Hudson River Radio dot com. It beats listening to nothing. Oh my godness,
being Frank fright, where the only way to be is Frank. Hello
everyone, and welcome to being Frank. We're the only way to be is
Frank. I'm your host, Frank Leguono, and I'd like to thank you
for joining us and what we like to call the Intelligent Conversation Podcast, where
no conversation is out of bounds at all points of view are welcome. We
are recording live to tape, as we call it, on the sixteenth of
May. I'd like to give you the date so you have some context as
when all this is happening. You know, we use the slogan intelligent conversation
for this program because we intend to create the civil dialogue that is so sorely
missing and too many of our personal interactions these days, especially when it comes
to difficult topics, and none are more intense, difficult and divisive than the
current situation in Gaza. It seems that everyone has an opinion that mostly condemns
the actions of the other. Each has become so wounded for the other.
Unfortunately, many believe the conflict will never be resolved. But I can't believe
that. I won't believe that, and neither does my guest. I believe
that reading his bio will serve as evidence of his qualified opinion on the matter.
Born in the town of Nobilists in the occupied West Bank of historic Palestine
in nineteen seventy, he graduated from high school at the end of the First
Intifada, the uprising against occupation, and was encouraged to leave for Jordan to
pursue his education in interior design, traveling to the USA in nineteen ninety to
further his studies in architecture. He landed at the City College of New York
and became active in social justice movements at that time. After earning his degree,
he worked as an architect for ten years and then went on to become
a furniture designer for another ten During this time, he earned a master's in
education and became a college professor at Rockland Community College. Currently, he is
a project manager for design and construction firm. Yoga, Sufhism, and non
violent communication are an integral part of who he is. He believes that humanity
is connected and we need to learn to live peacefully and respectfully together. Please
welcome Kadir Hamid Kadir, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you,
Frank, thank you for beautiful introduction. I don't know who you're talking
about. It sounded a little bit like me. Well, I stole it
from the byo you sent me. I'm not that creative a writer, although
some of it was mine before that. Anyway, there's so much too unpack,
and I think it's important that, as I said, even in the
beginning, we like to give people a context of the date. There's breaking
news that we'll discuss as Israel prepares to move further into rafa discussion that will
take place later on. But in order to provide the context also for you
as a guest, WHI tell us about your history and what you brought us,
brought us together at this point, Yes, so as thank you for
introducing me. In your bio you can have mentioned where I was born and
how I landed in America. And I'm so grateful for being here for the
last thirty five years. And it seems the subject we are about to discuss
is so touchy. I have to introduce myself to the audience and explain who
I am psychologically and spiritually. So I grew up in a mostly Muslim household.
My father actually was an imam. He worked for the mosque, and
the mosque where my father used to pray was part of a church piece of
land, and that church in the eighteen hundreds felt that the neighborhood didn't have
a mosque, so they gifted the local community a small piece of land to
build a very small mosque. And that mosque is sharing the same wall with
the Christian Church. So I grew up in that kind of world. At
the same time, even though I grew up under occupation, My city of
Nablus has a minority of Jews who've never left Palestine for the last four thousand
years, and my teachers in math in middle school was a Jewish man who
spoke perfect Arabic, and we knew he was not Muslim like us. We
also had Christian classmates, but he was Jewish, and no one ever said
a word to out him or separate him or say he's different in us.
He was one of us, from our community. So I didn't grow up
in a world where this Jewish Arab divide is that, even though it was
still politically charged in my town. Let me jump in because I think it's
important here if I might too, because you use again for context here and
even in your bio, and you use words like occupation and historic Palestine.
So those are things that I think Americans don't necessarily understand. And in our
pre conversations and some of the material that you sent me, including a previous
podcast, you mentioned about you know, even though within that kind of idyllic
setup there was also the evidence of occupation, tanks, soldiers with guns.
How did that affect you? At the same time, if I might thank
you, I mean, from early on in my childhood, the occupation was
already felt in our towns, in the West Bank and in Gaza, And
as a child, no one ever sat me and told me what was going
on. I just experienced it viscerally and physically, like in what I was
growing up. Textbooks came from Jordan. We didn't have Palestinian curriculum, we
didn't have ministries, we didn't have police. It was the Israeli Army policing
towns. You feel like in my town was surrounded by settlements, and settlers
would come to the market and they would bring their guns when they do like
vegetable shopping. So there's this unspoken tension and mistrust. And early on I
was afraid of the army because I know army could just beat you up,
arrestue. And by the nineteen eighties we had the first Antifada and he was
terrifying to live there as a young teenager, I mean, I was tear
gassed. I had like for no fault of my own, just my existence,
and that part of place, I felt I was a suspect and I
was caught in this cycle of anger and rage, and I felt it as
a child. But then by the time it became a teenager, was very
apparent that the political situation is not normal. It's not normal for society to
be occupying another society and forced it to live under its rule. And that's
what I grew up with. Now you mentioned again the rather idyllic I know
the way to describe it, the sharing of the church in the mosque with
your father's masque. Yeah, what happened from there in that kind of understanding
of one and not only understanding respect for one another. How did that change?
