Our guest is Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and political analyst with Israeli citizenship. Since this war began, I’ve struggled to understand why most Israeli Jews support it. I discussed this last week with the Iranian, Jewish, and Israeli writer Orly Noy. But sometimes, the people who best understand a society are those who live within it as outsiders. It’s that experience of marginality, of seeing things from below, that often animates the insights of Black writers in the US and long animated the insights of Jewish writers in Europe. That’s why I’m turning to Diana, a Palestinian in Israel, to help understand Jewish Israeli society in this awful moment. She’s someone I’ve been learning from for a long time. I’m grateful I had the chance to do so again.
Topics include:
why the Iran war is so popular among Jewish Israelis
the unequal experience of Palestinian citizens of Israel and how it’s gotten worse since October, 2023
why Diana stays in Israel despite constant abuse
how she raises her son to resist hate
the value of interacting with Jewish Israelis other than soldiers
what Palestinians need to begin reconciliation
