Letters from Gaza w/ Danya Qato (01/25/24)

Death Panel podcast host Beatrice Adler-Bolton shares messages from Death Panel listeners in Gaza and speaks with Danya Qato about how the totalizing nature of the genocide of Palestine can't be captured in death and injury statistics alone.

This episode is for Z, J, R, A, M, G and S. We pray it finds you safely.

Transcript by Kendra Kline. (Kendra is currently accepting freelance transcript work — email her if you need transcripts!)

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Danya Qato 0:01

We won't settle for crumbs. We won't settle for a piece of our homeland here and there, tatters of our homeland. We won't settle. Because when we settled, you still killed us. You still tried to annihilate us. So I think there's a kind of refusal. We refuse to imagine a world without Palestinians, because that world is not going to happen.

[Intro music]

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 0:54

Welcome to the Death Panel. Patrons, thank you so much for supporting the show. We couldn't do any of this without you. To support the show yourself, become a patron at patreon.com/deathpanelpod. You'll get access to our second weekly bonus episode and entire back catalogue of bonus episodes. Your support allows us to dedicate the time needed to put together episodes like the one you're about to hear today especially. And we are honestly so grateful and honored to be able to do this work. So patrons, thank you again, because you make all of this possible. And if you'd like to help us out a little bit more, you can share the show with your friends, post about your favorite episodes, pick up a copy of Health Communism at your local bookstore and preorder Jules' book coming out later this week called A Short History of Trans Misogyny, or request them both at your local library, and follow us @deathpanel_. So today I'm here with friend of the panel and returning guest, Danya Qato. Danya is a brilliant practicing pharmacist, epidemiologist, and health services researcher, who many listeners may remember from the last time that we had her on the show for an episode called Public Health and Palestine, which was originally recorded and released in 2022, but was recently re-released in October. So it is just so wonderful to have her back on the show. Danya, welcome back to the Death Panel. It is so great to have you back.

Danya Qato 2:13

Thank you so much. And thank you so much for the invitation. I'm so grateful to be here with you and with all of the listeners of Death Panel.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 2:20

And it's -- honestly, I said this before we started recording, but it's really wonderful to hear your voice. And I am sending all of my love and appreciation for you taking the time to come back on today. And I think this is going to be a very special episode of the show. It's a little different than anything we've done on the show before. As usual, I'm asking the questions. But unlike usual, I am not the person who came up with all of the questions that I'm going to be asking today. This episode is a collaboration with some of our listeners. And it's them you're going to be hearing from today also, their questions that they made with all of you listening to this in mind. This episode is happening in part because we wanted to have Danya back, but also in part because listeners of ours in Gaza and throughout Palestine and in 48, so-called Israel, have requested that we have Danya back on and to talk about some very specific things. So that's what we're going to do today. And our listeners in Gaza who wish to remain anonymous to protect their safety really wanted to be a part of this. And together they've helped me put together some questions that they specifically wanted us to ask you, Danya. They're all devoted listeners of Death Panel and they had some topics that they really thought that their other fellow listeners of the show really needed to hear you speak on.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 2:38

I'm so happy to hear that. I want to send love and appreciation to our friends and family in the Gaza.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 3:39

Absolutely. First, they and we obviously deeply appreciate you being here today and taking the energy and time to speak with everyone. One of our listeners, Z, asked the first question, so we have this first one. Z says:

In solidarity and rage, please ask Danya to tell us how she is doing -- an impossible question. Ask her to speak on how these cowardly settler attacks to wipe all life from Gaza make health an impossibility for Palestinians all over the world.

Danya Qato 4:06

So I see you started with the softball question -- how are you? How are you.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 4:11

The hardest one.

Danya Qato 4:13

It really is. It's anything but a softball question right now. And you know, how I'm doing is really contingent on the time of day and what else is going on at that particular moment. I'm just trying to make it, to be honest, each day at a time and I'm doing okay physically except for the fact that I haven't slept decently for over three months, as I'd imagine is the case for most Palestinians, especially our people in Gaza who've had to endure relentless bombings that often happen overnight. Right now, I'm sipping non-Nescafe instant coffee so I'm feeling okay. But on a mental health level, obviously things have been very difficult. I've seen a lot of Palestinians describe this feeling of alienation from the world, of like living in another dimension. And I feel that way very strongly. And that alienation is not healthy, per se, but it's also just a mechanism of surviving, is just to actually disconnect yourself from this realm - that is bending reality as Lara and Stephen Sheehi have said, that it's bending history and bending what we're witnessing in real time, to make us feel like we're going crazy. And so, you know, obviously, I'm used to being a Palestinian in this world that's hostile to Palestinians, and has been hostile from the moment I was born four plus decades ago. I'm very angry. I'm in grief and mourning. I have, like many others, been unable to even process the enormity of the evil that has befallen us, and continues to befall us, and the scale of the loss that has happened to us, and continues to happen to us. And I don't know if we'll ever be able to process it, because I don't believe the language is there. You know, the gaslighting and blatant dehumanization of Palestinians, and hypocrisy from the professional political class and the liberal establishment has been distressing. You know, everyone says, well, did you expect any better, and even if folks don't expect, it's still always distressing. I just -- the other day, someone posted about this beloved Palestinian artist, Samia Halaby, who had her -- a retrospective canceled at Indiana. And, you know, and folks were like, well, what do you expect? And it doesn't matter that we've been enduring for 75 plus years, this attempt to erase us, but when we see our elders being treated with such disrespect, it's still hurtful, it's still distressing. And I think that's part of what's coming to pass in these moments, is the layers and layers of stress and distress and trauma that are building off each other. But at the same time, it's become more clear that the vast majority of the world stands with the Palestinians in their struggle for freedom and liberation. And it's really been affirming and sustaining to see people, one, experience the gaslighting that Palestinians have experienced their whole lives, and two, to see people disrupt, to really address this reality bending, and test this reality bending again, as Laura and Stephen Sheehi have said. And that's really provided some kind of salve in this really horrifying moment for me. And so just to give further encouragement for the continued however repetitive disruptions of the normalization of mass murder, and those are all part of us building a place where we can take on the settler colonial project in a way that is unified and the way that is healthy. So that's how I am.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 8:34

Well, it's good to hear how you are.

Danya Qato 8:36

[laughing] I was gonna say, no one's gonna ask a Palestinian how they are from now on, but I've kind of skipped all the formalities of "how are you" with a lot of my friends. It's just: are you alive, are you not alive? We all could be doing better, obviously. And I'm really grateful to be alive. And to the second question about attempts at making health an impossibility for Palestinians all over the world, I think obviously, there's a combination of factors that collide to make health an impossibility for Palestinians, especially in Gaza now, but also in the West Bank, in particular in the refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarm, where there's been massive infrastructural damage, which I suppose we might get to later. But what's happened the past three months has just been an amplification of the methods and tactics that the settler colonial apartheid state has long used to subjugate, dispossess, kill, distress, and eliminate Palestinians, and by extension Palestine. And when you think of all of the components that are necessary to facilitate health, they've all without exception been targets of the destructive forces of Zionism and settler colonialism: housing, hospitals, pharmacies, ambulances, health care providers, clinics, telecommunications, the environment, the economy, infrastructure, education, mobility, and transportation. Every single one of these aspects of life and living have been the targets of the annihilatory project of the Zionist state. And maybe we can spend a few minutes going a bit into it. But I think just to respond to that broad question, all of these domains of life have been targets of this project. Obviously, right now, the barrel of the gun is pointed, not entirely, but almost squarely at Gaza. But the fear in the West Bank has been, especially in these past 100 plus days, is that that barrel of the gun is going to shift towards the West Bank soon. And it has in some ways already, but I think to talk about Palestine is to talk about Gaza, is to talk about the West Bank, and is to talk about 48, because that's Palestine.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 11:01

