Mohamed El-Kurd,
whose cable news appearances on CNN
and MSNBC went viral recently was
forcefully removed from his home in
Sheikh Jarrah.
He talked about how his family was
slated to be evicted by the Israeli
government on CNN.
Take a look.
In the neighborhood,
your family home is slated for
eviction.
What is the scene right now?
>> Well, thank you so
much for having me.
To start it's not really
an eviction.
It's forced ethnic displacement to
be accurate, because an eviction
implies legal authority,
while Israeli occupation has no
legitimate jurisdiction over
the Eastern parts of occupied
Jerusalem under international law.
It also implies the presence of
a landlord and certainly these
Israeli settlers have not built
their homes, they're not our
landlords, they don't own our land.
And thirdly, eviction does not
imply the hundreds and
hundreds of heavily armed police,
and army, and settlers colluding,
blowing up your doors, throwing
your children from your windows and
using brute force to throw you out
in the street and assaulting in
a rescue should you resist.
It doesn't imply the grenades,
it doesn't imply
the rubber coated bullets.
It's not an eviction.
My grandmother was thrown out of
her home in 1948 in Haifa, and
she was thrown out again in 1967.
And again in 2009 when Israeli
settler organizations colluding
with the Israeli state took over
half of our home.
And this is my second time being
dispossessed from my family should
they go ahead and do it to me, it's
scary, but it's also has a name.
It's settler colonialism, and
it's apartheid.
And it's the fact that these other
organizations are working together
with the state to exploit the law
to dispossessed Palestinians.
>> It was interesting because
Nelson Mandela talked quite a bit
about Palestinians and
specifically said we're not free
until the Palestinians are free.
And as I was listening to
that interview,
I was reminded of that quote.
Now, that video went viral,
in my opinion, for obvious reasons.
It's not the perspective that
you're likely to see on CNN, you're
also unlikely to see this MSNBC
interview [LAUGH] where he made
similar points but also elaborated.
So let's take a quick look at that.
>> What we're facing in
Sheikh Jarrah,
and Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip,
and ledge is colonial violence.
And it's only allowed because both
the state and the settlers know
they have impunity.
The settlers are emboldened by
an apartheid state that allows
them to open carry in Palestinian
neighborhoods.
And the state is emboldened by
an international community that
refuses to call it out for
what it is.
That allows them to intentionally
target civilian neighborhoods
on the Gaza Strip and
massacre 24 Palestinians,
including nine children without
facing any consequences.
I don't expect much of
the Biden Administration,
knowing that Nick Price refused to
even condemn the killing of nine
Palestinian children tells me all I
need to know.
>> Do you support the violent
protests that have
erupted in solidarity with you and
other families in your position
right now?
>> Do you support the violent
dispossession of me and my family?
>> Apology, so that second video
was also from CNN, but he had
a similar interview on MSNBC.
And as I mentioned earlier,
later he was forced out of his home
from Sheikh Jarrah.
We do have that video.
Why don't we use that for
B roll as we talk over it.
And Jake, you've been really
passionate about this topic for
obvious reasons.
And oftentimes we hear about Israel
as this glowing democracy
in an area that consists of
countries that are not democratic.
But when you're specifically
targeting individuals for
speaking their minds in the media,
I mean this is the type of human
rights abuse that we'll criticize
other countries for.
And it's very clear that, I mean,
he went viral and
immediately after these interviews
he was forced out of his home.
>> Yeah, no, he accused him of
ethnic cleansing, and
then they ethnically cleansed them.
They said, look, this is more of
an right there, being forcibly
removed by whatever you want to
call these people, right?
These, Soldiers, police,
whatever the hell they are, right?
That say, yeah, you have no rights.
Yeah, you have no right to stay
in your own home.
We don't care about
international law.
He's right, and
we act with impunity.
We can do anything we want to you
and Joe Biden will kiss our ass.
Joe Biden will do exactly what
we tell him to do.
Or whatever he wants to do,
I don't care.
I don't know or
care about Joe Biden's motivations.
But basically Joe Biden by saying
Port Israel their attack they can
do anything they want,
self defense and not mentioning
Palestinians at all, at all.
Just told them yeah,
of course hate the guy who's
annoying you're on media.
