Flashpoints – September 6, 2024

From Pacifica Radio in San Francisco, this is Flashpoints. I'm Dennis Bernstein. Today

on the show, an American-Turkish woman, a member of the International Solidarity Movement,

was shot dead by illegal Israeli occupiers during an anti-settler protest in the West

Bank town of Beita. We'll speak to a member of the International Solidarity Movement about

the situation. We'll also be joined by Ziad Abbas of the Middle East Children's Alliance

to talk more about that and the utter destruction that is taking place that continues in Gaza

and Syria.

And later on in the broadcast, we'll have the election crimes bulletin with Greg Ballast

on the frontline fight to protect your vote from a growing army of vote deniers willing

to, and I'm not kidding, you're going to stay tuned for this one, armed vote deniers willing

to track you down at gunpoint and pull you over on the freeway. All this and more coming

up straight ahead on Flashpoints. Stay tuned.

And you're listening to Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio. Well, the violence, the exceptional,

unbelievable violence that the U.S. and Israel continues to pour upon the Gaza Strip, and

now the West Bank is turning into a war front, and we're continuing our coverage. We're happy

to welcome back our good friend Ziad Abbas of the Middle East Children's Alliance, the

President of the United States.

I want to talk to you about Gaza and the West Bank, Ziad. I don't even know where to start,

but it is, we should mention that the Israeli soldiers with the settlers have demonstrated

that they're definitely willing, if they feel like it, to kill an American. And that's got

the attention of some mainstream broadcasters in the United States.

Of course, the death and the dying and the destruction, both of Gaza and the West Bank,

has continued unabated and virtually unreported. Take us to the West Bank first. You know,

how do you look at it? What are you hearing now? The destruction with those bulldozers,

they are simply out of control. That's what we're hearing.

Yeah, absolutely. Still devastating news coming from Palestine, especially after the Israeli

army.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't want to say with a draw. I don't want to say with

a draw 100 percent. Maybe it's not the accurate word. But they pulled out of Jenin today.

And the amount of the destruction in the city and in the refugee camp, it's huge. And where

it's left over 1,000 people already evicted by the Israeli orders during that campaign,

and many, many people.

We don't know yet how many houses already destroyed.

But there are over 1,000 people already living outside their own area during their military

invasion to the refugee camp and to Jenin city. And don't forget, this 10 days, like,

left Palestinian almost 39 people already killed in different parts. But most of the

people, they were killed already in Jenin city and, of course, to Karim, to Bas, and

the Hebron area.

And I know the news.

They speak about this international war.

Yeah.

But this actually contains the 這個西班牙實際上是美国主義的呢

American, actually. She was killed today. But the media is not stalking that much. There

is another Palestinian young girl. Her name is Banna Amjad Bakr, 13 years old. She was killed

in a village in Payut, south of Nablus. And she was killed while she was with her sisters

inside the house.

In fact, they shot her and they killed her inside the house. She is just 13 years old,

and all the video, they are now showing footage, of them both feeling some kind of good. And

on several occasions they killed, they were involved in the war.

All the videos and the photos, it's unbelievable looking to that face, innocent face, killed.

And, of course, the amount of destruction in different areas, like getting bigger and more and more.

The infrastructure, all the infrastructure in Jenin and in the refugee camp destroyed almost.

And at the same time, this is not the first time.

Already Jenin waited tens of times this year alone and, of course, last year too.

And each time the people, they try to rebuild, fix the street or the water network or the electricity,

they come back and they invade and they destroy.

Like what happened in Tulkarem.

During this military campaign, actually, they invaded Tulkarem.

They killed seven Palestinians there and they left.

They returned back again.

They destroyed.

They left.

They returned back.

And they are coming back to Jenin, actually.

And here when I speak about Jenin, Jenin City, Jenin Refugee Camp,

and the people of Jenin, they are coming back.

And they are coming back.

And sometimes the villages around the city, they are targeted.

Like in Sayl al-Hardiya, in Qutb al-Dan, these are the villages around Jenin

which they were targeted and killed Palestinians there.

The same in the other area, Toubass and Fara, the refugee camp near Toubass,

where Palestinians, they were killed.

And the invasion is almost daily there and Palestinian people targeted.

And don't forget, this is the beginning of the academic year in Palestine.

Students in West Bank are trying to return.

And you have, like, north of West Bank, they are not able to access their own schools.

Most of the students, they are not able to access their students.

And today, of course, with the news, Esenyur Azgi, I don't know if I pronounced her name well.

She's American-Turkish.

She was targeted and she was killed in Bita.

Bita is near Nablus.

And Bita is a non-village, actually.

Long, long time targeted by the settlers, targeted by the Israeli army.

Many, many, many orders, literally orders to destroy homes inside this village.

