Francesca Albanese’s new report examines how 60+ countries are complicit in 
Israel’s war crimes and how their contributions will come back to haunt their 
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The Member States Complicit in Genocide (w/ Francesca Albanese) | The Chris 
Hedges Report

Francesca Albanese’s new report examines how 60+ countries are complicit in 
Israel’s war crimes and how their contributions will come back to haunt their 
own citizens.

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| Chris Hedges |

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This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

After two years of genocide, it is no longer possible to hide complicity in 
Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. Entire countries and corporations are 
— according to multiple reports by UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca 
Albanese — either directly or indirectly involved in Israel’s economic 
proliferation.

In her latest report, “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime,” Albanese details the 
role 63 nations played in supporting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. She 
chronicles how countries like the United States, which directly funds and arms 
Israel, are a part of a vast global economic web. This network includes dozens 
of other countries that contribute with seemingly minor components, such as 
warplane wheels.

Rejection of this system is imperative, Albanese says. These same technologies 
used to destroy the lives of Palestinians will inevitably be turned against the 
citizens of Israel’s funders.

“Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our life is going to go,” 
Albanese warns.

“Every worker today should draw a lesson from what’s happening to the 
Palestinians, because the large injustice system is connected and makes all of 
us connected to what’s happening there.”

Transcript

Chris Hedges

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, in her 
latest report, “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime,” calls out the role 63 
nations have in sustaining the Israeli genocide. Albanese, who because of 
sanctions imposed on her by the Trump administration, had to address the UN 
General Assembly from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, 
South Africa, slams what she calls “decades of moral and political failure.”

“Through unlawful actions and deliberate omissions, too many states have 
harmed, founded and shielded Israel’s militarized apartheid, allowing its 
settler colonial enterprise to metastasize into genocide, the ultimate crime 
against the indigenous people of Palestine,” she told the UN.

The genocide, she notes, has diplomatic protection in international “fora meant 
to preserve peace,” military ties ranging from weapons sales to joint trainings 
that “fed the genocidal machinery,” the unchallenged weaponization of aid, and 
trade with entities like the European Union, which had sanctioned Russia over 
Ukraine yet continued doing business with Israel.

The 24-page report details how the “live-streamed atrocity” is facilitated by 
third states. She excoriates the United States for providing “diplomatic cover” 
for Israel, using its veto power at the UN Security Council seven times and 
controlling ceasefire negotiations. Other Western nations, the report noted, 
collaborate with abstentions, delays and watered-down draft resolutions, 
providing Israel with weapons, “even as the evidence of genocide … mounted.”

The report chastised the US Congress for passing a $26.4bn arms package for 
Israel, although Israel was at the time threatening to invade Rafah in defiance 
of the Biden administration’s demand that Rafah be spared.

The report also condemns Germany, the second-largest arms exporter to Israel 
during the genocide, for weapons shipments that include everything from 
“frigates to torpedoes,” as well as the United Kingdom, which has allegedly 
flown more than 600 surveillance missions over Gaza since war broke out in 
October 2023.

At the same time, Arab states have not severed ties with Israel. Egypt, for 
example, maintained “significant security and economic relations with Israel, 
including energy cooperation and the closing of the Rafah crossing” during the 
war.

The Gaza genocide, the report states, “exposed an unprecedented chasm between 
peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and 
security rest.” Her report coincides with the ceasefire that isn’t. Over 300 
Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire was 
announced two weeks ago.

The first major ceasefire breach on October 19 led to Israeli air strikes that 
killed 100 Palestinians and wounded 150 others. Palestinians in Gaza continue 
to endure daily bombings that obliterate buildings and homes. Shelling and 
gunfire continue to kill and wound civilians, while drones continue to hover 
overhead broadcasting ominous threats.

Essential food items, humanitarian aid and medical supplies remain scarce 
because of the ongoing Israeli siege. And the Israeli army controls more than 
half of the Gaza Strip, shooting anyone, including families, who come too close 
to its invisible border known as the yellow line.

Joining me to discuss her report, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the 
complicity of numerous states in sustaining the genocide in Francesca Albanese, 
the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine.

Before we get into the report, let’s talk a little bit about what’s happening 
in Gaza. It’s just a complete disconnect between what is described by the 
international community, i.e. a ceasefire, the pace may have slowed down, but 
nothing’s changed.