And making indisputable points, and
just remove them, remove them,
cleanse them, be done with them.
They also took out his sister.
>> Yeah. >> And so
they're thrown out of their homes.
Now I want to give you more
clarity on that.
He mentioned his grandmother being
displaced back in 1948.
Now, I get that in an ultimate
peace deal, it will be very hard,
if not impossible for
the Palestinians to get a right of
return to go back to their
original homes or land, okay?
I understand that.
And then you could
say that's a gross injustice for
what happened to them, but it's
unlikely that that will happen.
But I need you to understand
the hypocrisy here.
They say, we got a deed from 1876
for your property.
And so even though it violates
international law,
we're going to remove you.
Because somebody in 1876 owned this
house and not you.
Okay, that's interesting.
Then he says okay can my
grandmother go back to her house
that she has a deed for?
No.
Why? She's a Palestinian.
We have a racist policy that we
don't allow Palestinians to go back
to their homes and
their deeds don't count.
And look, I'm telling you in a PCL
that might get cemented, and
we might have to live with that.
But it's not right.
And is it hypocritical?
It's a massively hypocritical.
So can Palestinians just walk into
Israeli homes or throw them out,
and go here's my deal.
I have a private property.
This is a private property dispute.
I have the deed you don't get that
out of my house.
No, they can't do that.
Of course they can't do that.
They're Palestinians.
Their lives don't matter as much.
That's just the reality of it.
And then he said, look,
typical right wing framing on
American media.
Do you condemn the violent
protests?
As you see, by the way they do
the same thing here in America.
Black Lives Matters protesters come
out and then somebody does one
thing wrong or
a couple people do things wrong,
they go, do you condemn
the violence of the Black people?
Condemn the violence
of Black people, right?
Well, how about the violence
upon them?
How about the violence of
the police as they killed one
unarmed Black man after another,
after another, after another.
No, state violence is
acceptable according to corporate
media in America.
Corporate media says when America
does state violence,
this is wonderful.
They had to do it.
The people we're oppressing made us
do it, right?
The violent Black people made us
commit violence upon them.
The violent Muslim people
across the world
made us commit violence upon them,
and support the violence upon them.
And this guy had the nerve to
say things that are true.
I'd say throw him out of his
house, okay?
And don't ever let him back on TV.
So I'm curious to see if you'll
ever make it back on CNN or MSNBC,
because normally they love it when
things go viral.
And now that he got
cleansed, right?
And so you should have him back
on, right?
That makes sense.
Where, where is he?
>> Well, for anyone who's worried
about his well being, he did update
people on Twitter and said hello,
I am fine and unintimidated.
He also said some notes,
our protests were nonviolent,
this was probably targeted
meaning the fact that he was
forced out of his house.
The settlers who are allowed in
while we're kicked out
are armed with knives and guns.
The soldiers tonight were
animalistic, howling, and glaring.
They're big mad.
So, he wanted people to know that
he's okay.
But how safe are you really in this
type of situation?
Just reading the quotes from
Palestinians in Gaza who, by
the way, just saw their homes get
destroyed, don't know where to go.
There is no place to go for
safety right now.
>> Sorry, one more thing in it.
It's damning of the US media that
this is the first time
you've ever seen this.
The reason we're carrying this
story is because [LAUGH]
somebody on American television was
able to mention ethnic cleansing of
the Palestinians, which is a fact.
And so that's why it's a big news
story.
Actual news broke out on American
television.
Usually they don't like news and
facts on American television.
They only like the side of
the powerful, okay?
So now Holy cow, that guy actually
said things on the show.
He said his grandmother can't go
back to her house that she owns,
that you can't say that on American
television.
Wait, is that amazing?
That you've never heard
that on American television before?
That's why this is a news story.
because news broke out
on an American news station.
And then I hear you,
RT is likely propaganda for
the Russians.
And then there are other news
outlets that are owned by
the different countries that
are propaganda was for them.
CNN is usually not much better at
all, let alone MSNBC,
just total propaganda arm of
the Democratic Party.
So here, this is a perfect example
of the exception proving the rule.
>> Yeah. >> That exception is so
stunning that somebody was allowed
to say something true about
Palestinians on American television
that it has become a worldwide
news event.