dissent on the west bank road the moment a palestinian kid started throwing stones at Israeli Soldiers or settlers yet the soldiers at the checkpoint, the fire trucks at the settlements nearby, they had all done nothing, letting the bus and burn for more than half an hour. If you can talk about this, this architecture of separation of apartheid that led to the beginning so that what we hear in abeds is not just an unfortunate bus crash, but so much of which could have been prevented. Yeah. You know, the particular series of events that have unfolded that day were entirely predictable because of the system of segregation and neglect that exists in this area. And there have been people who had warned of it, there had been previous incidents where tragedy had struck on the others of this wall and Israeli Services were greatly delayed or even prevented from coming to the area. And so what the book is showing is night you know, the passage that you mention, those were the words of a man who was screaming at Israeli Soldiers that morning after he had almost singlehandedly rescued dozens of children. He entered a burning bus repeatedly and pulled kids out of this bus and saved dozens of them. And he was in a state of shock at the end of this, and he was screaming at every person, but particularly at the israelis but also the palestinian Emergency Service providers come at the scene. And he said those words to an israeli soldier, and he was then summarily beaten for saying what he said and spent several days in the hospital afterward. But the point is not that israel is who were at the checkpoint just next to the accident and did not come or at the military base and took just to the accident and took forever to calm, the point isnt that anybody made a deliberate choice to observe a burning bus of kindergartners and do nothing, it is that this entire system was set up to ensure that there would be a very delayed response , that these people live in utter neglect and nobody cares about them. Amy you also write in a book about the small scorched backpacks on the road after the accident. If you can talk more about the effect of this system on children, which is the power of this, and let me ask is really your decision to use this example, this bus crash, the horror of the deaths of the children who died in this fiery crash, to show us whats happening in palestine and israel . It was a very deliberate choice to choose an incident that, although horrific, is an incident that takes place the kind of thing that takes place all over the world is a terrible car accident or terrible bus crash. And to show what it means for this seemingly ordinary event to take place in this particular place, under this system because the point is that the system itself, the policies that are in place, the wall that encircles these communities, the desire to demographically engineer jerusalem so that it would have the maximum number of jews and the minimum number of palestinians and to keep for israel the maximum amount of land, to entire route of this wall, the weights thanks around his community and encircles it and traps it in this ghetto all of that is dictated by this racist logic. I did not want to choose to tell a story that would be exceptional lysed exceptional ized. I wanted to show the system that is crushing people every day. And it is brought into sharp relief on the worst day of these peoples lives, but they are suffering all of these obstacles and all of this pain from the system day in and day out. Juan nathan, you also describing your book not only the total disregard and neglect of the Israeli Services to the victims of the accident, you also talk about a week later, a leftwing television reporter, Israeli Television reporter did a story not so much about the accident itself but how shocked he was at the reaction of Israeli Residents around the area of the accident. Thats right. Several weeks after the accident, an israeli journalist, a journalist, decided to create a feature about something that had shocked him to his core, which was that many, many israelis on the day of the accident, young ones in particular, where writing how happy they were that these children had died. And they were what shocked the journalist, his name is eric weiss, what shocked him most was that people did it without hiding their identity. They felt so comfortable writing racist posts and celebrating the death of innocent fiveyearolds without masking their true names. And so he decided to create a feature, atv feature about these kids some of them were kids i think and really what his aim was, as he says, was to show a mirror to his own society and to ask, how did we get to a point where so many young people feel this is acceptable and arent afraid even of being caught expressing these views . He finds many of the people who posted on that day, and they go on to proudly reiterate the kinds of things that they had written that morning. The accident is now just over 10 years ago, and we see that the trends that this reporter was highlighting have only gotten worse. We see senior ministers in the Israeli Government who are openly racist and when you pull young east raleys, you see they have extremely whole young israelis, you see they have extremely rightwing views and racist views. Amy abed salama, what has been the response in your community, in your family, to nathan focusing on this tragedy and the