Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Pricing
Podcast Image

The New Yorker Radio Hour

A West Bank Family on the Verge of Annexation

25 Mar 2025

Transcription

What happened to the Palestinian students in Burlington?

645.805 - 662.876 Hisham Awartani

I don't know, like, I kind of wish I could be there. Just like... You know, experience it with my family. Like, I don't want to feel like I'm abandoning my family. Maybe it's a bit of survivor's guilt.

0

664.197 - 677.724 Narrator

The survivor's guilt was eating at him. He was attending classes, going to physical therapy, but in every lecture, every new workout, the desire to return to the West Bank and be with his family hung over him.

0

677.744 - 691.124 Hisham Awartani

I felt like the time is ticking and that, like, There could be a possibility that some form of annexation happens while I'm outside. And then because I'm outside, I lose my legal status to live in Palestine.

0

693.684 - 699.945 Narrator

Since Donald Trump was elected in November, the possibility of annexation has felt even more imminent.

0

699.965 - 707.846

A high-profile Israeli lawmaker said yesterday Israel is a, quote, step away from annexing the occupied West Bank following Trump's election.

707.866 - 710.727 Vincent Cunningham

Smotrich suggested planning for this is already in motion.

710.947 - 726.119

He's ordered his officials to draw up plans for Israel to annex some 150 settlements in the West Bank. Now, Smotrich is a settler himself. He's also a key minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition.

728.601 - 742.756 Narrator

So when the fall semester ended in December, Hisham returned to Ramallah for the first time since the shooting. At that point, he told me he might not return to college. He was too worried about what might happen in the West Bank.

746.719 - 751.323 Claire Malone

Reporter Suzanne Gabbert talking about Hashem Awartani. We'll continue in a moment.

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.