Where did that change? Why did that change? Is there something that
was seminal for you or a moment that in your mind proved to be an
epiphany that this is going to change. I mean, the first ant Father
was so like the war in Lebanon happened in nineteen eighty two when I was
a child, and I've seen dead bodies on TV, and that kind of
shook me emotionally. There's something severally wrong. And then slowly the violence on
TV became part of my daily life, like checkpoints. I was tear gas
more than once. I was arrested and released for no reason. I was
a friend of mine disappeared at the age of fifteen, sixteen to military jail
for six months detention, administrative detention without even a hearing, just because there
were suspects. So it started coming closer and closer, from being on TV
to being in the street, to being in my actual school. And suddenly
the word kind of completely collapsed and the reality of the politics became part of
my everyday life, became part of my every day struggle, to the point
where I had to leave the country. Let's say you talked about emigrating to
America and your love for America and rock and roll and the Grateful Dead.
We'll talk a little bit. You became a dead head, but I think
it's important if you can to verbalize what it's like. You know, we're
spoiled as Americans. We've never known that. Most of us have not.
There have been some who have been subject to racism. That's almost like occupation.
Yeah, if you will, But generally speaking, it's not the type
of thing that Americans have experienced firsthand, so it's very hard for them to
understand. If you can psychologically, how does that change a person? What
does it do inside your mind? Maybe if you understand a little bit of
that, we can understand where we are today. That's a really good question.
The occupation that I've experienced is also cultural and visceral. For example,
when I was growing in town, there was only two radio stations. There
is the Israeli Arab radio station and there is a Jordinian radio station, and
there was no local radio station speaking in our local tongue voice culture. So
you're even what you listen to, what you watch on TV is censored and
controlled. When I was growing up, a lot of books were banned,
and I was a big reader since I was like ten. And it's almost
hard to find a map of where you live in the local library. There
is no map. You don't even know where you exist on the map.
When I was growing up, for example, we were not We were told
we were Arabs because we were not Palaestinians. So I could not tell anybody
that I was Palestinian because my sheer definition of my existence and my national origin
is threatening to the political state. So when I was growing up, it
was illegal to wear red, black, white, and green because these are
the colors of a Palasinian flag. I haven't seen actually an actual Philoscian Palasian
flag till I was maybe fifteen, because it was just not allowed. So
you feel this presence of what's allowed and what's not allowed, to the point
where you start whispering, you start censoring your own thoughts because the occupation actually
gets to form your identity in your mind. Sometimes you either become rebellious,
angry, militant and hateful, or you become self hating. You could become
paranor you could be it's really it does something to your mind. You could
become almost you fight that, you become a poet, you become an artist.
You have to choose an attitude towards occupation. You either become a scientist
or something it's like it's such a strong fact in your Life's defining your movement,
is defining what you read, where you go, who you hang out
with. When does your car get stop? When does your carget moved?
So most of the West Bank is filled with checkpoints, and these checkpoints are
man usually by young Israeli soldiers eighteen to twenty something, and they stop each
car passing by. They check your boxes, you check your clothing. Sometimes
stands out for half an hour for no reason at all, just to tell
you that, remember, you're under occupation. So there is this daily harassment
of the of the average Palestine. It doesn't matter if you're nice, you're
religious, you're an atheist, you're man, woman, or child. You're
a subject to the occupation system. And the occupation system has to monitor you,
on watch you. So it's really a big burden to carry on the
heart of the mind. Allow me to play the devil's advocate, one of
the things I do best on the show because someone someone asked, But in
many Israelis and Jewish friends that I have, without saying in so many words,
suggest that the Palestinians are their own worst enemy. If you will again,
when I want to get into Hamas and by following these rather radical,
militant, aggressive leaders, etc. So you know Israel will bring peace,
it almost if you will. And I'm a student of ancient history, particularly
Roman history, and the Romans were great if you did things their well because
your attitude was like at which in America has also to agree to a degree.
Well, everybody wants to be Roman. Look at our cities, look
at the coliseum, look at what we can bring into the world. Your
culture can be okay over there, But doesn't everybody want to be Roman?
So some of them at times, and you can you forgive me and apologize
to them as well. It mean to be hurtful, but there seems to
be an attitude. Well, we're bringing a better life. We are bringing
a better life to the Palestinians. Why don't they see that? Your thoughts?
Yeah, yeah, Actually I've had this argument several several times, and
it's an interesting argument. First of all, you have native people living in
some land and some occupying force and it comes and declares itself the ruler.
It's very strange for the person who comes and takes over your life to tell
you how you should behave and what kind of choices you should make to justify
your behavior, and let's face it, it's an imperial attitude. And at
the same time, like Palestinians have been resisting occupation in all kinds of forms,
including for example, non violent, non violent resistance to occupation like going
hunger strikes, boycotting products, and this and that. And every time a
Palestinian leader who comes with a voice of reason and who's proposing a logical,
hopeful future is either arrested and sometimes assassinated. We have not been even given
a chance to develop a healthy, organic leadership in the last hundred years because
our society has been divided, chased, forced into exile. How do you
build a civil society? How do you build a culture when you are under
run the whole time? And to the Palasian credit, we are still here
one hundred years later. Where a lot of forces would have loved for us
to disappear, we still stayed in our place. And most Palestinians are rational,
peace loving, normal people. I mean, there is this tendency to
pick up a few and use them as an excuse to cover up the whole.
