Ahmed Mour

Yes.

As a researcher.

Yeah.

No, thank you.

We're approximately the same age.

I won't tell you exactly how off.

But yeah, I just I'm reflecting so much these days on how much the war on terror was a formative moment politically for our generation and its interaction with the Palestinian issue, I think.

that's starting to really be understood more widely.

I think maybe it was more fringe or like a very select kind of understanding of the left would have that kind of analysis.

Yeah, no, I think you're right on the money on that.

I mean, in some ways, the MAGA movement and Donald Trump also capitalized on the lies of the war on terror to, I mean, despite the incoherence of the MAGA movement, like, that was part of, you know, a rebuke of the neocons.

But, of course, the left is, especially after...

two years of unspeakable genocide, I think it has led to just an articulation of how much the American foreign policy in the Middle East is, you mentioned boomerang, it's an imperial boomerang that is impacting American politics.

It's also highlighted how much the elite and public opinion is bifurcated on this.

Palestine has become an issue of democracy.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that's what I would say.

Yeah.

From my vantage point in American academia, I mean, they might have had personal feelings about Israel-Palestine.

They may have had sympathies, but so few people would ever talk about the erasure of Palestine in the academy or the impact of censorship and attacks on academic freedom.

But now, because the Palestinian issue is being used as this cudgel to attack higher education, like you're just a normal Joe Schmo, like math professor.