Francesca Albanese

Yes, thank you for having me, Chris. I do agree that it seems that there is a 
complete disconnect between reality and political discourse. Because after the 
ceasefire, the attention has been forced to shift from Gaza elsewhere.

I do believe, for example, that the increased attention to the catastrophic 
situation in Sudan, which has been such for years now, all of a sudden is due 
to the fact that there is a need for, especially from Western countries and the 
US, Israel and their acolytes to focus on a new emergency.

There is the pretense that there is peace, there is no need to protest anymore 
because finally, there is peace. There is no peace. I mean, the Palestinians 
have not seen a day of peace because Israel has continued to fire, to use 
violence against the Palestinians in Gaza. Over 230 Palestinians have been 
killed since the ceasefire, 100 of them in one day in 24 hours, including 50 
children.

And starvation continues. Yes, there has been an increase in the number of 
trucks, but far, far below what is needed with much confusion because it’s very 
hard to deliver aid. All the more, Israel maintains a control over 50% of the 
Gaza Strip while the entire Gaza population is amassed in small portions, 
guarded portions of the territory.

So there is no peace. Meanwhile, while the Security Council seems to be ready 
to approve a Security Council resolution that will create a non-acronistic form 
of tutelage, of trusteeship over Palestine, over Gaza, the West Bank is 
abandoned to the violence and the ethnic cleansing pushed by armed settlers and 
soldiers while Israel jails continue to fill up with bodies to torture of 
adults and children alike. This is the reality in the occupied Palestinian 
territory today and so it makes absolutely no sense where the political 
discourse is.

Chris Hedges

Two issues about Gaza. One, of course, Israel has seized over 50% or occupies 
over 50% of Gaza. And as I understand it, they’re not allowing any 
reconstruction supplies, including cement, in.

Francesca Albanese

This is also my understanding. They have allowed in food, water and some 
essential materials needed for hospitals, mainly camp hospitals, tents. But 
anything related to sustainability is prohibited.

There are many food items that are also prohibited because they are considered 
luxurious. And the question, Chris, is, and this is why I harbor so much 
frustration these days toward member states because in the case of genocide, 
you have heard yourself the argument, well, the recalcitrance of certain states 
to use the genocide framework saying — and it’s pure nonsense from a legal 
point of view — but saying, well, the International Court of Justice has not 
concluded that it’s genocide.

Well, it has concluded already that there is a risk of genocide two years ago, 
in January, 2024. But however, even when the court does conclude on something 
relevant like in July, 2024, that the occupation is illegal and must be 
dismantled totally and unconditionally, this should be the starting point of 
any peace related or forward-looking discussions.

Instead of deliberating how to force Israel to withdraw from the occupied 
Palestinian territory, member states continue to maintain dialogue with Israel 
as Israel has sovereignty over the territory. See, so it’s completely dystopic, 
the future they are leading Palestinians out of despair into.

But they are also forcing the popular movement, the global movement that has 
formed made of young people and workers to stop. Because look at what’s 
happening in France, in Italy, in Germany, in the UK — any kind of attempt at 
maintaining the light turned on Palestine from Gaza to the West Bank is 
assaulted. Protests, conferences, there is a very active assault on anything 
that concerns Palestine.

So this is why I’m saying we are far, far beyond the mismanagement of the lack 
of understanding, I mean the negligence in approaching the question of 
Palestine, it’s active complicity to sustain Israel in the ethnic cleansing of 
Palestine.

Chris Hedges

Which, as you point out in your report, has been true from the beginning 
despite a slight change in rhetoric recognizing the two-state solution. The UK 
did this while only cutting back on shipments by 10%.

But I want to ask before we get into the report, what do you think Israel’s 
goal is? Is it just to slow-walk the genocide until it can resume it? Is it to 
create this appalling, uninhabitable, unlivable ghetto? What do you think 
Israel’s goal is?

Francesca Albanese

I think that now more than ever it is impossible to separate and distinguish 
the goals of Israel from the goals of the United States. We tend to have a 
fragmented view of what happens, analyzing for example the relationship between 
Lebanon and Israel, between Iran and Israel, or between Israel and the 
Palestinians.

In fact, do, I mean, one of the things that Palestine has made me realize is 
the meaning of “Greater Israel” because I do believe that what the current 
leadership in Israel has in mind and it’s supported by many willing or not in 
the Israeli society, many who are fine with the erasure of the Palestinians.