I am not a unique Palestinian in the way I'm talking to you.
I can find you another one hundred Palaestinians who have very similar point of view
and very simplar temperament. So the idea of blaming the victim and saying it's
your fault, you're an idiot, it's your fault you're being abused. It's
almost like a domestic abused kind of situation where the husband beats the wife and
tells her I'm beating you because you talk too much. So it's sometimes,
I'm sorry to use this crude metaphor, but blaming the victim when the victim
has been trying to speak and to have a voice and to have a place
on the table to have a discussion as I'm trying right now. Is U
is a classic technique of dismissing the argument like there is something wrong with us,
to say, as a collective, as a group of people, there
is something wrong with us, and I reject this accusation. I wouldn't want
to say that about any people. To say, oh, there is something
wrong with the Israelis, or there's something wrong with the Armenians or whatever.
It seems unkind and and lacking understanding of human nature. No one is born
hateful, angry, violent person. I think the circumstances makes the man and
the woman, and that's very unfortunate to blame the victim more than work with
me. Let's find a way out. Good segue, and we're going to
keep working to that end. But we have to allow October seventh into the
conversation. The horrendous day, the horrendous act again committed in the name of
the Palestinian people, okay, by Hamas. So again you when we know
it's certainly not the majority, as you said, there are far more people
like yourself, but yet Hamas in a sense is allowed to act, if
you will, as a voice. And then it was in a sense it's
if you think about what they're trying to accomplish, and it's working by throwing
the entire region into turmoil. I think that was one of their goals.
So they are achieving that. But how can you explain the level of violence
that it gets to that point where they do it not only in the name
of the Palestinian people, but in the name of God with the aim okay,
and then which in Israeli response of eradication of all Jews. Yeah,
that is a very good question. I mean as I said for us,
I mean I'm a scientific person. I'm a college educated person, and I
like the idea of cause and effect, and in Buddhism they talk about that
psychologically and spiritually and politically. So if you want to analyze the cause and
effect of this hamas phenomena, so we can look at this route. Everything
has a route, and everything has a history and answer. I don't want
to go through history. I know people don't have that attention spent. But
let's understand what is Gaza? How did Gaza come into being? So most
people don't know that seventy percent of the population of Gaza are refugees. To
start with, they've lost their home. In nineteen forty eight, by the
establishment of Jewish State, seven hundred and fifty Palestinians were evacuated out of their
land for complicated circumstances we don't want to get into. But the reality is
three quarters of a million people fled their homeland and they moved to Gaza.
And Gaza to start with, is a poor place. Is a very small
place, very dense space. And they've been first under occupation since nineteen sixty
seven. Before that, they were on the Egyptian occupation. Seventy percent of
the population is refugees. Unemployment in Gaza was just like staggering fifty percent or
more. And Gaza for the last twenty years has been completely neglected by the
international community and have been surrounded by a basically offense. And it's an open
air prison. And this is as described by Israeli historian. This is not
my opinion. The smartest people in Israel that I listen to are telling me
that this is an open air prison. So you create within the border of
your own society, under your own control circumstances. Nobody created it, but
this would happen, So this will happen. You have a place at the
border of Israel, within Israel itself that has been a place of conflict and
an argument and disagreement for seventy five years, and we choose to neglect it
and ignore it. And then and under the circumstances, this is not a
place for a renaissance of democracy to thrive. Tension, violence, hate,
lack of resources, unemployment, these are the places where radicalism can grow.
So we are all responsible, me included, for allowing the radicalism in Gaza
to spread, and that radicalism is understandable. I mean, when people are
have nothing to lose and under this much, being dismissed, being ignored.
I'm not again, I'm not justifying by the way. I'm vegan. I
would not kill a chicken if I had to. I mean, I just
I'm trying. I'm working, I'm working on I'm not perfectly. I hate
violence, I hate hurting people any people, and uh no one When this,
this hamass thing that happened was just I mean, it was the most
shocking thing that ever happened in my life. And I was just as outraged
and in disbelief as anyone else. And I've called my Israeli friends to check
on them. How are you guys doing with this? Because it was just
an epic act that's terrifying. But at the same time, maybe unfortunately,
it could be a wake up call that there's something someone, for someone to
do something so violent and so ugly and so whatever, something is severely wrong.
Let's ask what's wrong? And do we want to demonize everybody who lives
in Gaza and think they are monsters? Is this really a rational way to
describe two million people which we have seen doctors and engineers and poets and normal
people. These gaza did not have an election in twenty twenty something years and
most of the people of Guys are under the age of twenty anyway, So
how do we blame an entire population for a leadership they have not voted for,
for a circumstance that thrived on violent and have been allowed to grow more
radicalism and more rage and more hate. And I think think because of course
and effect, the circumstances produce this ugly, horrific event. The question is
how do we respond to this? That was actually leading to my question.