And, you know, there are many international people that go to Palestine

and try to be with Palestinians through ISM, through other groups and organizations.

And now it's called Taza.

This is the groups where through ISM to go there.

And for the Israelis, for the Israeli army, for the Israeli settlers,

whoever is standing in that side, where Palestinians,

where Palestinians will be, side, they target them.

They shoot them, no matter even if they are international.

We saw many international people, they were injured.

Some of them, they were arrested.

Today, someone is killed.

And we remember the famous story.

You remember Rachel Curry's story.

And she's American.

And what the American government did for her, nothing.

Now they announced they are investigating the incident.

Like there is a lot of investigation.

And we saw what happened with Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian journalist,

which she is having American citizenship.

What they did for her, still nothing.

And now it's another case.

But until no one is holding Israel accountable or trying to make real pressure on the Israelis to respect

or all these kind of international law to treat, how to treat people.

But the fact that the Israelis and their settlers,

the Israeli government, they are not going to be able to do that.

They are not going to be able to do that. They are not going to do that.

They are not going to do that.

And the Israeli government, their military, their police, their settlers, they are targeting the Palestinian

and anyone standing with Palestinians or in solidarity.

And we know these kind of international people, they try to be there to protect Palestinians,

by having international people, maybe it will help the Palestinians or reduce the way how the Israelis are treating Palestinians.

But unfortunately, today, one of the, I can't call,

a person like she was she took a difficult decision to be there she lost her life

and if this will end here will stop of course not who knows what will happen tomorrow and who will

be next yeah who who knows uh it but but it's definitely worrisome let me just say we're

speaking with zian abbas he's the director of the middle east children's alliance and they have many

programs that happened that are are continuing in the face of extraordinary destruction and

attacks and and this doesn't stop in the the west bank you know the battle cry is

uh you've heard it and i've heard it uh we're going to turn this place into another gaza of

course you know that that would be i mean the west bank is is huge

compared to gaza uh so what does that mean if they want to turn the west bank into gaza although

they seem determined uh to want to do that ziat this is a big place that they're that they've

begun to bulldoze or continue to bulldoze i remember in the previous interviews maybe a few

months ago with you i remember like one of the things i heard from my colleagues you know we are

we have our staff members

on the ground and get the strip almost in every part and in west bank i remember once when i was

talking with one of our colleagues actually there and i spoke with his wife too and i was saying

like everyone is worried about you guys they said no we are worried about the people in west bank

even this is what the people in gaza think because the people in gaza experienced that the genocide

experienced that the ethnic cleansing they are experiencing the mass starvation

and they've become worried about the rest of the balacian people in west bank and now what we are

witnessing is it's the same it's happening it's coming to west bank and what we saw in janine and

jv refugee camp and tulkarim well the tulkarim refugee camp noor shams and tubas and al-far'a

these are the area targeted mostly in west bank more i'm not saying the rest of west bank not

targeted but these the areas actually the hot spots for the israelis and yeah when you see the

you order the people to evacuate their houses in janine refugee camp you need refugee camps it's a

tiny refugee camp it's less than one square mile ask the people to to leave their homes and of

course when they return back maybe they will not find their own homes like what happened in gaza

there is a plan it's very clear this is a plan and the israel is not hiding that they are targeting

the balacian people they are they want the balacian people to leave and to leave this plan this is what

they speak about it in very clear way this is what the government ministers summit rich and

they spoke about this kind of uh of majors uh uh very clear in front of the world and they are

part of this government part of this a coalition leading this genocide in gaza strip and now in

this bank and they speak about it in very clear way that we want to uh annex with bank we want

to control this bank and we want this bank to be part of israel

and what's next yeah what the people were watching and witnessing it's like coming the process is

coming in very clear way look targeting the the international it's not something uh new it was

happened in the past but right now the whole policy inside israel is targeting everything

balestinian today just today i don't know if you saw that there are some video hearts

and he was baber they published a video

from the israeli soldiers or jailers inside the jail like how they treat the balestinian

prisoners and this video you don't need to speak about it that much just look at it it's all over

the social media right now and many resources where they hand cuffed the balacian people they

lie down on their faces on the floor and the dogs coming barking on their heads and and it's a video

and they share it the the the that's really army the i they are targeting when i say

everything balestinian they are targeting the human they're talking their bodies by shooting

them beating them etc they're targeting their dignity and to help the palestinian when i looked

at the video i couldn't see it more than more than one time just one time it reminds me when

i was living in palestine but this is something they do it to help the people dignity and when

hearts try to follow the report journalism and try to get their reaction to this kind of

you they said yeah this has happened this is a routine measures it's happening in in israeli

jails they are not hiding it this is the way how they treat palestinian prisoners at the same time

how they treat the rest of palestinian people outside the prison which always bank become a

