Israel's Basel El Smotrich has uh officially been handed down some new sanctions by four separate countries. And it's in regard to the settler violence that's been carried out against the Palestinian people in the West Bank. More Palestinian land in the West Bank has been [00:00:17] uh annexed off for illegal Israeli settlements. We have seen the type of violence that's been carried out against the Palestinian people. And at the center of that happens to be Basilel Smotrich, who's the finance minister of Israel. Now France, according to the Times of Israel, [00:00:34] has barred Israel's finance minister, Basilel Smotrich, four leaders of settler organizations and 21 violent settlers from entering the country, the uh French foreign minister announced just today. And uh there are other countries involved in this, so it's France, Canada, Norway. [00:00:55] And the UK, which is good to hear, Israel reacted unsurprisingly with anger and has accused these countries of engaging in anti-Semitism. uh But obviously that is a weak and flimsy response [00:01:11] to something that we have all witnessed with our own two eyes when it comes to uh the terrorism carried out in the West Bank. And so we have- One member of the Israeli government saying, [00:01:27] this is within the Defense Ministry saying that uh pushing for the economic collapse of the Palestinian Authority and its deleterious consequences on the Palestinian population uh is what they're carrying out. So I want to understand what's happening behind the scenes to finally get [00:01:44] these countries to do something about the- genocide or in this case about the illegal settlements in the West Bank. And luckily here to share what he knows about this story is Wally Rashid, a content creator who I admire, who happens to be Palestinian. And Rashid [00:02:03] also has some family members in the West Bank as well. Wally, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much for having me on and I appreciate it. I appreciate you letting me know about this story to begin with. It's not really being widely reported in the US at the moment. ah [00:02:18] But I do want some clarity about it. And I more importantly want to know what your role has been in the past when it comes to pushing the Biden government to do something about settler violence in the West Bank. But before we get to all of that Wally, if you don't mind, can you share a little bit about your own family and what they've experienced in the West Bank? [00:02:38] Yeah, well, yes, I'm Palestinian. Both sides of my family are from the same village in the West Bank. uh Small village, less than 2,000 people, it's called Bureen. And it's deep in the West Bank. It's in the Northwest Bank near Nablus, one of the large Palestinian cities. [00:02:55] In 1982, a settlement called Yitzhar was built at the mountaintop adjacent to my family's village. And it's known as the most violent settlement in entire West Bank. The rabbi at Yitzhar, the yeshiva at Yitzhar, which is the religious school, he was previously- in Israeli [00:03:14] prison because he promoted the murder of uh non-Jewish babies. He wrote an entire book on why non-Jewish babies should be murdered. Anybody that poses a threat to Israel. I mean, these people are so violent that they attack uh and justify the murder of the IDF. And if [00:03:31] you think, it's just hard to grapple your head around the fact that that's how violent these people are because the IDF to me is just like the epitome of just pure evil at this point. But they don't think that they're doing enough. So my family, they've been living in the village [00:03:46] and there's Palestinian villages all around this mountaintop. And these settlers, they just come down from the mountaintop and they terrorize Palestinians. Sometimes they'll just go ahead and put on some sort of military uniform. They'll pretend they're the IDF. And these are 14 year olds plus. A lot of them just really young guys and they're given M16 rifles that [00:04:06] come from the US. And they just go around terrorizing Palestinians, murdering Palestinians. Settlers in the West Bank have less than a 1 % conviction rate, while Palestinians have over a 99 % conviction rate. So nothing really happens to them. kind of just like, I feel like they're just hunting [00:04:23] Palestinians, honestly. I think it's a mistake, and this is not a criticism of you at all. It's just a widely accepted term. We call Israeli settlers Israeli settlers, they're terrorists. This is what terrorists do. You're telling me that this guy literally wrote a book justifying [00:04:44] the slaughter of Gentile infants? Yeah, his name is Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira. There's a really famous pic of him just in handcuffs in Israel. He's a well known rabbi him and then another rabbi named Rabbi uh Ginsburg. There are the two. They wrote an entire book, was called [00:05:04] the, my gosh, the blank Torah, the Mans Torah or something along those lines. But it's very well known, there's so many articles on this. So it's Rabbi Ginsburg and Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro asked, urge everybody to just search their names up. Yeah, and they just promoted the book. [00:05:20] They said that anybody that could be a threat to Israel, so even if it's a one year old baby. because they assume that that baby is gonna grow up to be a threat to Israel, it's justified to murder that baby. And the Palestinians, just can't do anything. If a Palestinian tries to defend themselves, [00:05:41] well, then they're an extremist and they're just gonna go ahead and get killed. basically, my family's just sitting ducks and they genuinely can't even do anything. I've wanted my, like they can't. there's nothing they could do if they speak out. The eye symbol like the big [00:05:58] brother symbol, the idea has those eye symbols all across the West Bank like on flyers, the just kind of the evil eye symbol. And there's all these signs in Arabic and they say, we're watching over you. Anything you post online about what's happening will charge