I mean for me to acknowledge the complexity of this situational So Israel gets caught
between a rock and a hard place, if you will, because there has
to be some response. There had to be some response. People call it
heavy handed, and it certainly has been. How what would have been a
more effective way in your mind for Israel to respond? I mean, first
of all, I really believe in the concept of law and international law.
I mean, we live in the same town. Imagine how much life would
be hell if people park wherever they want to park. Like It's nice to
have an international order in the system. So in international law, there's this
concept of proportionality of use of force. So Israel wants to retaliate, act
whatever, get blood back. I don't know what to call it, have
revenge. It's been seven months, the entire Gaza strip is destroyed and flattened,
when the universities are completely destroyed and flattened, hardly any hospitals. I
mean, it's becoming beyond and beyond the action and the retaliation, and I'm
questioning what's the aim and how does this end? Because this situation is frightening.
This situation is frightening, you know, and I want to get to
whether or not you know part of it is are the effective I mean in
terms of protecting themselves? And you sent me a very interesting video that I
watched from an Israeli scholar to give me. I should have written down his
name. I don't have it right now, but he talked about the effectiveness
of the Israeli campaign and how it's really not accomplishing what it wants to.
And it's funny because before we started taping today was watching a little CNN and
they gave a live update on talking about how troops are massing even further to
go into Rafa and at the same time are going back into northern Gaza to
fight insurgencies in areas they've already cleared. So the saying of killing one terrorist
the way it's been done has created five more, and there's evidence to that,
so that it's really not being effective. You can't ratic. You may
eradicate people, but you can eradicate the idea. And later on I'm going
to use that very famous quote from Martin Luther King about darkness, that only
light can drive out darkness. But we seem to be stuck in this violence
of just they hate us and we're gonna hate them more, and the more
we hate them, the more they're gonna hate us, and we seem to
be stuck. And again it's the bottom line is it doesn't seem to be
effective. Why can't Israel see that? I think we all have to take
risks. As I said, I believe that ideas are like viruses, and
if enough of us promote peace and support peace verbal, politically, financially,
and speak to our politicians about the peace we desire, the peace can happen.
So currently the world is at risk. I I mean people who are
saying that world war three could come out of this, are not exaggerating,
I agree. So I feel like you and I live in one hundred story
building and there is a fire in the first and second floor, and you
and I could say, you know what, we're comfortable here. We can
drink our martinis, depends house. Were having fun. But it behooves you
and behooves me to say we need to stop the fire in the lobby of
this building because eventually we'll eat us. So it's really important to We live
in a very fragile ecosystem, fragile international system, political system, and bad
enough we have the war in Ukraine and all the money and cornish that's coming
out of that. To start another major war in the Middle East that might
last for a very long time is financially expensive, morally expensive, politically expensive,
and it's currently affecting our democracy in the United States. So for if
you and I believe in peace and believe that peace is a collective project,
that every conversation I'm having with you we're trying to add one more piece,
then the logic of war in the long run does not save anybody. It
only serves people who have invested in the military industrial complex. So the Israeli
is currently and I and for first of all, let's let's ask a question.
Who's ruling Israel right now? You have Netanyahu with his right wing government.
This man was wanted for law. He has trial to go to go
through and for him, this is his golden moment. He gets to be
the hero, he gets to run this military campaign, and no one's asking
him about his misdeeds. So we don't have the smartest people driving the bus.
And my concern is the people in the back of the bus, which
is you and me, should be saying, hey, guys, do we
trust this person to be making the most historical, ethical and moral decisions for
the survival of the Israeli people and for the survival of the planet. And
currently I don't think anybody is asking this question. We're all triggered. And
I my Jewish American friends, which have a very complicated history relationship with Israel,
feel like they have to support Israel no matter what. And I tell
my friends, please, if you see me doing something wrong, stop me,
please, please please stop me. If you see me saying something stupid
or acting badly or whatever. I want my friends to advise me not to
do it. So if America, if the people who are still supporting Israel
are supporting it blindly with that question, then we not help. I mean,
your friends help you when you go beyond the limit. And unfortunately,
I feel like we are not saying to Israel, let's have a plan,
let's discuss this, what's the long term objectives of this campaign? How does
this work for Israel? And no loomrun. There's been a worldwide outrage,
and particularly on college campuses here in this country. And I'm of the age
and I was in school at the time when it happened during the Vietnam era,
and college campuses were rocked with protests and did manage to change the world
and helped to end that war. But what's interesting to me too is how
how all of a sudden, or it seems sudden to me, that the
Palestinian movement, which used to be shunned, much more shunned. Have you
mentioned it? People would think of the death of the Israeli athletes at the
Munich Olympics. They always so terror Palestinians, the next would be slash terror.
Now all of a sudden, it seems to have shifted where the sympathies
lie much more in the Palestinian corner than ever before. What do you think
change that? First of all, we are very lucky to have alternative media
like this radio station. Back in the sixties, seventies and eighties, there
was only the main three to four networks and they told the narrative of the
story the way the people of power wanted the story to be taught. And
now the Internet has broken this wide open, which is also dangerous that people
can google whatever news they want to watch and they can watch an alternative media.