prison and get the strip it's a prison 18 years under siege and genocide ongoing genocide against

the trip and now expanding to to west bank and in west bank when i say it's a prison because almost

a village they have a gate now controlled by the israelis i mean literally a gate and this is where

they are expanding it's the reports coming all the time about building these gates controlling and

block roads so only they can control one entrance for the palestinian and make it difficult for the

palestinian this morning i was talking with some of our colleagues and some of our partners on the

ground and i asked them can you go to ramallah they said it's really from bedlam to ramallah

they said this

really it's very risky it's very hard it's not just because the military checkpoints on the way

and how the israeli army it's very risky because how the settlers they treat the people all from

bethlehem the people they want to go to hebrew and i have a nephew he's working in hebrew it's become

like simply i can say it's become a drag for the rest of the family he leaves to work he arrived

they need to check with them when he leaves the work from hebrew to get back to bethlehem

did he arrive how he went and i can

say about many many thousands of palestinians they are living uh tens of thousands of palestinians

living in their daily life don't forget it's universities and schools students they sometimes

they want to move from place to place and every day there is a risk and they need to go through

checkpoints this is very clear the israelis as they are moving with their plan the right

wings they have the nakba is back again and they want this land they want these villages they want

cities and they want to uh have it for israel and for only jewish people they are making difficult

for the palestinian people to survive and to live and try to push them outside of palestine we saw

that they sure are let's just remember zia let's remind people that of course the the killing

fields this is uh no exaggeration the low estimate is over forty one forty two thousand the

estimate coming out of great britain and the medical university is a hundred and seventy

hundred and eighty thousand ralph nader who we had on last week who is a master at evaluating

uh tragic and difficult situations like this says three hundred thousand uh are dead or will be soon

uh for from a variety of reasons including now we see the israelis making it difficult

to uh deal with polio right this this must take take your mind away see it's unbelievable yeah

they're really the israelis are getting in the way of the polio shots absolutely purposely they are

they are what they say even today about gaza even we are working we still have some programs working

in the ground i can say i mean eight we have our kitchens we have our clinics we have our

projects and other volunteers and partners doing work inside geza

and regarding the polio there are certain areas very hard to continue to do what they are doing

and here we are speaking about the vaccine and it's the first shot i don't know how it will be

for the next shot the coming shots and there are some areas that the people is not able for them

to go there and today actually one of the massacres it was hit very bad inside gaza trip we

speak about like 33 Palestinian and killed since the early morning in palestinian time right so it would be a very bad thing to regularize the mechanisms of the

and we speak about like 33 palestinian kills since the early morning in palestinian time we have to deal

with those things because we will be of course in gaza we have to deal with the people of gaza and the people of palestinian

Right now I don't know exactly if there are.

But today they were targeting a school.

Imagine a family, they took a shelter in the school.

The shelter, the school itself, the school called Halima Saadiya, a United Nations school.

And Halima Saadiya school, it's full of people.

The people, they take a shelter in a tent inside the school.

And they targeted the tent, and they killed eight Palestinians inside the tent, injured

19.

Right now the numbers, how many people killed, it's now, of course, what they are publishing,

40,000, over 40,800 people until today, over 94,000 people injured.

But the number is bigger than this, much bigger.

I say much bigger because no one, and this is what the people in Gaza all the time they

say, we are really shocked and surprised by the genocide, how many people we lost.

But today are.

They are scared from the moment, any moment, and we hope today like there will be a ceasefire,

they are scared from that moment when they will discover the truth.

The truth is how many people they are killed, how many people they are already buried under

their houses.

And this is the scary, when you hear about these kind of studies or reports coming from

universities or a human rights organization about this number, the number is much bigger.

Add to that the people.

They are already infected.

They are already infected by different kinds of disease.

They speak about 300,000.

Actually, our statistics and from other resources coming to us, over a million person inside

Gaza, they are suffering from different kinds of disease.

It's not just about polio, there are, they having different kinds of disease spread all

over Gaza Strip.

And this is the estimation came like according to the areas, to the needs.

And the lack of the medicine, the lack of vaccine, the lack of a clean water, the lack of the

hygiene.

This is the reason we speak about genocide doesn't end in the moment, it's the ceasefire.

It will continue because these kinds of disease will leave people, you don't know for how long

they will live, how much it will affect them.

And here we speak about the physical issue.

What's about the mental issue?

Everyone in Gaza is traumatized, everyone, not just children.

Every human being in Gaza is traumatized and the people, they don't have that much time

to deal with these kinds of diseases.

They don't have that kind of impact on their psychological level.

So later on it will come back.

I'm a Palestinian and I experienced, I still have my own nightmares until now.

Even I'm living in United States, I'm still having the chance to shower every day, drive

where I want, I have the basic needs, but we still have our nightmares.