In talking to Z, one of the things they expressed a lot of rage about was, for example, the WHO where, you know, they have this "legendary" like definition of health, right, "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." And you know, it's this whole big thing that goes on to say, there's a whole portion on unequal development, and that's a whole other conversation with regard to Palestine politically and de-development, actually. But I think what Z was saying to me is that, for all the WHO's willingness to flaunt this definition of health, they're seemingly unwilling to stand up and say when that is clearly not being met, and not just within sovereign borders, but in a total sense. I mean, your description of how you're doing, which is, you know, I really appreciated Z's question, because it's a difficult question that actually asks you to give some of the evidence of how that's been made impossible, even if you're safe at home in your bed, right, the mere sort of psychic landscape right now, between the death and the injury and the indignity and the hate and the ignorance, it's a -- it's a thing that is around you everywhere, right. And it is so material right now. And it is all of those things, and on top of the physical destruction of infrastructure, the physical destruction of resources, the physical, actual direct act of killing, but that this psychic toll is, as Z points out, has a death count too, long-term.

Danya Qato 12:47

Absolutely. That's absolutely true. And, you know, I thought about all of these domains, and maybe at some point we can get to it, you know, what has happened to housing in Gaza, what has happened to the health infrastructure, but I think being in the West Bank for a period has made it so clear to me that one of the ways that the settler colonial project works is to also just absolutely sever our socialities. And not being able to, for example, go from Ramallah, to a town in the north, like Tulkarm, where I know many people have several family members, that's an hour and 10 minute drive from here, not being able to go without risking a settler colonizer directly attacking your car, or -- and being aided and abetted by a military officer behind them. And yesterday, just yesterday, a 17 year old Palestinian, who also happens to have US citizenship, was driving with his friends, and he got shot dead by a settler. And that's what's happening right now in the West Bank is this absolute severing of socialities between communities within the West Bank, and not only does that have an effect on the economy, but that has such a deep impact in our ability to pull on our social capital, to make us feel well and be well, and it's -- you know, I think of my own kids who've been so distressed that they haven't been able to see our aunts and uncles in Tulkarm. And I see the impact on them as well, this feeling of claustrophobia, of -- I don't recall the word that you said, but this furious boredom of having to be at home because it's not safe to go one town over,two towns over to see your family. It's not safe to go one town or two towns over to go to work. It's not safe to go one town, two towns over to pick olives for the olive harvest. The olive harvest just passed with so many Palestinians unable to access their farmland, and the olive harvest is so central to our culture and our economy. And it's been devastating to have October and November pass with so many Palestinians unable to safely access their olive groves. So I think just to underscore Z's point, this way of severing people from each other is so profound. And the impact is yes, on the psyche, but you know, your psyche also deeply, deeply impacts your physical health as well. And we're feeling that very acutely, I think, as Palestinians in Gaza, in the diaspora, in 48, in the West Bank, in the refugee camps, across the Arab world, Palestinians feel that very deeply, that severing, and that's one of the most difficult things, not just about the 75 plus year project of settler colonialism that has fragmented us and alienated us from each other, but also this most recent amplification has made it especially difficult to ambulate, and to connect and reconnect. And, you know, you reminded me, as you were speaking, when this current part of the genocidal project began in early October, I had such a difficult time connecting with my friends in Gaza, and they wouldn't pick up their phones, they wouldn't call me, no one was checking the internet. So you know, typically, folks might connect on Facebook Messenger, no one was checking any of their messages. And there was about three weeks where no one could talk to me, I was so distressed, because that feeling of not even knowing and not even being able to know, being taken from you, is so harmful, and is so deliberately harmful. And it's what makes these telecommunication breakdowns, and direct assaults on telecommunication - cables, wires, infrastructure - so devastating. Yes, it's the other sequelae of it in terms of the healthcare system, in terms of people being able to call for an ambulance, and we can get into that. But it's also the inability for you to know, is so absolutely distressing. And I think this is one of the first times, at least I'll speak for myself, that I've experienced it, what it means to be unable to reach loved ones. And to know that it's happening at such a scale. And to know that you have friends, for example, who have most of their family in Gaza, and who have been unable to connect with them on a regular basis. I grieve for them, too. And I mourn for them, too. And that's part of the I think psychic impact of what's happening as well, that's been very difficult to process.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 18:12

Well, I mean, I really appreciate the way that you talked about the distress of your children, right, towards this being also a -- this is a generational impact, right? This is not something that just goes away, you're gonna remember the time where you could not even reach anyone, for the rest of your life, you know, people are going to carry this with them. And, you know, to speak to the point about physical infrastructure and destruction of physical place, you know, these are, again, going to have generational repercussions. It's not just like, okay, all 36 hospitals are gone now, but in a year, it'll be back to normal, you know, like back to normal, right? Like that kind of -- I think in a lot of cases, especially I think in the United States, we like to believe that you can totally wreck something and turn it back to an original state. And I encounter this often like with my own disability and disease, where you have people really kind of surprised -- no, no, there's no way to get your vision back? You can't get a transplant, you can't cure it, you know?

Danya Qato 19:24

Oh my goodness.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 19:25

But you know, there is this idea and myth of being able to cure, being able to return to that state, kind of no matter how much you lose, and I think it's -- it's also at play when it comes to the destruction of the environment, of place and of sociality, because from talking to our listeners, and talking through some of the alienation that they're feeling, it's mourning for street corners, casual spaces where you had memories, where you could pass through that space again, and remember the last time you were there with your grandmother, or your younger sibling, or your friend, or you know, someone you love. And when the destruction of place occurs, right, those memories become unmoored and become tinged by the destruction of that place, right? That's a new memory that augments the original one. And so there's a way of sort of thinking about this in terms of immediate destruction that I think a lot of people are thinking about. And I know that our listeners are really hoping that people can sort of sit with what this is going to mean, not just in an immediate sense, but like, what would it mean for you if the place associated with your favorite memory was gone.

Danya Qato 20:42

Yeah, yeah. You reminded me of a couple years ago, my kid's favorite Indian buffet restaurant in Baltimore closed. And they went a couple of weeks just talking about this Indian buffet that they would go to nearly every other weekend, or maybe once a month. And you just reminded me of how memory is just so important, not only because it's a memory, but also it's a way of solidifying your place in the world. And one of the things that has been just so horrifying to behold is the destruction of archives, and records, and university buildings, not to mention, of course, the targeted killings of physicians, especially specialists, some of whom are the only specialists in that field in the whole of Gaza, and of beloved professors, like Dr. Refaat Alareer, may he be resting and may his family be resting.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 21:50

May his memory be for a fucking revolution.