you with [00:06:13] supporting terrorism. So if you simply record and you post it online, you're now a terrorist for just exposing what these people are doing to you. Let me just say, there are these stories that keep popping up in regard to anti-Zionist protesters uh protesting in front of synagogues. [00:06:34] Where these Zionist groups will literally use synagogues in order to facilitate the sale of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. And then the way our media covers it makes it appear as though these violent anti-Semitic mobs are attacking worshippers at a synagogue [00:06:55] in New York City. But it's really important for you guys to understand what's actually happening here. The protesters are actually doing the right thing, using a synagogue, a place of worship, in order to carry out these dirty deals, these dirty sales of properties [00:07:12] that sit on blood soaked land. It's just so disgusting how our media provides cover for the illegal settlements, provides cover for the Zionists who carry out these events inside synagogues. And at the same time, defame the protesters who are calling out uh this disgusting [00:07:32] behavior. Anyway, I sound like Jenk today, I'm attacking No, no, you're 100 % right. And I'm glad you brought that up because you know that congressman, his name is Congressman Sutsman, the one who brought up, he was really pushing section 224 recently to fuse the Israeli and [00:07:47] the US military. That congressman is working now with an organization called American Friends of Judea in Samaria. So that congressman that worked with Netanyahu, the one that got the letter from Netanyahu saying thank you for adopting this section 224. He's working with this organization [00:08:04] now that's fully composed of Israeli settlers in the West Bank on the head of this organization. They're based out of New York and Miami. And right now, aside from just the federal level, they're going to state governments. The government of Tennessee, the state government just passed [00:08:21] legislation now recognizing the term Judea and Samaria in replacement of the West Bank and all state documents. And they're hopping from state to state to push this already working at the federal level. This is a relatively new organization. They're lobbying them, they're calling themselves the APAC of the West Bank or the APAC of Judea and Samaria. That's how [00:08:39] they define themselves. um So I mean, they're working behind the scenes really quickly. So talk to me a little bit about your work during the Biden administration. ah basically push for sanctions against some of these settlers and what your experience was doing that. Yeah, [00:08:56] so during the Biden administration, uh there was an executive order called Executive Order 1144, 44115, I believe. And basically it was just the, it's the one that they're trying to push now, but it's the West Bank Violence Prevention Act. That's really what the executive [00:09:13] order did. So anybody, and not just Palestinians, by the way, anybody, whether a Palestinian or Israeli, committed violence on the West Bank or led to the displacement of Palestinians, the US government would sanction them. And this is adopted, this is adopted in a lot of countries right now, especially in Europe. uh So at the time when settlers were terrorizing [00:09:33] my family, I was working with an organization called Dawn, Democracy for the Arab World Now. And they had a team of sanction attorneys and we were submitting sanctions to the State Department. They required like a lot of evidence. So I was asking everybody in my family's villages, surrounding [00:09:50] villages for as much evidence as possible, really getting photos of these settlers faces, putting identities to them. And we submitted the sanctions to the State Department and we ended up. uh freezing the assets of the uh head of security at the settlement next to my family's village, [00:10:06] which on the ground that really doesn't do anything. And I'm gonna be honest, if anything, it actually ends up annoying them and pissing them off more or bothering them more. That's what happened today with Bizzola Smotrich. uh the goal long term is not just to sanction a settler, the [00:10:24] goal is to sanction the- settlement yeshiva that's teaching them to know that's radicalizing them the goals to sanction uh Settlement organizations that are financing you know the building of settlements so we did that and we were able to successfully sanction him there was uh videos [00:10:41] two years ago of Israeli an israeli settler group destroying aid entering gaza like jumping on the aid trucks that organization was sanctioned And then on day one of uh office when Biden's with when Trump took office, he reversed the executive order. Now in Congress, and this [00:10:59] just goes to show, it doesn't matter whether on the left or the right. Right now in Congress, there's the West Bank Violence Prevention Act. And it has like 150 co sponsors. So this thing has a lot of weight and it's basically pushing for the reintroduction of an executive order [00:11:14] just pushing for the Trump administration or any administration in the future. to basically now sanction anybody that commits violence in the West Bank. It's stuck in the Foreign Affairs Committee and the head of that committee is Brian Mass of Florida. So he's just letting [00:11:30] it and 150 co-sponsors, a lot of co-sponsors, they're not even letting it get on a floor vote right now. Because of course, he's just totally subservient to Israel, he has no care for Palestinians, so they just kind of suck there. He's justified the slaughter of all Palestinians. He doesn't think that there's a single innocent Palestinian in Gaza. He [00:11:49] had the audacity to wear the IDF uniform in the halls of Congress. That is the military uniform of a foreign country, a foreign country that has been intensifying their spying on US officials lately, may I add. And so I mean, I just see all of this as disgusting, traitorous, [00:12:09] anti-American behavior. The idea that Mast is