Imagine for the people, they are living inside Gaza, even if they have two or three hours,

that they can't survive.

They can't hear the bombs.

Hear the bombs.

It's for them.

Oh my God, what happened?

The bomb, it's become the background of the sound of their daily life, for the children,

for everyone in Gaza.

And of course the drones, the sound of the drones living inside their heads, it's part

of the internal like voice inside their head.

And actually there are amazing intellectuals.

They write about this, how these drones become a common thing for all the Palestinian people

living inside Gaza.

Living in every one head inside Gaza.

This is genocide, a new term of genocide in the history of the human being on this earth.

We are, I don't want to say we are just learning.

We are living it.

It's ongoing.

And people, of course, who survived this genocide now for 336 days in Gaza Strip, they are thinking,

when is my turn?

My name is in the list.

Everyone in Gaza is in the list, because who knows who will be killed tonight, tomorrow.

And they are still, they say, we survived the genocide until now.

We survived it tomorrow.

And now we have it in West Bank.

And it's like in West Bank, it's taking, West Bank is bigger, and the amount of the attacks

by the Israelis left Palestinian only since October 7th until now, 692 Palestinian people

killed.

Among them, 159 Palestinians.

That's a lot.

159 Palestinian children killed in West Bank.

And including, actually, the Banna Amjad Bakr today, 13 years old.

So this is ongoing.

And absolutely, the people there in the ground, this is what we hear from them when we have

the chance to talk with them, especially in Gaza Strip, in West Bank, the communication

easier than Gaza.

And it's very risky.

Sometimes you imagine, I want to share this about our colleagues going to Gaza Strip,

and I want to share this about our colleagues going to work every day.

They leave, they do the distribution, food parcels in north of Gaza, middle of Gaza,

south.

It depends what we are, like, distributing.

And they leave their houses when they, or their tents, actually, according to one of

my colleagues.

Their tent, and they don't know if they will be killed, if they will be dead.

It's a daily process for them.

And they do it because they don't have a choice.

This is the way how they want to survive.

And they want to contribute.

And luckily, I can say that, you know, we have a lot of people in Gaza Strip.

We have a lot of people in Gaza Strip.

And I can say, I can say, like, luckily, if you allow me to say luckily, we still able

to do some work in Gaza.

But there is a huge need for the people in Gaza.

And I'm speaking here about basic needs.

Medicine, vaccine, hygiene, clean water, etc.

And this is amazing.

And food, of course.

The mass starvation hitting everywhere in Gaza, especially recently.

They don't allow some trucks to get in.

And actually, I mean, it was very, very...

Zia, how do people get in Gaza Strip?

How do people get...

How do people...

I'm sorry to interrupt, Zia.

How do people get more information?

How do people support this unbelievably courageous work that Mecca supports and other groups

as well?

Look, if people are really interested in knowing more, doing more, how do they do that?

The people just, they need to go to our website.

They can learn.

We have a special page about Gaza emergency aid.

And they can look about what...

What we do and what we work, and they can go from there.

And they can go to Meccaforpeace.org, Meccaforpeace.org.

And for the local people, they can hear us.

They can go for the other...

And our website or the other organization like ARAC, the Arab Resource and Organizing

Center, they have their calendar about all the activity in the Bay Area.

The same with Palestinian Youth Movement.

The same with Jewish Voice for Peace.

All these organizations, amazing organizations.

Zia, thank you.

Thank you.

My name is

Zia.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone who is here.

And thank you to the people who are working in the groups, they are working here, and many

others.

People, they can get there because what we want the people to support and take an action.

We need to continue to do the action trying to stop this genocide.

Well, it's an honor to work with you, Zia.

I appreciate all the incredibly important information, and obviously we're going to

keep this dialogue going.

Thanks for taking the time for us.

Thank you so much for having me.

You're absolutely welcome.

You're welcome.

And you're listening to Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio.

My name is Dennis Bernstein, and this is your daily investigative news magazine.

We hit hard. We're free speech, non-corporate, truth to power radio.

We're going to take, let's take a minute or two,

and we're going to talk about the international solidarity worker who was killed today

by Israeli, illegal Israeli occupation forces.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

You may have heard about it.

We were talking a little bit about it with Ziad from Mecca,

that there was a killing, a murder.

Illegal occupation forces have killed again.

This time they went after an American.

We love the international solidarity movement and what they do,

and we have been with them probably from the beginning in terms of reporting the work

and the courage that they have.

And,

joining us is first up, Vivi.

You're on the West Bank.

Where exactly are you, Vivi?

I'm in the West Bank.

I'm currently in the village of Kustra.

And earlier today I was in Beita where Aisha Noor was killed.

Tell us about your friend.

And tell us about why she was there and a bit about how she died.