Danya Qato 21:53

Yeah, amen. Amen. But there's a thing that's happening too, with the destruction of those archives. And, yes, it's the record themselves, and it's the papers, and it's the memories, but it's a solidification of the uprooting of the Palestinian people in Gaza, is to say, these archives that have records from the 1800s of Palestinian families, and farmland, and how farmland was doled out, that's all been destroyed. And that's part and parcel of the project of ethnic cleansing and genocide being undertaken by the Zionist state. And the other thing that your intervention reminded me of was this effort by palliative care professionals who wanted, with very good intentions, wanted to intervene to be able to allow and facilitate bringing in pain relief, medications, anesthesia into Gaza, specifically morphine. I think folks have probably read and probably have seen some pretty horrifying videos of Palestinians who have had amputations, Cesarean sections, other surgeries, without anesthesia, because of the inability to access anesthesia and the challenges that Israel has put in terms of importing essential medicines into Gaza. Not just now, but even before October. And this group was advocating for bringing in palliative care and pain relief medications and anesthesia into Gaza. And that's important right now, it's important to allow and facilitate bringing in essential medical supplies into Gaza. However, what's so interesting about their effort, however well intentioned, is how it sort of divorces itself from a call to address why people are in need for palliative care, why people are in need of amputations, why so many children are having limbs amputated. And there's one video of a child who's praying, he's making a supplication to God while he's being -- having a surgery without anesthesia. And that really messed me up a bit. That really messed with me, this child. And I'm thinking of this very well intentioned effort and how disconnected it is from that broader landscape of care and broader landscape of destruction that's happening. And I'm not quite sure what it was that you said that reminded me of that story, but that's part of what's happening too.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 25:04

I think when we think about what dying is like in the United States, we're very influenced by the assumption that, you know, there is pain medication, like our conceptualization of pain involves like a negotiation for access to that medication, right. But it's not -- it's not the same as the reality of knowing there's none of it -- it's not there.

Danya Qato 25:31

Well, too, that it's being -- you're being deliberately denied it. Like you, Palestinian in Gaza, are being deliberately denied something that is universally agreed upon as a right to every patient. And that's part of the horror of it, too.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 25:54

Maybe this actually is a good way to sort of speak about some of the physical destruction, because in some ways, we're sort of creating this picture here that is layering, but beyond the access to medication, as you're saying earlier, and particularly the targeting of physicians and specialists, we were in communication with a listener of ours, who's an nephrologist. We were in the process of trying to have him on, so that he could talk to folks about [tearing up] -- sorry -- so that he could talk to folks about what he was trying to do to save his dialysis patients and what they were up against. And we weren't able to have him on because he was murdered in a bombing. And I think he was one of two nephrologists in his hospital, right. And so even just I think conceptualizing the ways that expertise is also being destroyed through the destruction of people, right? Like, these aren't just numbers and these aren't just people filling jobs. These are people, with a whole sociality and a whole world that revolves around them that they are a part of, and many other worlds that they revolve around as well, right. And when you destroy place, destroy memory, destroy knowledge, destroy records, destroy physical bodies, and destroy minds, right, like, what a -- what a sort of total picture of what the settler project is actually aiming to do, right. And I think, to your point, the idea of like, okay, well, we've got to bring in palliative care and we're not going to mention why, you know, it's disrespectful of that tremendous toll that is being exacted, right, or taken. I mean, there are no hospitals left.

Danya Qato 27:44

Fully functioning hospitals, no. Mhm. I mean, this is an extension of the genocidal project of Zionism. And that's just what it is. And I'm really keen on being very clear about that. It's not anything we should equivocate about. Buildings, hospital buildings are being targeted. I want to remind folks of a horrifying letter that was published with 400 plus Israeli physicians, actually demanding that hospitals and health infrastructure be attacked. I mean, need we say more? But since we're on a podcast, we will say more, right? And I think, you know, let's, let's talk about it. Let's talk about the layers when we think about the health care system and just realizing health in general. Let's talk about an individual patient, or an individual who is right now in Gaza. We know that over 70% of all housing has been destroyed in Gaza. 70% of all housing units have been destroyed. And I mentioned this earlier, but also in the West Bank there's been deliberate attacks, especially on refugee camps in the West Bank, especially Jenin and especially Tulkarm, and homes in Jerusalem, and areas around Jerusalem that have been targeted for home demolitions. Then there's the destruction of the physical infrastructure of the healthcare system. There's 36 hospitals in Gaza, and all of them to some degree or another have been either completely destroyed, directly attacked, including direct attacks on ambulances, or partially destroyed. And as we just mentioned, hospitals don't function without healthcare providers. Over 300 healthcare providers, many specialists, such as the few board certified nephrologists in Gaza have been murdered in cold blood by the Zionist army. Medical supplies have been unable to enter. And as I said, I'm sure listeners have come across so many horrifying stories, frontline stories, especially from healthcare providers, reporting back what is happening inside hospitals in terms of just profound suffering. And the healthcare system before October was already in a precarious state because of the economic blockade or siege that was imposed by the Zionist regime against the people of Gaza. There was already significant essential medicine shortages, especially of cardiac medications, and oncology medications, like chemotherapy, the inability to import and replace and repair aging medical equipment. And when permission was granted to import, it would take sometimes years or months at a very costly level. And these policies were a direct result of the Paris Protocols that were part of the sham Oslo Accords, that loosely defined these sort of dual use items, including essential pharmaceutical ingredients that Israel claimed could be used to make weapons. And there was also targeted killings of healthcare workers that preceded this current phase of the genocide project in the many assaults and attacks on Gaza that preceded October. So you have the destruction of housing, healthcare infrastructure, killing of healthcare providers. Then you turn to what's happening -- then, after all of that, you turn to what's happening outside this healthcare ecosystem. And it's more of the same annihilatory logic: the seizing of farmland, preventing farmers and land owners from accessing their land, the weaponization of food and targeting of food production. They were bombing bakeries, for God's sake. I read this awful statistic that four out of five of people in the world who are hungry are now in Gaza, and that the head of the World Food Programme, the UN, and Human Rights Watch all saying that Israel is deliberately starving millions of people, half of them children, all at risk of dying from hunger. And if that doesn't startle you, and enrage you, I don't know what statistic will.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 32:19

Yeah. Yeah.

Danya Qato 32:22

And, you know, we've talked about it before, and folks are probably a little more -- at least understand because there's been so much work on it, is the impact of in the West Bank, the checkpoints on fragmenting Palestinian society, which we talked about earlier, and the impact on the economy of that fragmentation, and just the general severing of socialities. And that has a direct impact on Palestinians in Palestine, between the river and the sea, and Palestinians in the diaspora. You know, we see the tentacles of Zionism, anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Muslim racism, that animate this project in the global north too. The murder of the six year old child in my hometown, Chicago. The shooting of three Palestinian undergraduates in Vermont, one of whom is now paralyzed. So you see here the totality of the genocidal settler colonial project. And that does not include just Palestinians from the river to the sea. It includes Palestinians the world over. And one of the things that just has always bugged me about -- I'm going to tread lightly here, but the Palestinian Authority. That the Palestinian Authority has been very keen on peddling fragmentation among Palestinians, because fragmentation among the people that you are subcontracted to suppress and subjugate benefits you, right, as the subcontractor, right, the security -- security coordinators for the settler state. And it's something that I think is really important to emphasize, in this moment, that rejection of that fragmentation across the Palestinian community around the world to say that whether we're in the West Bank, Gaza, '48, in refugee camps, in the Arab world, or in this collective global diaspora, that we are Palestinian, and we're deeply hurt when our Palestinian family, wherever they are, are being hurt, and being dispossessed, and being killed in cold blood for standing their ground in our homeland, and that's been something that was preceded by the Unity Intifada, but I think it's become much more clear now how committed to being unified Palestinians are. And you saw this when the prisoner exchange happened, right? The prisoners exchange happened for -- I think it ended up being 10 days - don't quote me on that. But you saw people in community with each other welcoming Palestinians that had been held hostage in Israeli dungeons coming home, and people were chanting chants of political parties that have historically not been allied together. And I think there's the sense of the necessity to be allied and unified, especially in this moment, where there's been an amplification of efforts of the Zionist project to eliminate us.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 35:38

