Growing Support at American Universities for Violent Palestinian Resistance
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Hello listeners,
Wars—like the one between Israel and Hamas—are not only fought on the battlefield, but they are also fought through stories. In today’s episode, I interview Eman Abdelhadi, an American academic, activist, and organizer in the Free Palestine movement. Abdelhadi shares a perspective on Israel that, while controversial, is gaining influence across the United States, particularly on college campuses.
A recent Pew survey revealed that 34% of Americans under 30 find Hamas' reasons for fighting Israel to be valid, and only 16% of Americans under 30 support continued U.S. military aid to Israel. If you align with the Free Palestine movement, Eman’s story may resonate deeply. If you support Israel, it may be challenging and even frustrating to hear. But regardless of where you stand, I believe there is value in listening to a view that is shaping more and more of the American discourse on this issue.
If you’d like to share your feedback on this or any episode, you can reach us at hello@reflector.show.
Thanks for listening,
Andy (and Matt)
Correction: An earlier version of this story mistakenly said “only 16% of Americans support continued U.S. military aid to Israel.” The correct stat is “only 16% of Americans under 30 support continued U.S. military aid to Israel.” We regret the error and have corrected it.
Agree with the thesis that it's important to hear from people your audience might not want to hear from.
I, for one, am grateful for it. I appreciated the context interspersed as well. I think that was the right way to handle this.
It's hard to dismiss Eman outright, she definitely has the conviction of her beliefs. The only thing that still galls me on contentious topics like these is when you do sit down from a self-styled "expert," and if they are an expert, then they *must* know all of the things that *I* know as a non-expert, and yet they still somehow push all of that aside, don't address it, or contextualize it in such a way to provide maximum sympathy to their concerns and very rigid, black and white thinking/bad faith to the other side.
There aren't zero crazy people on the pro-Israel side. But, and this is a very important caveat, most of the "experts" on that side of the table are almost universally willing to concede points about Israel's overreach or relative crimes in this conflict.
I see none of that on the pro-Palestinian side. Absolutely none. No willingness to even entertain it.
That, I think, is damning. And I wish I felt confident that this inconsistency created skepticism of that narrative, as it should.
Eman was extremely painful to listen to.
I keep an earnest lookout for "non-crazy" pro-Palestinian activists, but it's extremely dispiriting to regularly only encounter folks who display a debilitating allergy towards acknowledging any facts inconvenient to their purported side. There's way too many Hamas and Hezbollah flags at these protests, and way too much linguistic acrobatics about their chants! I want them to first just acknowledge reality: there is a disturbing amount of pro-terrorism advocacy within these spaces. But Eman just keeps oscillating between "maybe they're planted by the CIA" and "well they're extremely rare" and "maybe they feel that way for a good reason". Please pick one non-contradictory thesis! And ideally, pick a thesis actually grounded in reality rather than delusion. Unreal.