Yes, so Aisha Noor, she was with ISM and I'm with a different campaign called Faza.

But these two organizations work closely together and the long-term volunteers all know each other.

I didn't personally know Aisha Noor because she had just arrived in Palestine just days ago.

And she had gone to the training on Wednesday.

Today is Friday.

And I met her for the first time at the demonstration in Beita today.

The demonstration is a weekly demonstration that happens every Friday in the town of Beita.

What happens is they have Jummah prayers and afterwards they attempt to walk to the land that was stolen from them by an illegal settlement.

And every single Friday that we've been there,

there has been the Israeli army show up.

The Israeli army shows up and responds with tear gas, with live bullets, with rubber bullets, stun grenades, all American weapons at their disposal.

In fact, just a few weeks ago one of Faza's volunteers, Amado Sison, was shot in pretty much the exact same place in the same olive grove through the back of his legs.

Today what happened was after Jummah prayers,

Aisha Noah, who is an American citizen as well as a Turkish citizen, and she is Muslim.

She participated in the Jummah prayer.

They pushed all the people who were praying as well as the international volunteers who

were with them down the mountain.

The prayer spot is at the top of the mountain.

So we were at the bottom.

The army was at the top.

They were very far away from us.

And we were all standing around, sitting, doing nothing.

Aisha Noah was with her other friend, who is also from ISM, standing next to an olive tree.

Then we heard one shot ring out, and it hit the dumpster that two of our volunteers were

sitting behind.

There was a Palestinian young man who was shot in his leg.

And then we heard another two live rounds go off.

And then I just hear her friend call out for help.

And I look over, and Aisha Noah is collapsed on her side on the ground.

I ran up to her as well as another volunteer.

And her eyes were rolling in the back of her head.

There was a gaping wound in the back of her head.

You could see her flesh.

And I tried to take her pulse from her wrist.

And I said, I'm sorry.

I could feel a very weak pulse.

And the other volunteer found a weak pulse in her neck as well.

The Palestinians around us immediately jumped into action.

They got the ambulance over.

They put her on the stretcher.

And they took her to Residia Hospital.

Unfortunately, they tried to resuscitate her at Residia Hospital.

But she died there.

She died there.

Now, there's no controversy on the ground.

Where you are in terms of how she was murdered and who fired the bullet.

But sort of the reporting in the U.S. press is that, you know,

denied by the Israelis and cloudy information about what really happened.

So I'd like you to speak again to that.

And if it is true, make it clear how clear it is to you who is responsible for the murder of your co-worker.

Yes.

Thank you for that.

Because there's a lot of misinformation going around.

One of the misinformation that I've seen is that Aisha Noor herself was throwing rocks.

This is not true.

All of the volunteers, whether with FASA or with ISM, are nonviolent.

Volunteers.

We never never attack.

We never throw stones.

We are simply there to observe, to record and to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians.

So what happened?

Another piece of information that I saw was that the Israeli army was shooting because they were being attacked.

This is also untrue.

They were all the way up at the top of the mountain and we were at the bottom.

While it is true that sometimes when the Israeli army attacks the Juma prayers, the local boys do throw stones at them in return, that is not what was happening at the moment.

We were all either sitting or standing around just waiting.

We had already been pushed to the bottom of the mountain, and we had thought that things would be over.

No one, including the locals, were throwing stones at the time, and most definitely not Aisha Noor.

She was standing. In fact, she and another volunteer, both ISM, were standing a bit further back because it was their first time.

It's their second day volunteering in Palestine, and they were trying to be a little more cautious, trying to be a little more safe.

So they had moved back a little bit further from us at the olive trees.

So they were trying.

They were trying to protect themselves and be cautious and be safe in their actions.

She was not trying to get hurt.

She most definitely wasn't attacking the army.

In fact, from the distance we were from the army, it would have been impossible for anyone to reach them just with rocks, which is all that the locals have.

They only have stones to throw at the Israeli army, and they could not have hit them from that distance.

And by the way, when the local boys, when they...

When they throw stones, pretty much it never lands or hits the Israeli army because, I mean, what is a person throwing a stone going to do against a precision weapon?

You know, Israel has one of the most advanced armies in the world, and they are funded by America, and they're holding American weapons.

We regularly see M16s, M4s, you know, all of these weapons that are from America.

So all of these things are just...

And let's just say one of the rocks does land somehow.

They're in armored vehicles.

They're wearing bulletproof vests and helmets.

It's insane to say that a correct response to someone defending themselves with rocks is to shoot them dead.

Another thing I want to confirm is that this was not an accident.

The Israeli army did not make a mistake.

This was a targeted kill shot to the head.

She was standing still.

They would have known.

She was an international volunteer because there are no Palestinian women that participate in this demonstration.