Beautifully put. Maybe this actually brings us to our next question from our listener, J, this time. So official counts right now are reporting over 32,000 people have been killed from direct killing. More than twice that, over 67,000 people, are officially reported as injured, and that's likely an undercount, as many people are still missing, people are still buried under rubble. As we'll get to, also the means of counting itself is impacted, quite obviously, by this genocide as well. And our listener, J, wanted us to ask if you would talk about why looking at only these two numbers, the number of people killed and the number of people injured, why looking at just these two numbers, while important, doesn't show us the full picture of what people in Gaza are living through. J also said:

Please remind our comrades not in Gaza, that there are still many of us here. It seems like some people think that everything is gone. And I worry that that might lead people to think that there is nothing left to save. By people, I don't mean Death Panel listeners. I mean, in general, libs and the media.

And J says,

And we are here. We are Death Panel listeners too. We need your solidarity. We are not already all destroyed. And we will stay alive another week.

Danya Qato 37:03

Yes you will, Inshallah, J. And I don't care too much to speak to libs, but I will -- I will say that what J is saying is so critical to say, because it's a kind of violence in its own right, to promulgate and encourage the global community to internalize a vision of a world without Palestinians, because that's part of the genocidal project. And when you think of who is allowed space, and given permission to narrate our story, as the late Edward Said put it, this epistemic violence that we encounter at the institutional level, and in terms of knowledge production, this is part of the project of genocide. And you see it, where there's a centering of non-Palestinian voices, and those voices that are centered are often those that can only, or only want to, write about Palestinians as victims, as already dead, are about to be dead, and not as living breathing, people engaged in a righteous resistance struggle against settler colonialism. And it's almost too as if that centering of non-Palestinians is happening because there's already an internalized belief that there are no Palestinians to speak. And J's pointing to the fact that there are millions of Palestinians speaking, and whether you pass the mic or not, that's on you, you know, mainstream media, etc. Whether you take the book deal or not, that's on you. And I think it's a kind of -- you know, there's this like symbiotic relationship between the political and military acts of violence that are happening on the ground and this political project that's existential, of facilitating and nurturing a worldview that accepts the erasure of Palestinians as an inevitability. And Palestinians refuse this narrative even more so now. Even more so now. You see Palestinians now that are like speaking with super clarity about what is happening, not hemming and hawing, refusing to be silent, because we know very well that we will be here until the end of time. And we feel a deep conviction to that. We know in our bones, our struggle is just, our struggle is righteous. So even if we've been in this battle for over 75 years in resisting a genocidal regime, and its accomplices in the US and the UK, even if familial bloodlines are being massacred, we will be here in Palestine as a people, from the river to the sea. And we have no doubt about that. And we as Palestinians have to continue saying it. So I appreciate J actually asking us to not internalize this genocidal narrative, while also obviously acknowledging what is happening on the ground, but to not internalize and accept the inevitability because it is not an inevitability. It's a rejection. I'm going to reject it. I'm gonna say it again and again: Palestinians will be here. Palestinians have a deep conviction, almost in their bones, that our struggle is just and we will see our freedom and liberation. And that kind of conviction is what the occupier struggles with, because the goal of the occupier is also to break the Palestinian spirit. And they've been trying to do it for 75 plus years. And they've been shocked at not only the resilience of the Palestinian people, but also the fact that the Palestinians are getting even more -- I don't know even the word but they're even -- there's an even deeper conviction of the righteousness almost, like we won't settle. We won't settle for crumbs. We won't settle for a piece of our homeland here and there, tatters of our homeland. We won't settle. Because when we settled, you still killed us. You still tried to annihilate us. You still made your end goal very clear. And they're making their end goal even more clear now. So I think there's a kind of refusal that not just Palestinians -- Palestinians have long made, but that not just Palestinians should be making, is that we refuse to imagine a world without Palestinians, because that world is not going to happen.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 42:15

And I know J really wanted to just speak to other Death Panel listeners and remind them that they're a listener too and that they're just like --

Danya Qato 42:27

Yeah.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 42:28

All the other -- you know, I think that it's -- obviously part of the Zionist project intends to kind of otherwise and abstract Palestine. But at the same time, there is -- there is, I think, a distancing that happens when you hear about such death, annihilation, mass murder, of children, of elders, of men, of women, of doctors, right, of trees even, as as you mentioned, and we'll get to in a little bit, and you know, what J was saying when we were talking about it is they said, you know, like I'm a Death Panel listener too. And I just want to make sure that everybody's coming away from this knowing that I am you and you are me, and you would fight for your home too.

Danya Qato 43:22

Mhm, mhm. Very much so. No, no. Yeah.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 43:26

And maybe this brings us to our next question. So in our last conversation, which was in August of 2022 --

Danya Qato 43:32

A decade ago. A decade ago [laughing].

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 43:34

I know. Three decades ago.

Danya Qato 43:37

Yes, yes.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 43:38

Yes. Yeah, I mean, just to think of back then, lovely summer day, we were talking much like we are now. Feels like a different life sometimes, but --

Danya Qato 43:49

It kinda was a different -- it was a different life.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 43:51

It was.

Danya Qato 43:52

It was -- we're -- it's a new world now. It's a new world now.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 43:57

Yeah. I was just talking about that with Maryam Jamshidi actually, which is, I think, in the patron feed this week. And I've been holding on to that, and it actually -- it inspires me, you know, the thinking about this being very different than the last time we spoke for the show. It is important to acknowledge that we are all different now. And one of the things that we talked about back then relative to Palestine and public health was how, again, both the targeting of health infrastructure, but also specifically, and we've hinted on this a little bit, but the ways in which that travel is restricted at checkpoints and borders, the way that physical movement throughout space is weaponized by settlers against Palestinians, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank. We talked about how this compounds when layered on the ways that settler colonial occupation can already be hazardous to your health directly, right, from ecocide, intentional maiming, destruction of infrastructure, poisoning of the water, control of pharmaceuticals, control of trade, etc. And even just baseline economic extraction through the PA and those whole relationships and everything there. But it's also through the destruction, again, of health infrastructure and in the capacity to prevent infectious diseases. And one of our listeners in Gaza asked if we could revisit this a little bit in the context of really this absolute all out escalation of ecogenocidal attacks that are coming from all angles right now. As we've talked about, it's not just -- the direct killing is not just the genocide. It's all of it. So they mentioned that they're particularly concerned about the 350,000 people in Gaza who are chronically ill, and without access to their regular prescriptions. We're talking, you know, everything from lupus to Crohn's to MS, things of that nature. And of course, folks have comorbidities, you have multiple prescriptions, but that was the population of chronically ill people prior to October 7, who were documented as requiring ongoing prescriptions. And so they said, you know, in prior escalations of violence, the care that their chronically ill friends needed to travel out of Gaza to get was typically disrupted for maybe a few days or a few weeks. And our listener, R, asks, if you could explain how health is what they call the third weapon of the triad of war: direct war, war of ideology, and war of sickness. And R says,

On top of the direct killing, maiming and senseless overt violence every day, this has continued on more than 100 days of hell. “Social determinants of health” are being weaponized more precisely than the cowardly, lazy and heinous bombings even. Though that is not to minimize the scale and brutality of the direct killing -- it is to say, and also.