But there is this idea of Greater Israel and for a long time I have been among 
those who thought, who were wondering what it is, this “Greater Israel” because 
of course you look at the map by Israeli leaders in several occasions with this 
Greater Israel going from the Nile to the Euphrates and you say come on they 
cannot do that, they cannot occupy Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq.

But then everything changes when you look at it from a non-territorial border 
expansion perspective. And if you think that in fact domination can be exerted, 
established, other than by expanding the physical borders and through military 
occupation, but through domination and financial control, control from outside, 
power domination, you see that the Greater Israel project has already started 
and it’s very advanced.

Look at the annihilation of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon. So all those who were 
historically considered not friends of Israel have been annihilated. And the 
other Arab countries that remain either do not have the capacity to confront 
Israel and perish the thought they explored the idea of unity among them or 
with others. And the others are fine with it.

Ultimately, I think that Greater Israel is the quintessential explanation of 
the US imperialistic design in that part of the world for which the 
Palestinians remain a thorn in the side not just for Israel but for the 
imperialistic project itself because the Palestinians are still there resisting.

They don’t want to go, they don’t want to be tamed, they don’t want to be 
dominated so they are the last line, the last frontier of resistance, both 
physically and in the imagination. And therefore, you see, the fierceness 
against them has scaled up, with the US now getting ready with boots on the 
ground to get rid of them. This is my interpretation of the general design 
behind Israel-United States, where Israelis are going to pay a heavy price like 
many in the region, not just the Palestinians.

Chris Hedges

So you see the imposition of American troops in Gaza as another step forward to 
the depopulation of Gaza.

Francesca Albanese

Yes, yes, yes, I don’t trust any promise made to the Palestinians either by 
Israel or by the United States because what I’ve seen over the past two years 
shows me, demonstrates to all of us in fact, that they don’t care at all about 
the Palestinians. Otherwise, they would have seen their suffering.

It’s just not like people like us who can really divide their life. Is it 
pre-genocide? Does it happen to you as well? Are you talking of pre-genocide or 
after genocide? Because in fact, the beginning of genocide has changed my 
perception of the world in a way, for me personally, it’s the end of an era of 
innocence when I really believed that the United Nations were a place where 
things could still be advanced in the pursuit of peace.

Now I don’t think so, which doesn’t mean that I think that the UN is over, but 
in order not to be over, in order to make sense to the people, it is to be led 
by dignity, principles like dignity, equality and freedom for all. And we are 
absolutely far from that today.

Chris Hedges

And what is it that brought you to this decision? Is it the acceptance of this 
faux ceasefire on the part of the UN, or was it before this moment?

Francesca Albanese

No, it’s before. It’s before. It’s the fact that for two years most states, 
primarily in the West, but with the acquiescence of other states in the region 
have supported the Israeli mantra of self-defense.

Sorry, it was a mantra because again, self-defense has a very, I’m not saying 
that Israel had no right to protect itself. Of course Israel had suffered a 
ferocious attack on October 7. Someone say similar to the attacks it had 
inflicted on the Palestinians. Others say more brutal, say less brutal. It 
doesn’t matter.

Israel suffered a horrible, violent attack. Israeli civilians suffered a 
horrible attack on October 7th. But hey, this didn’t give the possibility to 
Israel to invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter, meaning the right to wage a war.

This is not legal. And on this I can say I’m surprised by how conservative are 
member states when it comes to the interpretation of international law, except 
on this, in the sense that the International Court of Justice has already set 
the limits of the right of invoking self-defense for member states.

And it can only be done against states where there is a concrete threat that 
the state will attack which is not the case here. So yes, Israel could defend 
itself, but not wage a war. And while the war was clearly identifiable more for 
its crimes than not its tendency to avoid crimes, member states have continued 
to say nothing and it was very extreme violence against the Palestinians in 
Gaza but also against the Palestinians in the West Bank. And for two years 
they’ve not used their power to stop it.

So I’m convinced that in order to have a political shift vis-à-vis Israel, 
there must be a political shift at the country level, because governments are 
completely subdued to the dictates of the US. Of course, if the US wanted, this 
would stop, but the US with this constellation of figures in the government is 
not going to stop.