All of the locals are only boys and men.

So she was very noticeably a foreigner just by being, you know, a woman.

And she was also standing next to other foreigners.

Her friend who was with her is a white Australian woman.

They did not mistake her for somebody else.

They definitely did not mistake her for someone who would throw stones.

They singled her out and did a kill shot to the head.

It wasn't like there was a hundred bullets flying through the air and she just happened to get shot.

She was standing there doing absolutely nothing.

This was a deliberate shot.

And I want to say this about Amado Sison as well because he was shot through the leg a few weeks ago.

And the Israeli army said that it was an accident that they had shot in the air as a warning shot.

And on the way down, it landed on Amado.

By the laws of physics, this is impossible.

There's an entry wound in the back of his thigh and an exit wound in the front of his thigh.

That is a straight shot through.

He was running at a full sprint away in the same olive grove.

And they shot him.

Again, it wasn't like there was a hundred shots flying through the air.

It was just a couple.

And he was hit.

He was deliberately targeted and hit.

So none of these are accidents.

They are deliberately targeting international volunteers.

And I also want to say that I should know.

Amado Sison did not have to die today.

She did not have to die.

And she wouldn't have died if the U.S. government had responded after Amado Sison was shot.

Because Biden has said that if an American citizen is harmed, we will respond.

But there was no response.

There was barely any news coverage.

The State Department was fully aware that Amado had been shot.

They put out an official statement.

They were even asked about it at a White House press briefing.

But they did not respond.

They did not retaliate against Israel.

They did not condemn them.

They did not even give them a slap on the wrist.

In fact, we heard later that week that they sent more money and more weapons.

And we have Kamala Harris saying that she is dedicated to remaining supporting of Israel.

So what does this say to the Israeli army here in the West Bank?

It says that they can harm American citizens and get away with it because nobody will care.

If there had been an appropriate response to Amado Sison being shot,

Aish Anor, they wouldn't have had the audacity to take aim and shoot Aish Anor through the head.

And that's not even mentioning all the Palestinians that are dying here every single day.

And also, there have been multiple attacks on American volunteers here in the West Bank, specifically here in Qusra, where I am based.

Since I've been here, I've been here for two months,

and there have been three settler attacks on international volunteers in Qusra.

One happened just this past Wednesday.

Another happened just this past Saturday.

This past Wednesday, two volunteers were hospitalized from their injuries.

So Americans are getting attacked with the Palestinians.

And they are getting bolder.

The Israeli army is getting bolder and bolder because no one is telling them that they can't do that.

And, you know, on the same day, this past Saturday,

when we were attacked, I was hit in the head with a rock thrown by a settler.

That same day, they shot five Palestinian boys in this village.

One of the boys was only 12 years old, and he was walking into the convenience store to buy snacks.

So, you know, what have you done?

I think the Israeli army is always saying, oh, we're doing these things because we're defending themselves.

But Aish Anor, she has been in Palestine for, you know, two days.

And what has she done to the Israelis?

She's done nothing.

I want that to be very clear.

She was nonviolent.

She was standing there.

She was a little bit nervous.

She was trying to be safe.

She wasn't throwing stones.

And it was 100% an Israeli sniper from the roof.

We saw the army with guns and a person on the roof who shot her dead.

Vivi, where are you now, and are you safe?

I'm currently in the village of Kutra.

I am currently safe.

Yes, but Kutra is surrounded by settlements.

And before we got here, Kutra was being attacked every single day by settlers or the army.

Since we've been here, the army has been even doing raids.

But when the international volunteers arrived here two months ago, the attacks stopped.

It wasn't happening as frequently.

In the beginning, not at all.

Now it's ramping up again, I think, one, because they're getting used to internationals being here,

but two, also just the escalations in the West Bank in general.

But today, on the same day that Aishanur was killed, in the same hospital in the neighboring town of Karyut,

there was a 12-year-old girl who was shot dead by the Israeli army as well.

I believe it was a settler security person who shot her dead.

She was standing at her window because she had heard clashes going outside.

And then they shot her through the window.

So in the same hospital...

In the same hospital in Nablus, Aishanur died as well as this 12-year-old girl.

All right.

Listen, we're going to have to leave it there.

And I want to apologize.

We're going to ask you, Rob Lipton, to join us on Monday as a follow-up,

because we're smack against the clock, and we thought it was really important to hear Vivi's eyewitness account.

We thank you for your patience on this.

Vivi, we want you to keep in touch.

I want to do a heads-up to you.

To our own news department.

I believe a bunch of the information you just shared is newsworthy.

Obviously not on MSNBC, but it's clearly the heart of the matter, and it's the kind of story that's not getting out.

So we thank you for talking to us from the illegally occupied West Bank, risking your life to do that.