R says,

We are cold. We are tired. We are sick, and hungry. No one has medications. No one has dialysis. There is nowhere to give birth. This is not a humanitarian crisis. This is how health is also a weapon of war.

Danya Qato 47:18

This is how health is also a weapon of war. And I think it was Ghassan Abu-Sitta who noted that the primary aims of this genocidal attack against Palestinians in Gaza and on Gaza has been to make Gaza uninhabitable. And one way to do that is to destroy all sources of life. And that includes destroying the health care system that is necessary for the sick to heal, for the sick to be treated, or the sick to be cared for. So it's very clear that one of the primary aims that's been realized by the destruction and attack on hospitals is bringing about mass death, as you've noted, through the direct violence of the bullets and the bombs -- US supplied bullets and bombs, I might add -- and through the attack on the very care centers that enable people to mitigate adverse outcomes that are associated with these attacks and all the other determinants we talked about earlier. We know that miscarriages have increased by 300%. And we know that Israel has been deliberately crossing the red line when it comes to attacks on the healthcare system. And doing so in this almost like psyop way, where, and if you recall the whole conversation around the Al-Ahli Hospital claiming there were resistance centers there, and having gotten away with bombing that hospital, realizing that they're able to destroy the healthcare system with impunity. Because not only did they get away with the Al-Ahli, they spun that story, and propagandized it, and lied about it enough that people began to justify it. The Zionist army and the government used an assortment of propaganda campaigns and they also leveraged US mainstream media pretty effectively, to try to cast doubt and to justify attacking of hospitals. Can you imagine people justifying attacking hospitals that are not only at capacity -- at capacity plus of patients, but also of people who have been displaced, and who are seeking shelter at a hospital because of the understanding that hospitals are no-go zones, that hospitals are a red line. And what's so interesting to me to think about is, you know, this question of humanitarianism, it's such a slippery -- it's almost like I revulse physically whenever someone says that word now. And I'll tell you why. Because there's a senator from Vermont, a one Bernie Sanders. Yeah, y'all remember him?

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 50:35

I don't know, I haven't heard of him before. [laughing]

Danya Qato 50:37

[laughing]

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 50:39

Sorry, I just wanted to make you laugh. I had to.

Danya Qato 50:41

Yes. And you know, this is a man, not all, but many Arabs and Palestinians were really supportive of in the last presidential campaign, refused, refused almost like doggedly to call for a ceasefire, continued to parrot Zionist propaganda lines. You couldn't differentiate him from a far-right senator or Congressperson. And then suddenly, you know, a couple of weeks ago, he's into humanitarian aid. Why would that be? Why would that be, Mr. Bernie Sanders? Why would it be that you're okay calling for humanitarian intervention, but you are absolutely not okay calling for a ceasefire to end the very violence that created the humanitarian catastrophe? And I think we need to really think about that diabolical politics of humanitarianism in this moment. And you can use Bernie Sanders as a case in point. It was shocking, his refusal, because he didn't budge. He was opposed to ceasefire. He was opposed to calling to end to the killing, the whole scale killing of Palestinians in Gaza. 2% of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the past 100 plus days. That man didn't say a word. Not only didn't say a word, he parroted the lines of their killers. He okayed the shipment of arms and weapons to continue to kill Palestinians. Now, why the heck is this man now into our humanitarian condition? This is why many Palestinians just start convulsing when people bring up humanitarianism, because it's -- you literally are only engaging with us as humanitarian cases. And not only do you refuse to name and acknowledge the political conditions that we're living and trying to survive in, you're facilitating these destructive and annihilatory forces that are hell bent on our erasure. You're actively facilitating it. And just to go back to the original question, indeed, the destruction of the healthcare system is part and parcel of this settler colonial project. Because when you destroy hospitals, when you destroy ambulances, when you kill healthcare providers, and you know, I'm an Arab Palestinian, I know these health providers, 300 plus that have been killed, I know many of them probably had many opportunities to make a great living outside of Gaza. I can probably say that with certainty, especially the specialists, but that they --

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 53:50

Absolutely.

Danya Qato 53:51

That they chose to go back to their homeland, and then to get killed in their homeland, that's going to take decades, that capital is going to take decades for us to get back. That training, that expertise, and that commitment to our homeland, that's going to take decades to rebuild. And so I guess it goes back to one of your earlier questions, which I think is a bigger conversation, but I'm in agreement with this assessment. The physicians and healthcare providers that were killed, were not killed on accident. They were targeted. They were targeted. Their families were targeted. And their families are just as valuable as they were to the communities that they were a part of. And that's the other thing that I think I've been very sensitive about is just thinking about our communities and just the diversity of roles everyone plays in a community -- the baker -- and I remember here the beautiful Palestinian martyr, Khader Adnan, who was murdered in cold blood, who was imprisoned for many years without charge, who went on a hunger strike, and who died in Israeli dungeons. And he was an intellectual and he was a baker. And he played such a critical role in his community, both as an intellectual, as a sheikh in a masjid, but also as a baker, and all of these people in our communities who are so critical to making our communities such vibrant places. I'm thinking about, you know, the experience of living in the West Bank, you know, the cab driver, that for some reason we end up seeing every time we take this particular corner, you know, my kids are like, oh, that's so and so. Or my kids' favorite shawarma spot, or the teachers at their school, the guy at the candy store right by my daughter's school. It was a great placement decision by him. And all of these people, they're part of making life worth living. And [pauses] that's one of the dimensions of this that I don't think we've yet fully appreciated. It's like, you know, you think of a spider web and someone taking an ax to it. And that's what this feels like. But then, how do you weave back together a spider web? And we're going to do it, because we're committed to it. But there's going to be a lot of mourning and grief in that process. And I think a lot of Palestinians probably feel the sense of having to sublimate some of these feelings, because they're incomprehensible to us. And they're very hard to kind of process. But taking an ax to a spider web is a choice. And the Zionist regime has made that choice with glee -- with glee and joy, with just absolute abandon. And, you know, you must have come across vile TikTok videos of the military in Gaza, and you're making a choice every moment to destroy a people. And, you know, the surprise is that we're not going to be destroyed.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 57:38

Beautifully put. And, you know, I know talking to R, one of the things that they and I have talked about a lot is like how frustrating it is when you say, okay, this is a humanitarian crisis. R was like, look up the definition of humanitarianism, or what a humanitarian crisis is, right. It encompasses natural disasters and conflict, you know, in the kind of global public health development speak. And, you know, R says like, this is -- to sort of call this a humanitarian crisis, to call this even just a crisis, right, and not a settler colonial project openly waging a campaign of escalated extermination on a population that it is already genociding, through multiple avenues, right, like that, to say, oh, this is a humanitarian crisis, it also valorizes the person responding, you know, the Bernie Sanders who waited months, the NGOs, the Biden administration, if they ever eventually do anything to help Palestinians anywhere ever, right, like they can pat themselves on the back as humanitarians. And so as long as you're in that realm of humanitarianism conceptually, like, R was so funny, they were like, it doesn't matter how late you are to the party, as long as you're a humanitarian ideologically, and you're approaching whatever it is you're doing from that perspective, you know, you can pat yourself on the back and sleep at night, and all of these people should be fucking haunted. None of them should be sleeping well, ever again for the rest of their lives.