Of course, it creates eco echo chambers, it creates algorithms can guide
you to only believe one narrative only. This is why I think it's really
wise. I think we all have to have media literacy and say I'm not
gonna only listen to the pro war news. I'm going to listen to some
anti war news and see what they have to say. I mean, we
have a response ability to participate in this conversation. And as Americans, our
taxpayers are funding this war with a huge sum of money, and are we
helping are we really hurting the vision? And ourselves? Do we want our
tax money to support a state that's I mean, international Court of Justice have
quite a strong story about Israel violating international law. Is this what Americans feel
is our right thing to do? So, I mean, I feel like
we have to participate in this conversation. We have to go beyond the triggers
of you did this and I did that. This is basically our baby.
We all have to all hands on deck with answers, not with more divisions,
because the divisions are going to sink this ship. And I think de
escalating would be the first step. We've been asking for a cease fire for
the last seven months. It's been more than seven months of almost random killing.
It's not saving any hostages, it's not achieving any military objectives. It's
creating more hate and more anger. Maybe if we stop and we think,
take a deep breath and say, okay, what's happening? How can this
end well? And I think most people are afraid to ask that question.
Let's take a deep breath, slow down, assess what happened, what's happening,
and what's going to happen. And so we're hijacked by the fog of
war, We're hijacked by fears, we're hijacked by trigger, the trigger happy
people who are just wanting an action. You have to ask yourself, is
this the proper action? Is this action going to lead to long term peace?
You know, you sent me your core values, and they're absolutely wonderful,
and I want to read some of them. I believe in the good,
true and peaceful and beautiful in art, life and politics. To evolve
our collective psyche, we have to challenge our own emotions, examine our self
deception. Please expand on it a little bit, I kind of. I
mean, we tend to speak about politics and educate. I was in education
for a long time, and I think the conditioning we have in our minds
dictates the state of our mind. So I had students who were quite good,
but they didn't have the best role models growing up, and someone when
they were growing up to them they were stupid. And they come to me
and they kind of almost telling me that they think they're stupid, and then
I will give them an assignment. And I was like, oh my god,
this guy is really bright. He knows so much why no one has
ever noticed the intelligence of this person. But he started believing the story that
he's stupid, and he started acting it. And I think politically and spiritually,
we have to examine our core values and collectively we think that I think
that the ideas I have our only mind reality. We're a very cultured species,
were influenced by our uncles, our teachers, or mothers or fathers.
So if you want to be a free person, you have to examine even
your own values, because not everything you believe have you First of all,
have you worked it out and thought it through to its end? Second of
all, is this really a believe you want to live by? So partly
the cultures of the two societies I mean Palestinians for example, we are stuck
into the victim consciousness. I can talk to you about how much I've been
wronged all my life, and it wants to answer you. It's really boring
for you and for me. But I don't want to need to deny my
suffering. But I don't want to define myself for my suffering and my struggle
in my past. Right now, you and I are free. We have
this moment of peace that we just created because we choose to. So I
do have agency over my mind, and I can choose how my mind and
my mental state can affect the reality around me and in my world. So
the Palatine and people have a victim history of victimhood. So also all the
Jewish people. The Jewish people have struggled so much in Europe, discrimination,
Holocaust, not being offered jobs. I've had friends who told me their fathers
in the sixties could not join the local country club because you were Jewish.
Soy movie Gentlemen's agreement all about that. So American Jewish people have suffered so
much under discrimination, and I understand the tendency to say, because we suffered,
because we've been victimized, we have to protect our own. So I
understand this is the emotion dictates the mind. So if you feel like defensive
and guarded, then you already turn off the radio station. Because this conversation
is true to triggering. So if you want to grow, you have to
go and meet the edge, meet the edge of what you don't know and
say, let me touch this, let me see what this is all about.
Actually, children are very good at doing this. They run around touching
everything, seeing what happens. Then when we grow up, we believe in
the safety of what I know, and I don't allow myself to be examined
even with my best friends. So if I want to be in a growth
mindset, and if I want to change and evolve my thinking, then I
have to open two ideas that might be challenging. I have to open up
to ideas that may be different than my parents used to think. And so
this idea of being in an open mindset and being aware of your feelings and
say, oh, Frank, I know he's has appeared. I think he
looks like Ben Laden or something. But no, let me talk to him
first. Maybe before I do the judgment, I need to reach out and
say, let's see what Frank is all about. Frank, tell me what
you're all about, and suddenly we have a connection. So the two camps
currently, because of the campus situation, no one at all is listening to
the other party. So I have Jewish friends who think that all these college
kids are hateful anti Semite, but they haven't been to a single demonstration.