And plus look at how the West in particular has contributed to dehumanize the 
Palestinians. Even today you hear people saying yes, Palestinians have been 
killed in these numbers because they’ve been used as human shields when the 
only evidence that they’ve been used as human shields is against Israel because 
Israel has used Palestinians as human shields in the West Bank and in Gaza 
alike.

You see Palestinians have returned to be wrapped into this colonial tropism of 
them being the savages, the barbarians, in a way, they have brought havoc upon 
themselves. This is the narrative that the West has used toward the 
Palestinians. And by doing that, it has created, they have created the fertile 
ground for Israel’s impunity.

Chris Hedges

Let’s talk about the nations that you single out in your report that have 
continued to sustain the genocide, either through weapons shipments, but also 
the commercial interests. I think your previous report talked about the money 
that was being made off of the genocide. Just lay out the extent of that 
collaboration and to the extent that you can, the sums of money involved.

Francesca Albanese

Yeah, yeah, let me start with introducing generally two components, the 
military component and the trade and investment ones, which are quite 
interrelated. And states have, in general, I name 62 states, primarily Western 
states, but with substantive collaboration of states from the Global South, 
global majority, including some Arab states.

So they have altogether ignored, obscured and somewhat even profited from 
Israel’s violations of international law through military and economic 
channels. So military cooperation through arms trades or intelligence sharing 
has fueled Israel’s war machine during the occupation, the illegal occupation, 
and especially during the genocide while the United States and Germany alone 
have provided about 90% of Israel’s arms export.

At least 26 states have supplied or facilitated the transfer of arms or 
components, while many others have continued to buy weapons tested on the 
Palestinians. And this is why in my previous report, the ones looking at the 
private sector, I was shocked to see how much the Israeli stock exchange had 
gone up during the genocide.

And this is particularly because of a growth in the military industry. On the 
other hand, there is the trade and investment sector. Both have sustained and 
profited from Israel’s economy. Think that between 2023, 2024, actually the end 
of 2022 and 2024, exports of electronics, pharmaceuticals, energy minerals and 
what is called the dual-use have totaled almost 500 billion US dollars, helping 
Israel finance its military occupation.

Now one third of this trade is with the European Union while the rest is 
complemented by North American countries, the US and Canada, who have free 
trade agreements with Israel and several Arab states that have continued to 
deepen economic ties.

Only a few states have marginally reduced trade during the genocide, but in 
general the indirect commercial flows, including with states that have 
supposedly no diplomatic relation with Israel, have continued undisturbed.

It’s a very grim picture of the reality. But let me add just one extra element. 
I do believe that in many respects, the problem is ideological. As I said, 
there is a tendency to treat Ukraine, for example, vis-a-vis Russia, in a very 
different fashion than Palestine versus Israel. And this is why I think there 
is an element of Orientalism that accompanies also the tragedy of the 
Palestinian people.

Chris Hedges

Talk a little bit about the kinds of weapons that have been shipped to Israel. 
These are, and we should be clear that, of course, the Palestinians do not have 
a conventional army, don’t have a navy, they don’t have an air force, they 
don’t have mechanized units, including tanks, they don’t have artillery, and 
yet the weapons shipments that are coming in are some of the most sophisticated 
armaments that are used in a conventional war.

And as a leaked Israeli report, I think it was +972, provided, 83 percent of 
the people killed in Gaza are civilians.

Francesca Albanese

Yes, yes. First of all, there are two things that are weapons, what is 
considered conventional weapons and dual-use. And both should have been 
suspended according to the decision of the International Court of Justice 
concerning Israel in the Nicaragua v. Germany case.

Meanwhile, there are two things: there is the transfer of weapons directly to 
Israel, and this includes aircraft, materials to compose the drones, because 
Israel doesn’t produce anything on its own, it requires components — artillery 
shells, for example, cannon ammunition, rifles, anti-tank missiles, bombs.

So these are all things that have been provided primarily by the United States. 
Germany, which is the second largest arms exporter to Israel has supplied a 
range of weapons from frigates to torpedoes.

And also, and then there is Italy, which has also provided spare parts for 
bombs and airplanes and the United Kingdom, who has played a key role in 
providing intelligence. And there is also the question of the U.N. Not 
everything is easy to track because the United States have traveled… the United 
States are the prime provider of weapons, also because they are the assembler 
of the F-35 program.

So there are 17 or 19 countries which cooperate and all of them say, well, you 
know, I mean, yes, I know that the F-35 is used in Israel, by Israel, but I 
only contribute to a small part. I only contribute to the wheels. I only 
contribute to the wings. I only provide these hooks or this engine.