Danya Qato 59:27

Amen. Amen. And, you know what you're really bringing up here is, too, it's not, you know, the humanitarianism, per se. You know, people have written books, there's whole sub disciplines on humanitarianism, and all of its just multi-tentacled horrifying elements, but it's that it's happening in a context where the person providing the humanitarianism is aiding and abetting the very conditions that created the need for humanitarian intervention. That's the thing that makes people's brains short circuit with rage is that you're going to helicopter in here -- we saw those pictures of those US ships with those bombs, and those drones. We saw those pictures. You're going to helicopter in, after you sent billions of dollars of weapons and aid, to aid and abet the genocide of the Palestinians, you're going to helicopter in afterwards to save us as we're dying. You don't -- so plus one, amen, hallelujah, all the other good stuff, that they are haunted for the rest of their days. And it's true, it's sickening.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:00:49

There is also, I think, an important -- in sort of just not thinking about all of the ways that the antagonist is left out of the picture in the way that we talk, which actually kind of gets back to what you were saying about, you know, the palliative care pharmaceutical initiative. And these ways that like this is part of the power of the settler state too, is to try and force you into a position where you feel like you can't say the word Palestine, to put you in a position where you feel that the only way that you can advocate for someone who is just like you, right, who is under tremendous assault, and who is suffering, right, that the only way that you can feel like you can support that person is if you delink that from the aggressor. And so to also be consciously relinking, you know, we know who's killing us. We know who is making us suffer. Refusing to let Israel kind of get the past in any and all mention of these scenarios, and always making sure to say Palestine when we can, right, and not Palestine-Israel, but just --

Danya Qato 1:02:07

Oh please.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:02:08

Palestine, right? Like we don't need the hyphen. Just say what you mean.

Danya Qato 1:02:13

I'm with you. I'm all about -- but you know, you're pointing to something that's not trivial, and that is speaking with clarity. We don't hedge, we don't equivocate. We speak with clarity. We're in a moment of great clarity when it comes to the violence. And so that -- it's all the more imperative for us to speak with clarity on the matter. And what is related to this too, and why it's all the more reason to speak with clarity is this shifting trauma discourse that I believe it's started to happen in the last three weeks or so. I don't know if you saw the Haaretz headline that was talking about the mental health state of genocide officers. And it's just wait, wait, you're the victims now? The person, the people pulling the trigger, gleefully pressing the button to bomb and decimate a whole neighborhood, the guy in the dinosaur costume with the missiles, you're the victims now? That's distressing to reckon with, actually. And it's a further kind of push for people to take seriously the need to speak with clarity. So I just wanted to amplify that point, because I don't think it's necessarily a point that we should make in passing, because that's one of the tools that they use actually, is to speak with clarity. Yes, it's lies, and propaganda, and deeply dehumanizing, but they speak with great clarity about what their intentions are, about what they're doing. And we need to continue to do the same.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:03:57

Absolutely. So one of the things that we haven't had a chance to touch on much yet is infectious diseases. And a listener, A, asked if you could speak on what they called “the consequences of the intentional degradation of public health circumstances on the population in Gaza.” And I found that phrasing really interesting. And I asked them, you know, what do you mean by public health “circumstances?” And they said, you know, I'm not just talking about what is the state of the infrastructure required to prevent, for example, waterborne, infectious diseases. I'm talking about the whole picture, right, those sort of whole picture, including the many things we do not know right now. And so A said that is why, you know, I wanted to say circumstances and not, you know, public health infrastructure or public health workers or public health data, you know, we're talking in a total sense. A is, in particular, very worried about hepatitis A. A shared a Telegram post from the Ministry of Public Health in Gaza from the 17th of January, which read, "The spread of hepatitis A is happening as a result of overcrowding and low levels of hygiene in places of displacement in the Gaza Strip." A also mentioned that the Ministry of Public Health are warning that there is actually a lack of reagent required to even do the blood tests necessary just screened for hepatitis A right now. And then according to the WHO, numbers from late December showed that there have been 100,000 cases of diarrhea reported in children, which is a 25% increase in the number of cases in children when compared to before this aggressive escalation of settler violence that we've been seeing. And A wanted to know if you could really actually kind of speak to the destruction of data infrastructure, public health surveillance capacity, and really kind of emphasize like the enormous scale of what we don't know. Because what we do know is that part of the plan from the perspective of Israel, and they've been very upfront and open about this since the beginning of this escalation of just -- eliminationist, this is a campaign of --

Danya Qato 1:06:22

Yes, yes.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:06:22

Intended to eradicate, totally speaking. And one of the ways they felt that that would be accomplished is they said, well, you know, we've done -- we've got the direct assault, and then there will be a wave of disease. And so hepatitis A, there has been some conversation around COVID, and we're gonna get to COVID in a little bit. But right now, hepatitis A, all of our listeners that helped make this episode possible and have contributed all their time and expertise to help craft these questions, you know, they are so concerned with hepatitis A right now. And so concerned in particular with also what that means long-term.

Danya Qato 1:07:03

So there's a lot there. Let me collect my thoughts. I want to start off with this question of surveillance. You know, surveillance requires surveillance workers that are trained in surveillance. Surveillance is not simply counting, right, there are policies and procedures for rigorous collection of public health data. It requires workers, it requires telecommunications that are intact. We know telecommunication has been inconsistent, but has also been targeted as part of this project. We also know that the ability for health surveillance teams to move freely from different areas of Gaza has been compromised, because of the conditions of indiscriminate bombing, carpet bombing, and just the violence that is being exacted on Gaza. So there's been a disruption and a sabotaging of a surveillance system. And that prevents the ability to count where you need to count, to test where you need to test, but also to predict early increased incidence and prevalence of disease occurrence, and then to build a response that is capable of mitigating harm associated with those disease outbreaks. So the surveillance system in general has been deeply compromised by what is happening. I recall reading that at some point, the health ministry couldn't even count the number of people killed because of the inability to communicate across systems and localities within Gaza. So that's just to the point around telecommunications necessary for surveillance and just the resources that are necessary for surveillance that have been compromised. I think, because of the massive destruction of housing and the displacement, in some cases, many times over of Palestinians in Gaza, people are gathering in close quarters in public buildings, like schools, like hospitals, like UNRWA clinics, that are not built for that kind of population to reside in, right. And so you combine that crowding, with lack of access to safe water sources, lack of access to fuel that has shut down desalination plants that increase the risk of bacterial infections and increase the risk of spreading of bacterial infections because of the consumption of contaminated water, the inability for waste collection, solid waste collection to continue adequately and appropriately, that just creates an environment that is conducive to the spread of disease. And you mentioned hepatitis A, diarrhea, there's also been outbreaks of scabies and lice, chicken pox, skin rash, and upper respiratory infections, unclear origin.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:10:15

Right. Not like we can test.