I've been to more than ten demonstrations, and I hang out with these kids
and I'm warning this bracelet on my hand right now. A Jewish girl from
n Yu gave me this Gaza bracelet, and one third of the people on
the demonstrations I go to are Jewish. They are Jewish progressive Americans. I
mean, then because of the age and the history of antisemitem, someone will
say, oh, they're self hating Jews. I mean, it gets to
the point where you're allowing voices of dissent. You're not allowing other intelligent people
to participate in a conversation. Maybe they have something to say that's worth listening
listening to. But the idea of if you say one thing that seems threatening
to me, I'm gonna shut you down. That's not a good way to
learn and to grow. So I feel like that's happening both consciously and unconsciously,
that my fears are so strong that I can't think straight. And I
want to give an example. Do you know when you're hungry and you go
to the store and you buy all kinds of things and you live with like
six bags of chips. Because it's really important to examine one emotional state before
committing an action. So if I'm in a state of fear, anybody can
take advantage of me. If I'm on state of anger, anybody can take
advantage of me. Like you know, the guy who sells fake role axes
in the street. He does not sell them to rich people. He only
sell them to poor people. So some way, somehow, your current emotional
state affects your decisions. So before we even get to make decisions, we
need to kind of say, Okay, what kind of framework frame mind am
I in and how can I have a healthy conversation? And if you say
something that's upsetting me, I could say, you know what, Frank,
I need to take a few breath. This is really upsetting. I'm really
nervous. I feel like I'm going to lose something. Maybe I will die,
And you would say, okay, take the few breath. Maybe then
I can listen to you after. So it requires that kind of attention.
Perfect time to take a break. I love those sequys. Thank you.
This is good. We have more to talk about. I want to talk
about your impressions of America, what you thought it was, what it turned
out to be. Has it lived up to the promise. I'm going to
talk a little bit about the Grateful Dead when we come back. This has
been truly intelligent conversation. Everything you just mentioned is kind of the zeitgeist of
this program. That's why we call it intelligent. Conversation. My very special
guest is Kudurhmid. We're having a wonderful conversation and intelligent conversation about Gaza.
More to come. This is Being Frank. I'm your host, Franklboro will
be right back. Please don't go anywhere yet. Hudson River Radio dot com.
Check out The angel Quest Show with psychic media and author Karen Noi.
Karen covers spiritual topics such as near death experiences, reincarnation, life after death,
how your thoughts create your reality, creating peace on Earth, and so
much more. Check out The angel Quest Show on Apple Podcasts, iHeart,
Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Bring a dash of green into your
life. Check out the Many Shades of Green with Maxine, Margot Rubin,
and Malcolm Berman. Get informed about environmental issues and current events that affect us
all. Pick a schete of green and raise your eco consciousness with the Many
Shades of Green available on Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Spotify, or wherever you
get your podcasts Hudson Riverradio dot com. Welcome back to Being Frank, the
Intelligent Conversation podcast. Thanks for sticking with us. I'm your host, Frank
Lebono you know, we bring our audience a fresh topic every week, actually
premiering on Thursdays. We stream from Hudson River Radio, which is located and
beautiful and historic Stony Point, New York. You know, Neil Richter,
the mailman, is our engineer. He keeps us on the air. But
you know, you can catch Being Frank anywhere you get your favorite podcasts,
and that includes Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio and all the others. And because
Being Frank is archived, you can listen to any of our programs anytime you
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icon and you're there to listen to any program. Leave us a comment and
please consider subscribing to the podcast, and if you really like us, share
Being Frank with your family and friends. My very special guest is a Palestinian
scholar and a new friend. That's always the best part of this program is
making new friends with classy people like my guest, Cardor Hamid Kadora. Welcome
back. Thank you for your brilliant insight in the first half of our program.
So I'm going to correct you it's cardor just just so before we forget
forgive me? Thank you. I wrote it down phonetically fifteen times. That's
what being frank is about. It allows me to screw up and with patient
guests. Yes I am. I just said, you've become my good friend
that I can't even pronounce your freaking nameationship over this, you'll never talk to
me again. Now you are more valuable than that. Thank you so much,
O get forgive me. I'm trying to a lot floating around in this
old head, especially after our conversation. But let's switch gears a little bit.
And you mentioned coming to America. What were your impressions of America oncoming
and what did you find when you arrived? This was interesting. I arrived
to New York in the nineteen nineties and New York was still kind of coming
out of that period. There was a lot of crime in the street.
I in my imagination, I grew up in the Middle East watching Dallas,
the TV show. You remember the TV show. So I have a soap
opera picture of America. It's like open, rich people, fancy culture,
rock and roll. The America that presents itself via movies to the world.
So I had that image in my head and I landed in New York and
I was in the Bronx, in the really tough area of the Bronx,
and I was just shocked how the image in my head the reality that I
was living were not the same. But then when I went to City College
of New York and I was in Manhattan, I was really impressed by the
Manhattan culture. I was really in Manhattan. Actually we take it for granted
because we live next door, but it's one of the greatest cities in the
world to have people from all kinds of walks of life. You have Chinatown,
you have Little Italy, you have Harlem, you have Latin neighborhood,
you have story Now with all the Asians and everything, there's a Hungarian neighborhood
or German neighborhood. Yes, and that means you have foods from around the
world. You have libraries, you have bookstores, and the funny thing,
everybody gets along fine. People in Manhattan never argue or fight because of religion
or ethnic issues. They usually fight because of money because they're trying to rob
you. It's it's the financial capital of the world. I guess I guess
that kind of goes so with So this capital place has its problems with capitalism.