Well, everything is assembled in the US and then sold or transferred or gifted 
to Israel. And it’s extremely problematic because this is why I say it’s a 
collective crime, because no one can assume the responsibility on their own but 
eventually all together they contribute to make this genocide implicating so 
many countries.

Chris Hedges

So Francesca, Israel is the ninth largest arms exporter in the world. To what 
extent do those relationships have? I mean, I think one of the largest 
purchasers of Israeli drones is India. We’ve seen India shift its position 
vis-a-vis Palestine.

Historically, it’s always stood with the Palestinian people. That’s no longer 
true under [Narendra] Modi. To what extent do those ties affect the response by 
the 63 some states that you write about for collaborating with the genocide.

Francesca Albanese

So let me first expand on this. Weapon and military technology sale is a core 
component of Israel’s economy. And since 2024, it has constituted one third of 
Israeli exports. And of course, there are two elements connected to this, is 
that these exports enhances Israel’s manufacturing capacity, but also horribly 
worsens the life of the Palestinians because Israeli military technology is 
tested on the Palestinians under occupation or other people under other Israeli 
related military activities.

Now, the fact that the arms export has increased of nearly 20% during the 
genocide, doubling toward Europe. And only the trade with Europe accounts for 
over 50% of Israeli military sales, selling to so many other countries, 
including in the Global South, the Asia and Pacific states in the Asia-Pacific 
region account for 23% of the purchase, with India being probably the major. 
But also 12% of the weapons tested on the Palestinians are purchased by Arab 
countries under the Abraham Accords. So what does it tell us?

It explains what you were hinting at in the question, the fact that this is 
also reflected in the political shift toward Israel that has been recorded at 
the General Assembly level. If you see how some African countries and Asian 
countries, including India, are behaving vis-a-vis Israel, it’s 180 degrees 
turn compared to where they were in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

This is because on the one hand, Israel is embedded in the global economy, but 
also it’s a global economy that is veering toward ultra liberal, I mean, it’s 
following ultra-liberalist ideologies and therefore capital and wealth and 
accumulation of resources, including military power comes first.

It’s very sad, but this is the reality. And it’s important to know because this 
is a long, as I was hinting before, my sense is that this is a long term 
trajectory that didn’t start on October 7th, 2023. I mean, probably since the 
end of the Cold War that there has been an increasing globalization of the 
system where the common denominator is force.

I mean, there is this, not a common denominator, but the unifying factor for 
many is force, how the monopoly of force that comes with weapons, capital and 
algorithms. And yeah, this is where the world is going.

Chris Hedges

Well, we’ve seen these weapons systems which of course are tested. They’re sold 
as bad. say the term is battle tested without naming the Palestinians, but they 
are sold to Greece to hold back migrants coming from North Africa. They are 
used along the border in the United States with Mexico.

And it’s not just that these weapons are “battle tested” on the Palestinians 
and we haven’t even spoken about these huge surveillance systems, but the very 
methods of control, the way they’re used are exported through military advisors.

Francesca Albanese

Of course, because in fact, the Israeli population is made almost entirely of 
soldiers. Of course, there are those who do not enlist in the army for 
religious reasons or because they are contentious objectors, they’re a tiny 
minority. But the majority of the people of Israelis go through the army.

And then many of them transfer their know-how or what they have been doing into 
their next career steps. So the fact that Israel, as I was documenting in my 
previous report, Israel’s startup economy has a huge dark side to the fact that 
it’s connected to the military industry and to the surveillance industry.

There is a significant body of Israeli citizens who are going around providing 
advice, intelligence and training in the Global South both to mercenaries and 
states proper like Morocco. So there is an Israelization and Palestinianization 
of the international relations or rather of the relations between individuals 
and states.

And I think the interesting thing, this is why I’m saying Palestine is such a 
revealer, it’s because, as you say, eventually these tools of control and 
securitization have concentrated in the hands of those who are fortifying 
borders at the expense of refugees and migrants.

So it’s really clear what’s happening here. There are oligarchs who are getting 
richer and richer and more and more protected in their fortresses where the 
state is providing the fertile ground to have it, but it’s not states that are 
benefiting from this inequality, because the majority of the people within 
states, look at the US, but also in Europe, are not benefiting from anything, 
in fact.

