David Marchese

I'm glad to see you again.

So, you know, something that I was thinking about coming out of our first conversation was the way you use words like apartheid or genocide.

These are highly contested terms, and sometimes I wonder if the impulse to debate those terms can risk turning arguments about the conflict into arguments about semantics.

So I

I wonder for you, are there any downsides to using terms like genocide and apartheid, or maybe the contentiousness is why you feel you need to use them?

After October 7th, 2023, the anti-Zionist Jewish writer Peter Beinart wrote a piece for the New York Times op-ed section, the opinion section, where he argued that when Palestinians resist their oppression in ethical ways by calling for boycotts, sanctions, and the application of international law, the United States and its allies work to ensure that those efforts fail, which convinces many Palestinians that ethical resistance doesn't work, which empowers Hamas.

Does that diagnosis ring true for you?

Do you think Hamas could accept negotiations that don't involve the dissolution of the state of Israel?

And you mentioned the sanctions against Al-Haq, the human rights organization you co-founded.

And I want to ask a question about that.

So when the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, released a statement announcing the sanctions, the justification he gave was that Al-Haq has directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals without Israel's consent.

Is that correct?

Something that has struck me in talking to you is there's sort of a calm or a lack of stridency in how you make your arguments and some of the language that you use that, to me, seems very different than—

the stridency of younger pro-Palestinian voices and activists.

You know, an example of that stridency might even be something that has to do with Peter Beinart, who I mentioned earlier, who recently gave a talk at a university in Tel Aviv, and he got a lot of criticism from people who said, you know, you should be boycotting Israeli institutions and you shouldn't be engaging with them.

And I think that kind of attitude is not one that you share.

And I'm just curious to know if you see generational differences in how pro-Palestinian voices express themselves and the tactics that they call for.

So does the fact it never worked give you pause about the ultimate efficacy of your tactics?

We're speaking right at the end of the year.

What is your wish for the new year?