Danya Qato 1:10:17

No. It's very difficult to -- there's also been -- so it's very difficult to test, but also, there's just been a deprioritization because of the redirection of the healthcare system to dealing with the most acute injuries, that some of these public health measures that might be necessary to mitigate the spread of these infectious diseases are not there, they have been completely deprioritized, if not entirely thrown out the window because of the need to prioritize the most acute, life threatening injuries, of which there are many. So that's kind of the landscape of what's happening. The question was around what we're not counting, what we're not getting a sense of the scale of. I do want to say that I don't think we have a very full picture of the scale of deaths that have been a result of the current campaign. We know sort of the minimum of that range, but I don't think we have a full accounting of all that have been killed, many thousands of whom remain in rubble. And all of these other public health consequences of these bombing campaigns are very difficult to get account of because of the reasons that I just said. And then the other thing is, we don't talk about this enough. We're in January, almost February, kids have not been in school since October. Universities have been destroyed. University students have been unable to go to university. University students have been killed, professors have been killed. All of these are sort of -- I don't want to say that they're not being counted, but they're not being counted adequately. And even the counting itself is insufficient to understand the impact to us as a society, and the impact to just individual people and families and communities. Whatever counting we do is going to be insufficient to capture that, the totality of the loss.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:12:26

It can never capture the real human relationships that are lost.

Danya Qato 1:12:30

No, it can't.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:12:31

You know, the thing with hepatitis A is it's very treatable.

Danya Qato 1:12:35

Right, right.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:12:36

It's an easy infection from a public health standpoint to stop for some reasons, and for some reasons, it can be harder. You know, it's a highly contagious hepatitis that doesn't necessarily actually produce long-term liver damage, for example, like hepatitis C, just for listeners who may not really know the differences between them. But hepatitis A is one that you can really pretty much intervene quite effectively if you catch exposure within two weeks, and someone gets immunoglobulin via IV or a vaccine. And it can spread asymptomatically, particularly in children. And it can be very deadly for people who are immunocompromised, people who are older, because it can cause acute and sudden liver failure and complications, right. So actually, you know, for folks who understand asymptomatic transmission of COVID, right, like you can see a sort of similar picture here, if you have a highly contagious disease that spreads through, in particular, contaminated water, contact with fecal matter, right. Sanitation is really important. This is a disease that we can sort of so easily manage here in the US in particular, and, you know, it's important to remember that the stress that everyone is under, even if folks are not, like me, taking medications to induce immunosuppression, right, stress, cold, sleep deprivation, the fucking trauma of being bombed, of losing so many people, of seeing so much murder and so much lack of regard for your own life and lack of respect for your right to live, that that compromises your immune system, right? And so what we have is like a disease that is getting out of control, that is very easy to control, that has this long asymptomatic period of transmission, highly contagious, right? This is so preventable. This is so controllable. This is such a public health 101, infectious diseases 101, kind of like boom, got to intervene on hepatitis A, right? And so the use of disease, and infectious disease in particular, as a weapon is particularly insidious because it is so mediated by these systems of counting and actuarial, conceptual ways of thinking about things, right? So, you know, for some people, they might be like, well, how many people have hepatitis A? Couldn't tell you. How many people have COVID? Couldn't tell you. So the kind of understanding of like what is going on in Palestine, right, what is going on right now, what are the conditions that folks are living under right now and have been living under, these are conditions also designed to make the transmission of disease invisible. And that's not by accident, right? This didn't -- this didn't happen by accident. If you're confused about that, go back and listen to the episode with Danya from 2022. But right, so part of the thing too, is that, like, I think in some ways, people are just not necessarily used to thinking about disease in the absence of all of the sort of nice tools of measurement and diagnostics that mediate so many aspects of our conceptualization of disease. I mean, people won't believe people with Long COVID because they're like, there's no biomarker, so it must not be real, right? Like this regime of understanding what happens to our bodies is so mediated by numbers, that in the absence of it, some people see no disease.

Danya Qato 1:12:47

That's correct. That's correct.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:14:52

As a follow up to A's question, we have a question from another listener, M, who asked if you could discuss any critiques that you might have of the claim that prior to October 7th, the existing public health infrastructure was "reasonably good." M said that,

In December, Rick Brennan, Regional Emergency Director for the WHO gave a comment to NPR, saying that the system was working 'reasonably good' before October 7th, making it seem like Israel has not been targeting public health infrastructure for years. And so can you speak on why it's also important to contextualize the genocidal violence that has been sort of live streamed for the last 100 days, this concentration, this escalation we've been talking about, why it's important to make sure that we're talking about this within the broader history of settler colonial occupation, and the way that health is used to enact violence against Palestinians, and why it's important to also locate that back to the core of the Zionist project, which is ultimately a eugenic impulse, a project of eugenics.

You know, if you want to hear more on this, Liat Ben-Moshe gotinto it in our recent conversation, Pathologizing Palestinian Resistance, and it's a really I think important point that M makes, which is, you know, this WHO emergency director, right, Regional Emergency Director, Rick Brennan, he says the system was working reasonably good before. And as we talked about earlier, you know, one of the first sort of provocations that we had from our listener Z was like, you know, fuck the WHO for not saying that health is being made impossible, right? And to sort of say, well, what does it mean for the WHO to say that the circumstances before, which was -- you know, health was still metered by blockade, there were still bombings, there were still killings, there was still disablement of the healthcare system itself. I mean, Ghassan Abu-Sitta did this great study looking at the Great Marches of Return as one of the largest mass disabling events in history, comparing it to mass disabling events in Sierra Leone and the Congo, right, where you have the wounding of 33,000 people, 8,000 of whom were shot by snipers, and of that 8,000, 90% were shot in the lower limb. And that locks someone into health system requirements for life, right. And then the system itself is disabled, meaning that those people who are disabled and in need of care, you know, are seeking it from a system that cannot actually provide the care that is required by the population based on what the occupier is inflicting on the population.

Danya Qato 1:19:02

So let's just both agree that "reasonably good" is a pretty loosey goosey assessment of a healthcare system.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:19:11

[laughing] Yes.