They’re victims. This is why you equally exploit it. This is why I’m saying 
it’s another degree of suffering, of course, than the Palestinians. But every 
worker today should draw a lesson from what’s happening to the Palestinians, 
because the large injustice system is connected and makes all of us connected 
to what’s happening there.

Chris Hedges

Well, internally as well. I mean, with Sikh farmers who were protesting Modi 
were out on the roads, suddenly, over their heads were Israeli-made drones 
dropping tear gas canisters.

Francesca Albanese

Yeah, exactly. Drones are one of the most exported devices from Israel’s 
technology and they are in use by Frontex to surveil the Mediterranean Sea, as 
you were saying, the US-Mexican border. But more and more, they’re getting into 
people’s lives.

Also look at the way certain technologies have been perfected across borders. I 
remember earlier this summer, this is very anecdotal, I’ve not done research on 
it, but I knew that we were seeing something quite and horribly revolutionary.

This year, this summer during the protests in Serbia, where students and 
ordinary citizens were taken to the streets against the government and have 
been protesting for one year now, people in Serbia. I saw the use of these 
sound weapons, oxygen-fed weapons.

So there are bombs that produce such a pain in the body who finds itself in the 
wave that it’s excruciating. And then of course people try to flee, but they 
also lose senses, et cetera. And I’ve seen this in Serbia.

And now I understand that it’s being used in Gaza as well, where the bomb 
doesn’t produce fire, it produces a movement of air that causes pain to the 
body and even to internal organs. It’s incredible. And these are weapons that 
have been perfected through testing here and there, and Serbia keeps on selling 
and buying military technology to and from Israel.

Chris Hedges

I just want to close with, I mean, I think your reports, the last two reports 
in particular, show the complete failure on the part of governments as well as 
corporations to respond legally in terms of their legal obligations to the 
genocide. What do we do now? What must be done to quote Lenin?

How, because this, as you have pointed out repeatedly, really presages the 
complete breakdown of the rule of law. What as citizens must we do?

Francesca Albanese

I think that we have passed the alarm area. I mean, we are really in a critical 
place and I sense it because instead of correcting itself, the system led by 
governments is accentuating its authoritarian traits. Think of the repressive 
measures that the UK government is taking against protesters, against civil 
society, against journalists standing in solidarity with Palestine, for justice 
in Palestine.

In France and in Italy at the same time, conferences academic freedom is 
shrinking and in the same days, conferences of reputable historians and 
military and legal experts have been cancelled owing to the pressure of the 
pro-genocide groups, pro-Israel groups in their respective countries. People, 
including in Germany, are being persecuted, including academics, for their own 
exercise of free speech.

This tells me that there is very little pretense that Western states, so-called 
liberal democracies, the most attached to this idea of democracy are ready to 
defend for real. So in this sense, it’s up to us citizens to be vigilant and to 
make sure that we do not buy products connected or services connected to the 
legality of the occupation, the apartheid and the genocide.

And there are various organizations that collect lists of companies and 
entities, including universities that are connected to this unlawful endeavor. 
BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] is one, don’t buy into the occupation 
who profits profundo, but also students associations.

And this is something that has taught me, it’s very touching because it’s 
really the work of students, faculty members and staff that has mapped what 
each university does. And I think it gives the possibility to act, everyone in 
our own domain. Then of course there is a need to speak about Palestine, to 
make choices about Palestine and not because everything needs to revolve around 
Palestine, but because Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our 
life is going to go is clearly evident in this.

But also we need to make sure that businesses divest. Either through our 
purchase power, people have to step away and stop using platforms like Airbnb 
or Booking.com. I know that Amazon is very convenient, but guys, we might also 
return to buy books in libraries, ordering books through libraries.

Of course, not all of us can, but many do, many can. On the way to work, buy a 
book in a library, order a book in a bookstore. We need to reduce our reliance 
on the tools that have been used, that have been perfected through the 
slaughter of the Palestinians. And of course, make government accountable. 
There are lawyers, associations, and jurists who are taking government 
officials to court, businesses to court. But again, I do not think that there 
is one strategy that is going to be the winning one.

It’s the plurality of actions from a plurality of actors that is going to 
produce results and slow down the genocide and then help dismantle the 
occupation and the apartheid. It’s a long trajectory and the fight has just 
started.

Chris Hedges
 |  |

    


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