And we're sorry for the group's loss.

We're going to talk about the International Solidarity Movement and other things going on,

and your response to all of this, because you've been in it a long time.

You're listening to Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio.

What we're going to do now is have to go right to the election crimes bulletin with Greg Palast.

Stay tuned.

Do you have the sound here?

That's the moment.

You know this.

You know this is not a show.

There's no doubt that if anything happened to you, you'd be true to yourself.

And you're not going to be in this.

You're going to be fleeing.

You're going to be in this.

Thank you.

And do we have them yet?

No?

Yes, no.

Okay.

All right, let's do a little music until we can get them.

Let's let people hear something.

Okay.

And you're listening to the Election Crimes Bulletin.

We do not have the sound.

There has been a technical breakdown, but we have the heart of the matter.

We have the content.

We have Greg Pallast.

GregPallast.com on the front lines fighting for your vote.

And, Greg, that new piece you have up is both hysterical and terrifying.

You want to talk about the folks who are getting pulled over and being accused of ballot stealing or voter fraud?

Yes, okay.

And tell me if I'm breaking up, because your end is breaking up.

But can you hear?

Can you hear me well?

I can hear you well.

Okay, very good, then.

All right, so if you go to GregPallast.com, you'll see from my new film, Vigilantes, Inc.,

which premieres tonight in Los Angeles, friends, if you're KPFK.

Yeah, go to KPFK.org or go to, just go to the Cine Lounge Theater at Coanga and Sunset Boulevard,

where we're launching Vigilantes, Inc.

I think it will be running all week, three times a day.

We're going to have our Oscar run, and Sunday we're going to have Tom Hartman down there hosting.

So anyway, so that's the ad, but here's what's going on.

In Texas, you had an air conditioning repairman was run off the highway.

He could have been killed by a guy who claimed he was a cop.

He pulls out a gun on the guy in the air conditioning truck and says,

Give me the ballots.

Open the back.

Because he believed, this is the new violent vigilante,

that this vigilante believed that the air conditioning repairman had 750,000 forged ballots.

This is in Houston, Texas.

So he opened up the back of the truck, and there was nothing but air conditioning parts and pipes.

Now, you might think this is goofy, but, you know, the guy had a loaded gun at this guy's head,

and he opened it up.

The only reason it didn't end up worse is that, by luck, Houston cops happened to go by

and wondering why someone was being held at gunpoint.

And they arrested the guy, who was, in fact, an ex-Houston cop, of course.

But here's what's going on there.

So I went down to Texas and met with the man who supposedly forged the 750,000 ballots,

Commissioner Rodney Ellis.

Now, he's commissioner of Harris County, which is Houston.

And he was literally accused of personally forging 750,000 ballots,

which, as I mentioned to him, would take about 200 years to forge those ballots.

But this is the new danger that's going on, this new level of violence.

And then because he was accused of forging ballots.

By the way, this is forging ballots to stuff into the ballot drop boxes in Texas.

But, Dennis, there are no ballot drop boxes in Texas.

They're against the law.

But it doesn't matter.

These guys, these are the MAGA nuts.

Now, the guy who had the gun at the air conditioning repairman's head,

he wasn't some lone maniac.

He was part of a large, well-paid group of maniacs.

There was a billionaire who paid this guy with the gun over a quarter million dollars

to hunt down the air conditioning repairman.

He paid him a quarter million dollars.

He hired 50 detectives to look for the stolen...

He hired 50 detectives to look for the stolen votes that were supposed to give the race to Donald Trump.

Or that were supposedly...

No, excuse me.

Supposed to that Rodney Ellis, who's, by the way, not just by the way,

he's the first black Harris County commissioner.

And once again, they're saying black men stuff ballot boxes.

Now, Ellis is a major lawyer, you know, with a fancy degrees in pedigree.

And...

But now, when I went to visit him, he wanted to take us...

He wanted to take us for a walk around Houston downtown to show us his beautiful murals.

And we had armed guards with us.

We had armed guards to take a walk down the streets of Houston.

Because in front of his house, there were crazies with assault rifles

while his daughter was inside having a pajama party.

And they had crazy...

These guys with assault rifles in front of his house and big signs,

stop the steal.

This is the new serious...

Threat that's going on.

So while I talk in the film Vigilantes, Inc.

You know, go to gregpalace.com if you want the info

or just show up all week at the Cine Lounge on Sunset Boulevard.

But what's happened now is the original film, when we originally did the film,

it was about kind of pretend vigilantes who walked around with guns and challenged voters,

which is serious enough.

But now it's live bullets.

Now it's really dangerous.

And in fact,

when I was in Arizona,

you'll see in the film,

we have Hispanic groups

who are showing us pictures of guys in full military gear standing there.

They do have ballot drop boxes.