I mean, I'm not as homelessness, I'm not as drug addictions,
I've not whatever. But at the same time, the idea that any immigrant
who was hard working and intelligent and willing to do their best can come here
and build. And I'm talking about even an immigrant from Texas can come to
New York City and give it a shot. Try something, trying to be
a Broadway actor, try to be an architect, try to be impression of
anything. So I love the experience of this. Actually, New York City
has the potential for the smelting pot, and there is a culture of inclusion
and acceptance. And he liked that and also like being able to so.
So remember when I grew up in the Middle East, I didn't have a
single Israeli friend because our two societies lived in total apartheid. We don't we
don't drive the same roads, we don't share the same who don't speak the
same language. So at City College I made to Israeli friends and it was
like, wow, this is easy. We can just hang out and when
you come down to it, it's just amazing where people become people beyond.
And also I had a lot of Jewish teachers in college. City College was
extremely Jewish in the nineteen sixties and so and so on, and therefore these
people formed my understanding of the world. So I mean, I read Chomsky
when I was young. I was really interested in psychology, and I find
a lot of Jewish psychologists have incredible influence on humanistic psychology and others. So
I find that my Actually I live in Rockland right now, and most of
my male friends are Jews because as Semites, we see things very similarly.
So I get along with them and they like me, and we share the
same concerns and have very similar moral value. So that's my experience in New
York. And I've worked in architecture, as I said, for ten years,
and then I was a furniture designer for designer for ten years. And
then I got into education and I was teaching at Rockland Committee College. And
I find that education is also a great place where minds can meet and can
mold each other and can form experiences and can enrich each other with our different
backgrounds. And education taught me a lot about myself and about how do you
influence people? I'm gonna show you at the beginning. I taught the way
my teachers told me when I was young, where the teacher will deliver the
material, will take notes, and we'll pass the test. And then a
lost one of this generation is not at all interested in this method. They
want a conversation, they want to be collaborating. They don't because if they
can google it. They want an experience. Yes, so I've learned how
to effectively speak to people and bring the best out of them as students.
And that was really enriching for me and for them for a long time.
And didn't want to tell you talk to you about my dead experience? Are
greatful that? Well, yes, it's a perfect opportunity. I want to
thank Brian Higgins of the wonderful Marenes Jazz Seller, a great little club,
when she knew that I was looking to schedule a guest to have this intelligent
conversation. So, oh, I know a great guy. I know a
guy. You got to talk to this guy, you know? So I
thank her now. And it comes to our dead Heads. Our dead Head
shows on Thursday nights, So thanks to breand and yes, tell us about
the Grateful Dead connection. Please. I really think the Grateful Dead can teach
people how to live in peace. It's a great community experience and I really
have not had anything like it. So part of the challenge of living in
America recently is our loss of community. Everybody is struggling with loneliness, isolation,
not being heard and seen. And some people belong to churches and synagogues
and temples and all of that, and maybe they found community in that.
But I was not really into organized religion. I mean, I think religion
serves a purpose for society, but organized religion didn't work for me. So
I was that I had my last divorce during that year, four years ago,
and my friend told me into going too Marines for one night. So
I went to the jazz club. And I used to have a friend in
the nineties who listened to The Dead in the background, but I never really
allowed myself to fully experience it. I mean, the Dead is not a
song in the radio. You have to really experience. Yes, I hear,
you have to go to a show, you have to wear a taied
eye T shirt, you have to join the group, and eventually you feel
it. I want you to continue the story, but we were teasing with
Neil during a commercial break and giving our grateful deed experiences. My first,
my older sister took me to a Nasshau Coliseum in nineteen seventy to see them,
and my recollection of them was the show was four hours, four songs,
yes, yes, yes, and the rest experience to rub what you
get a kick out. That was my initial grateful ted experience. Yes yes,
so yeah. So I didn't know what the experience was all about.
And I went in the first night and I was wearing bubbly a shirt like
a button up shirt and a pair of pants that was very like formal square
person going to a Dead show. And I'm like, oh my god,
these people are really stuck in the nineteen sixties. And I I so the
first night, I said, but the music is interesting. These guys play
really mean guitars and excellent drumming and good melodies. And then but then also
they're very inconsistent. So the Dead sometimes play a country song followed by an
electronic experimental piece of music followed by a blues song. So most bands play
once perfect type of music. And the Dead was the great American musical experiment
where they listened to anything and everything. So it included some bab Dylla and
the Beatles, the Holman Brothers, and I was, oh, my god,
this is more than just what I used to think it was. So
I started coming to Marines every Thursday non stop for three years, and I
bought the Tied eye T shirt and then I started going had you now two
events a week, three events a week, four events a week. It
became a way of life. But in that way of life, I meet
a lot of really good friends, and there is something bonding about people and
being in that space. And in a way, let's face it, the
sound the dead produces. They create a psychedelic space and psychedelic sound, and
I think human beings have this tendency to enjoy trends. Our ancestors in the
caves during the shaman Stick period had collective groups of drumming and singing and moving
together. I think that's deeply bonding. So going to these events where people
are dancing to the same beat and listening to the same music and having this
bond made me feel much closer to the American experience. I mean, I
have to remind myself also, I'm an immigrant and so much of America as
even though I've been here for thirty five years. I sometimes go to a
party and people are telling a joke about a commercial that used to run in
the eighties, and since I was not here, I don't get the joke.