loss of milad in his book a day in the life of abed salama. And the beginning, my family refused, especially my wife, she refused to talk she refused to talk about the accident and to talk about milad until now. So i decided to share our tragedy with nathan maybe for two reasons. The first one is because i love all the time to talk about my son. When i talk when i remember him and i started to speak about him come about what he was doing, about his laughing, his playing, his drawing so i love that. Because this is the main reason. The second reason, nathan told me i will make from your case from this accident, i will write an article. In the beginning, he wrote an article, not a book. And this will help your community, Palestinian Community this article will help them to show the americans and the people around the world how the Israeli Government treats you as palestinians. So when he writes the article and i read it and receive many important comments from around the world that it is a very strong article, he said, abed, i want to make it a book if you dont mind. Of course i did not mind. From the beginning, as i told you, i want to spend many times with a person like nathan talking about my son. When i start to talk about him, i feel that his spirit is behind me or on me, and this time i feel milad sitting with us here. So i love that. I think and i hope the book will make some changes and help us as palestinians to live our lives as all the people around the world. This is what i hope. That everyone come every father, every one who is responsible first family he wanted only to live in peace and to grow up in peace and safe. As palestinians, we missed these things. When you go out from your house or your son goes out from his house, you did not expect him to come back and say this is what happened step because of that, i am happy to share my story with nathan. I am here in new york, or in america. This is my first time here. I can see the people here running, playing, walking, enjoying. And the kids also. People here are taking their dogs around in parks. We missed these things. I want to tell you something, i have a dog in my house. I put him on the roof. Is a strong dog. So im afraid to take him down to walk with him in the street because the street is crowded and it is many, many people. We lived in 130,000 people in a small square. As nathan told you, it is a small place for 103,000 people. I cant walk there with my dog in the street. Im afraid to attack somebody or when i saw the people here in america walking with their dogs and playing with their kids outside in the park, i actually, honestly, i feel jealous. I want this life for my children , for my grandchildren also. If anyone from the American Government hears me, my hope we want only just this is what we want as palestinians. Amy nathan, let me ask, you first wrote this essay in 2021 that appeared in the new york review of books headlined a day in the life of abed salama one mans quest to find his son lays bare the reality of palestinian life under israeli rule. The article was 50 pages. Then you expanded it to the book , the main title the same. What did you learn as you expanded this investigation . We have turned to you for analysis in jerusalem, what is happening there. What surprised you most and what affected you most as you went on this journey with abed . The book shares just a page or so of text with the article despite sharing the same title. The aim of the book is entirely different than the article. The aim of the book is to immerse people viscerally in the lives of palestinians living on the other seida of this wall and to make them feel and understand what that life is like. And one of the things that struck more than anything as i was working on it was how much pain there is just beneath the surface in every single Palestinian Family. In the book has abeds name in the title, but it tells the story of many different characters whose lives collided on this day. One of the themes of the book is the degree to which this oppressive system touches the most intimate decisions in peoples lives. I tell a story of abeds early romance and his first marriage. And at one point, he has a job that takes him into the center of jerusalem and he is afraid of losing his access to the city because of his green colored id. He and many other people at that time went and sought out wives who had blue ids or easterly citizenship. They were choosing marriage partners in order to keep their freedom of movement, in order to keep their jobs. This is the degree to which this huge oppressive system effects ordinary people. I tell the story of a woman, a doctor who happened to be on her way to treat bedouin she worked for the u. N. Agency for palestinian refugees. She was on her way with her medical team to go and treat a group of bedouin not too far from the side of the accident and she stumbled on this horrific site. She pulled over with her team and helped to rescue children from the bus. And i tell part of her story. She had a boy, a teenage boy who quite naturally through stones at Occupying Forces in his town come outside his school who were harassing him and other students every day. At 1 30 a. M. , israeli jeeps show up and bang on her door and say to the doctor, we are here for your son. She can do absolutely nothing. She stands there with tears running down her face, realizing the jaws of this state