These guys are standing next to ballot drop boxes to intimidate Hispanic voters.

And they're running drones.

When voters come to drop off their ballots,

they have drones over them coming down and taking pictures of them.

This is the new game that's being played.

This is really serious stuff.

And this is the new, this is the 2024 election.

And let's just talk for a moment about the 2024 election and violence.

Because this is amusing and terrifying.

And it really does seem like Trump has given up the winning,

you know, the legitimate electoral votes, however legitimate you think they are,

and he's really going for the other side.

And he's got his freedom on the line.

So I'm thinking there's going to be,

and he's really trying to shake it up.

So I'm thinking that this is,

these are very dangerous times in Georgia.

You know that place, the battlefront.

How do you, what's being done?

How do you suppose this is going,

going to work out?

Do you think somebody is going to be able to restrain Trump?

Or are the worst parts of this nightmare called Donald Trump going to emerge?

Well, I think one of the most dangerous,

the most, one of the things I think it's can kick off a lot of violence and is

dangerous to our democracy and might be civil war.

On January 6th of 2020,

you had the Trump,

crazy try to break into Congress and stop Mike Pence from certifying the vote.

But in under the US Constitution,

the vice president really doesn't have any power to stop the certification of the vote.

He just reads, reads the vote.

But other states, other states,

50 states have to certify the vote.

And what I'm concerned about is that in places like Georgia,

like Texas, Arizona, Nevada,

places that are open carry gun states,

these that we could end up with gun battles over certification in each state.

Remember, Arizona went for Biden by about 14,000 votes.

If I remember, you know, peanuts.

And of course, just 12,000 votes in Georgia.

So a bit of intimidation goes a long way, Dennis.

And worse, these vigilantes are,

they are, you know, mass challenging voters.

As of August,

851,000 voters have been challenged.

It's it's just barely discussed.

The only guy who seems to be discussing it is Mark Elias,

who was just well,

I will say he was just hired by Kamala Harris.

To do voter protection,

this is branding for the Democratic Party to for them,

finally, actually hire someone to say

stop challenging,

stop taking away voting rights of our voters.

I mean, this is this is new.

The question is, is it even the right to run a democracy?

But this is in place now, right? This is local law in Georgia. This ability to challenge huge amounts as one person is now in place. This is the thing, right? We're going to see this a lot.

Well, as you know, we had one woman in Georgia challenge 32,000 people. I was able to counter her in Cobb County. They didn't, in the end, accept her 32,000 challenges as one person because a member of Cobb County Board of Elections had seen my film, Vigilante.

So it does do some good.

But we will also see that down at Fort Benning, 4,000 black soldiers at Fort Benning.

They had their votes challenged, and they didn't get their votes back.

They didn't get their votes back.

Actually, one of those soldiers will be at the film tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday at the Senior Lounge, so just check it out there.

And you can meet Major Gamaliel Turner, career military, and they stopped him from voting in Georgia with all these other black soldiers.

This is the problem. I mean, this is racism.

And the reason, by the way, the film is called Vigilante, you think?

Yes.

It's called Vigilante.

This mass challenge of voters was first done by the Ku Klux Klan in 1946 when the Ku Klux Klan had to cover their tracks, incorporated as Vigilante's Inc.

And now it's back. It's back.

The 1946 Ku Klux Klan plan is back with the MAGA freaks.

And, you know, I want to say that, you know, I don't want to be partisan about this, but...

Of the 40,000 vote challengers that we're tracking, 40,000 Vigilantes, not one is a Democrat.

And, you know, so that's what's going on here.

I mean, this is, look, the only way Trump can win, like in Texas, for example, Ken Paxton, he's the Attorney General of Texas.

He's the guy who was impeached.

He was impeached last year for corruption, by the way.

Yeah.

But he got on Steve Bannon's war room and boasted that he had stopped Commissioner Ellis, remember the black commissioner of Houston.

Houston is one of the major black centers of America.

There are more black voters in Texas than in any other state.

Most people don't realize that.

It's not Illinois or Chicago or Atlanta.

Texas is the, is, has the largest black population in America.

And Rodney Ellis during COVID, because remember the 2020 election was in the middle of COVID.

So rather than people dying while standing in hours long line waiting, waiting to vote, he said he was going to mail out all the ballots to all the residents of Houston.

And Ken Paxton stopped him.

That was two and a half million ballots.

And Ken Paxton said, if we didn't stop those ballots from going out, Donald Trump would have lost Texas.

So Texas is a blue state if you let people vote.

Greg, we're smack against the clock.

We are out of total time.

Greg Palast is always reachable at gregpalast.com.

All the stuff you talked about is up there as well.

If you're interested in following his work, of course, that's up to you.

I'm Dennis Bernstein, and we got to go.

We got to go.

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