So most of the time, when I tried to belong to groups,
I do feel like an outside and I think most of us have that experience.
But when I entered the grateful that experience the boundaries were erased and I
felt like I was a member of this thing, full fledged member. So
it was good for me. No, I want your comment on this,
and we'll wrap things up. But you know, I years ago I was
met one of the conventions of shooting for CBS News and I was dealing with
a Portuguese reporter and we were talking before she went on the air, and
one of the things she said to me that has stuck with me all these
years. I had to be good ten fifteen years ago was she said,
you know, we see America as a shining light on a hill. You
guys don't see it that way, but me do. Yeah, are we
still that's a shining light on the city on the hill? I kind of
I'm worried about this. I love America so much. I think it's an
amazing experiment. I've read Jefferson, I've read Washington. I think, Okay,
I understand. First of all, we have a shadow. We did
colonalize this land, and we killed most of the natives, and we brought
slaves from Africa who never wanted to come here to start with. And we
have a dark side as a country. But at the same time, we
do have a light side. We have this idea of opportunity, this idea
I love the America. We used to have this American hopeful spirit, the
attitude of we can do anything, from going to the moon to conquering the
stars. We had this kind of It's a big country, it's a rich
country, and it has an attitude that's inclusive, positive and the foundation of
democracy. I mean, if you ask anybody around the world, do you
want to live under the Chinese regime, a Russian regime, or an American
regime? What do you think they would choose? Oh? But let's face
it, America in the last twenty five years have not been the role model
of democracy and good values. So we made a mess out of Iraq.
We made a mess out of Afghanistan. We are bobbly making a mess out
of the Ukraine because we don't have a very cohesive strategy. I don't know
what's happening with Ukraine. I I can say about this, But we have
also been acting imperial, We've been acting arrogant. We sometimes vote against the
world. When the whole world wants to pass an environmental thing, we say
we don't want it. So slowly, I think the America that I used
to be live in, and the America that I used to dream of,
its potential and its value, it's starting to suffer. And there is nothing
more telling of the suffering than the coming election. And I don't know,
but the reality of the amount of money we're spending on elections is just a
description of how sick our democracy has become. If money is going to rule
our politics, then what kind of democracy do we have? And so I'm
really worried about America. And as much as I love it, I'm really
concerned that are we gonna make it into the twenty first century with a new
attitude of positivity or are we going to start acting like a good, old
tired empire. Well, you're welcome to come back and talk about it.
We just set up our next show. I would love to have you come
on and talk about that. My very special guest Cador Hamid Palestinian. I
got to write this time. You can't see. We don't have video,
but he's not ding like I said, I poechnically fifteen times. Forgive me,
but it's been an absolute pleasure to host you here on Being Frank,
and I'm serious. Please come back again. Happy to talk to you anytime,
Frank pleasure anything you Thanks, and of course we offer special thanks to
our listeners who take the time to give us a voice in their lives.
You know, we offer fresh topic every week. Catch us wherever and whenever
you get your favorite podcasts. You can also check us out on the Hudson
River Radio Facebook page. Like us, leave us a comment and consider sharing
Being Frank with others. You know, I always leave you with two little
things, a slogan and some music. We'll get to the music in a
second, but I want to leave you with a very famous quote I think
is very appropriate for today. It's from Martin Luther King, and the popular
version of it is this darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do
that. Hate cannot drive out drive out hate. Only love can do that.
The actual saying is this, and it's equally beautiful. Returning hate for
hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Let's see if we can get those stars back. Hey, we've got some
great music from my friend David Snyder and friends. He's got a bunch of
friends coming to the legendary Turning Point with four great shows beginning Friday, the
twenty fourth of May at the Turning Point in Piermont, New York. And
here's a really great tune, again, very appropriate for our conversation today.
It's both stand up and be counted. For our engineer, Neil Richter.
I'm your host, Frank Lebono, and we hope to have you join us
on the next being. Frank, We're the only way to be is Frank,
take care of everyone waiting for us? What are you waiting for?
Shadow? Everything out? Stand up? Why time is right now? They
shall, I says the yetto je. What you do see a smile of
n your face? It makes it happen to you. Well, what are
you waiting for? You up? And you have dad, what are you
waiting for? Stand up? What are you waiting for? Shut up?
As me, what are you waiting for? Shut yeah? Don stop yet.
When a child, children, brothers shabby were coming and hollering, jot
that shine? So what would be better if we give under the time side
shine joking? Music can stand up? F R S this right now?
Boy? What is that? We got to get it straight. Don't let
them put the bundans just happy to me right a waiting to wake you?
Stand up to waiting step st Hudson River radio dot com