are going to come and snatch her boy and take him away to who knows where. And she spent over 10 days looking just to find what cell he was in, where he was located. In that feeling of utter powerlessness is one that every Palestinian Family feels. Powerlessness to protect her own children. So the theme for me, what was most striking as i talked to these families, is how much pain there was and how much the state had crept into every single facet of their lives. Amy Nathan Thrall, what are your thoughts about President Biden meeting Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu at the u. N. And then inviting him to the white house . This is entirely unsurprising. This is what the u. S. Has done under every administration. It doesnt matter, you know, republican or democrat. They are all supporting this system of oppression. And we as americans are all complicit in it. And not only are we not doing anything to stop it, we are funding it. Youre giving israel nearly 4 billion in aid every year, military aid every year. And we are protecting israel even from u. N. Security Council Resolutions that are condemning settlements that the u. S. Is supposedly opposed to. And as israel spits in the u. S. s face and wont even restrain the settlement building that it is doing, the u. S. Is handing out gifts, political gifts to the most right wing Israeli Government in recent memory. And you know, not only are they not only is biden inviting netanyahu to the white house, who just admitted israel into a coveted visa waiver program, allowing visafree travel for israelis to then id states. The basis of that program, as specified in u. S. Law, is reciprocity. The states that are admitted to it must treat all u. S. Citizens equally. And israel is not meeting that requirement. A group of leading senators have said that very clearly in a letter that they wrote to secretary of state blinken. And it is undeniable that a palestinianamerican travels from, lets say college in the united states, and comes back to visit is treated entirely different than an israeli and american coming home to visit from college in the united states. And we had during the trial period for this weve visa waiver program, we had palestinian americans who could not rent cars at the airport, and that is not to mention all of the other restrictions that they faced. Israeli americans would come and go and visit a Family Member wherever they wanted. 40 of the palestinian population under occupation who lives in gaza, and if youve got a relative in gaza and you are palestinian american, you cant go visit that relative unless it is a firstdegree relative. And then you can only do so so grandchild, for example, you cant visit. And if you do have a firstdegree relative, you can apply for a permit to visit them once per year. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. So the u. S. Is deeply, deeply complicit in a system that not only treats people differently based on their ethnicity, religion, or national origin, but treats different categories of american citizens differently. And we have accepted that. Amy and the significance of these mass protests, like israel is never seen in decades, of hundreds of thousands of these rallies marching in the streets saying that Prime Minister netanyahu is violating israeli democracy by curtailing the independence of the judiciary. Both sides of the protest over the judicial reform in israel, what they share in common is this notion that israeli democracy is at stake. That, you know, people pushing for the reform are going to destroy israeli democracy and the people who oppose the reform want to preserve israeli democracy. The fact is, and it is evident just in the simple example of the characters in this book we have jewish characters in this book who live right next door to abeds community. They live in a settlement built on abeds family land in part, and these people travel back and forth. They do not go through passport control when they do it. They vote from their settlements. They are not filing absentee ballots when they vote. They are inside the state of israel. They are fully a part of the state of israel in every sense and they have full rights as israeli citizens. Living right next to them in the same territory are people like abed and his entire community who do not have freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, not to mention Voting Rights and everything else. And thats millions of People Living under the same state without rights based on their ethnicity. I do not know of any definition of democracy that would include such a state within it. So the notion that this judicial reform is about preserving or not preserving israeli democracy looks ludicrous to anybody who has stepped foot in a day in the life of abed salama. Anata. Amy Nathan Thrall and abed salama. Nathan is author of the new book out this week a day in the life of abed salama anatomy of a jerusalem tragedy. I will be doing a public interview with him tonight in manhattan at 5 30 at the New York UniversityArthur L Carter journalism institute. You can visit democracynow. Org for more details. That does it for our show. Happy belated birthday to becca staley and soledad aguilarcolon. Condolences to our audio engineer and former producer on the death of their brother. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now ] wind whistling weve been doing this for millennia