the one who gets to decide whether or not that effort advances, tells you everything you need to know about who our government and the leadership within our government actually works for. But tell me more about your efforts. [00:12:25] Yeah, so I mean, m so after that, after the Trump administration came in, they ended the executive order. I've just been, I mean, I couldn't really do anything in the US with sanctions. And they've basically done everything to basically end any Palestinian political activism in [00:12:43] the United States. It's basically just kind of gone at this point right now. uh So I started working with the Gaza flotilla, just kind of working on that sort of stuff. And then finally, in the European Union, Viktor Orbán of Hungary, uh he was the only one blocking sanctions on [00:12:58] settlers in the EU. And then finally, he got voted out. two months ago now or just a couple months ago now. And after he lost the Hungary elections, the new guy came in who's still a Zionist, still staunchly pro-Israel, but not so much pro-Israel that he's gonna stand [00:13:15] in the way and block it. He'll just let it pass and not really make any strong measures. That's why JD Vance and Netanyahu were out there campaigning for Viktor Orban. So after Viktor Orban lost, the EU sanctions are back up and that's why they started reintroducing sanctions. Now if you're a Palestinian or if you're an Arab, I mean anybody that's really kind of following [00:13:33] along what's going on and you hear sanctions, you kind of just want to roll your eyes because you really don't think they're that effective. And right now on the ground, Palestinians are still being terrorized. Right now Christian Palestinian village is literally on fire as of today by settlers. um the goal long term is that you have to eventually work your way [00:13:51] up from just settlers to organizations which today one organization that bulldozes the West Bank like a bulldozer organization, a construction organization. The head of that was also sanctioned today. So I'm doing everything I can to basically just build our way up until okay, let's choke [00:14:07] the West Bank settlements dry of finances. Because ultimately the goal should be to sanction all of Israel. In 2019 Netanyahu, was speaking at a university in Israel and he said, something along the lines of if the EU or if the world sanctioned Israel, uh Israel wouldn't be able [00:14:24] to withstand the sanctions imposed against it, would have to retreat out of the West Bank because it would just cripple the economy, they couldn't handle it. ah So that's why there was all these anti-BDS measures and everything because it was the one thing that was actually effective. That's same way apartheid South Africa fell was through sanctions. Israel knows that [00:14:41] it's incredibly effective, which is why they're doing everything they can to basically make it illegal in the US to even sanction or boycott Israel. ah But so now we're back to it. I have a team of lawyers and a big shout out to Democracy for the Arab World now, Dawn, and then also Global Sanctions Coalition. They're really just working their tail off submitting [00:15:01] these sanctions. So more settlers were sanctioned today. The goal is that we just want to build our way up. uh So we're doing everything we can with what we have available. It's not going to free Palestine overnight, but you have to do something so you don't feel like you're [00:15:17] just living hopelessly. No, I'm so happy that we're talking about this Wally because one of the things that I've been struggling with is all these terrible things are happening. I see my role in all of this is like informing people about what's actually going on. But [00:15:33] I feel like I'm not providing options for people to get active and actually do something about it. Because I don't know what options we really have, right? So I love what you're working on and something that starts out small can really turn into something substantive [00:15:52] and very effective. So I love that you're not discouraged and you're continuing to move forward with this. um Let our audience know if they want to take part in this and support you and what you guys are doing. Where can they go? How can they get involved? Yeah, so um [00:16:08] I mean, right now if you want to support global sanctions coalition, if you just search up global sanctions coalition.org, they're really awesome website. They've been doing really great work and then I'm Wally Rashid on all social media. um I recently started a website called vote log. So just vote log.org and I track all US congressional action on Israel [00:16:27] and Palestine. So you'll see all politicians voting records in the US, um all their funding, all their financing. And it's just coming directly from the FEC and congressional website. So if you want to support that website, you can see which politicians, the politicians that you're a constituent of, who they are, what their phone number is, how to contact them, [00:16:46] look at their voting record. We really just kind of have to start off small in our own district. So, okay, I got to ask you one final question and I hope you don't take any offense to it. But on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most jealous. How jealous is clavicular when [00:17:05] it comes to your own cheekbones? Get out of here. You're too sweet. I think I'm jealous of your cheekbones. It's good lighting. have good lighting. That's all it is. You're amazing, Wally. I love your content. I love what you're doing. My heart goes out to your family. I [00:17:21] can't imagine what it must feel like knowing you have family in the West Bank and seeing all these videos of these terrorists. going around stealing people's homes, terrorizing people, killing people, including by the way, Palestinian Americans, American citizens who happen to be in the West Bank at the time. And so keep doing the work you're doing and [00:17:39] come back anytime to give us updates. I really appreciate you. Thank you so much, Ana. Take care. uh