Danya Qato 1:19:11

Let's just get that out of the way. But a few things worth noting is that, as you've said, it's simply not true that the health care system was reasonably good. I think, in fairness, he might have been specifically speaking of the ability of the healthcare system in Gaza to detect disease outbreaks. Just to your point, if we look at stats from a few years ago in the context of the 17 year plus economic siege against Gaza, which the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court defined itself as a form of genocide, there was rampant essential medicine shortages, including of critical healthcare equipment, as I mentioned earlier. There was rampant food insecurity that led to elevated rates of malnutrition and stunting among children. There were rampant electricity blackouts, childhood anemia, sub-optimal maternal care, poor mental health services, vitamin deficiencies across the board, that were all compounded by what the Lancet referred to as a "fragmented, depleted and brittle health system." So that to me feels like a more accurate assessment of how the healthcare system was prior to October. So what's happening now is really part of that continuum of settler colonial erasure. It's like an amplification of a song that's already been playing. And others have noted this too, if you recall some of the discussion and debate that happened around the ceasefire demand was that -- you know, the critique was that asking only for ceasefire implied a sort of acceptance to a return to a status quo prior to October. Now, that wasn't the case. It was simply a call to stop bombing so people can regroup in this long struggle for freedom and liberation. But what has happened is that you think of this continuum, the siege prior to October, this current amplification of the genocidal project, and then you think about afterwards, well, what's happening is the settler state is creating the conditions that makes survival very difficult after the bombing stops. And that is, you know, what we've been talking about - the decimation of the healthcare system, the mass killing of people, the targeted killing of specialists, the destruction of the infrastructure of telecommunications, and the prior point that we were talking about - creating mass disabling conditions, so that the day after the bombs stop dropping, people with disability, patients with chronic disease, people who need their open wounds sutured in a safe surgical environment, they're confronting a healthcare system that has been decimated. And we need to see this as part of that continuum, right? So the bombing stops, what next? And that's the thing we are thinking about very deeply is, how can we preemptively create conditions that facilitate a efficient and effective and quick response once the bombing stops? And that's not a trivial undertaking. And I think part of -- you know, when I think of this continuum, part of that continuum is also just contending with the catastrophe itself, of the elimination of the healthcare system, but it's also like the social catastrophe of like mourning, collectively, you know, like, we haven't mourned, we haven't -- like I sit sometimes, you know on those days where you're not feeling, okay, and you think about, oh, my goodness, you know, Dr. Refaat, who was just this lovely character on Twitter, a lovely human, a beloved professor, he's gone. I think of Rushdi Saraj, who I interacted with and facilitated a film screening of a documentary he made with his friend and colleague, and his friend and colleague was killed. And the documentary is a very moving documentary called Between Two Crossings. And we screened it in Baltimore, and I, you know, went back and forth with him. And we became, you know, colleagues in that sense and comrades, and he had a daughter, and he named her Danya. And I just -- he's gone. Rushdi Saraj is gone. And there's so many of these moments where we haven't been able to sit with the enormity of the loss. And all of the children that have been killed and the babies in incubators that were left to die, you know, those are -- those are things that are hard to process, if we're able to process it at all. So I think that's the part of the continuum too that there's going -- we need that space as a people to like collectively think about and honor those who have been taken from us, those that we'll never be able to meet in person. Do you know how stoked I was about the possibility to meet Dr. Alareer, just because he's --

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:25:03

I know exactly what you mean, yeah.

Danya Qato 1:25:03

Yeah, 'cuz he was funny as heck. And he knew how to speak to power and put power in its place. And I was so stoked to meet him. And that opportunity for me to meet a wondrous person has been stolen from me, and has been stolen from so many Palestinians and from their families, from their own families. Danya's father was taken from her by this settler project. So I think there's kind of this other sort of phase of this continuum that's going to be overlaid with the phase of redeveloping the healthcare system, and rebuilding it layer by layer, because there's going to have to be phases of it in order to mitigate harm. And it's -- you know, I talk to my older relatives some time, and they're the ones that sort of have given me such just deep solace in this horrifying moment. And they say something that, to me, just sounds really banal. It's just -- it's almost like, this is the way of the world, like, this is it, this is the way of the world, and we march on. And that's -- we're going to march on, Palestinians are going to march on. They deserve to be free, we deserve to be free. Freedom is our right. Resistance is our right. And just as a sidebar, I think part of the absolute dehumanization of Palestinians is to take for granted a kind of global language that doesn't afford them the right to resist. That's been one of the most difficult things to swallow, is seeing a world adopt a language that assumes Palestinians do not have a right to resist. And not only do we have a right to resist, we will resist. And that's a promise that Palestinians across the board, whatever their political beliefs are, across the board can agree on: we will resist our erasure.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:25:14

Beautifully said. I mean, I -- I've never experienced the kind of connection that I make when I'm trying to ask someone on the show, you know, it's very intimate, it's personal. You get really attached to people, you get really excited to speak to them. You're so excited to share what they have to say with other -- you know, the Death Panel listeners, and to just know the -- to know that this project, in some ways, will never be the same, because the settler project has literally taken away, negated the possibility for those Death Panel episodes to exist, right. And that's just a trivial thing. It's really small. It's really small in the grand scheme of someone being murdered for a nation building exercise and, you know, ego, and the thing that -- you know, I totally understand what you mean about just like you -- in doing things like okay, we're gonna put on this screening, right, like we're going to do this planning, it is an intimate relationships that's built in collaboration for things like this, for our conversation planning this episode, right? And to think about -- you know, I just hope that listeners can just think about how there are people that you would have gotten to know, you would have heard from, you would have really enjoyed what they had to say, and I'm very sorry, but you won't ever get to hear from them. And I -- and you -- everyone deserve to, most importantly them and their family, right? And it's just -- I mean, it's infuriating. I'm not -- I promised -- I promised our listeners I was not going to cry until the end, but --

Danya Qato 1:28:20

You know, I thought maybe I'd get to this to the end, but I -- people have a hard time with this kind of conversation. So if folks want to take a coffee break, it's all good. But I believe in other realms, and I believe there is a realm where Dr. Refaat is lecturing to his students about Shakespeare, about Malcolm X, where he's taking the criminal, Bari Weiss, down a notch or two, where she belongs. I believe there's a plane Rushdi's making films with his colleague and friend, and that we're going to get to meet them. I know people are uncomfortable with that kind of conversation, but Palestinians -- and not to, you know, homogenize and generalize, but many Palestinians actually believe that deeply, that this is one plane of several planes of our existence. And it's a kind of solace, but it's also an affirmation of life. And I was really taken aback by a video that was circulating of this person trying to make sense of the number of 32,000 plus that have been killed by the settler state, and at some point in the video, they -- they use these little like Lego pieces to make this case and put 30,000 plus Lego pieces in the -- with different colors of the Palestinian flag into this Tupperware.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:30:44

Oh yeah.

Danya Qato 1:30:44

I probably posted about it. But at the end of it, they take the Tupperware, they put it in a trash bag, and then they throw it in this trash bin and say, these lives were thrown away. And I will speak for myself, but I reject that narrative. These lives, the Palestinians taken from us, they made a mark on this earth, and they will make a mark in another plane, and they weren't thrown away. They were taken from us. It's very important to use language very carefully in this moment. And it was a very well intentioned video. But there was something that felt almost dehumanizing about having those 30,000 plus little Lego pieces thrown in the trash like that. Like those aren't my people. My people weren't thrown. They were taken from us. And that's some of, I think, the soul searching that I've been trying to do as well, to make some kind of sense of something that is impossible to make sense of.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:31:50

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I lost a friend very young in 2011, we were 21. And she was like, you know, the friend that was doing the big things to be proud of, you know? And Jasmine was the first person to teach me really about Palestine. And so I always think of her when we're having these conversations. Her family is from Iran. And the one thing she always used to say is that, you know, there's this like goofy Persian proverb about friendship that is really intense, and she loves, and it goes, "I would die for you, I have your air, I've got your back." And it's in some ways about thinking through how truly friendship is about carrying people with us. The work that we do, you know, is a gift, right, but our relationships with each other, our sociality is a gift. And it's really, I think, important to be, as you're saying, like very intentional about how we're talking about death right now. Because I think sometimes the scale can very quickly act as its own instrument of dehumanization, and desensitization. But most importantly, you know, I think this is a taking away, right? Not a throwing away, not a discarding. And I think we really want to be making sure that in particular, we are -- we are continuing in everything that we do, to not just really have each other's back, right, but to also have each other's air, right, to really be there to carry all of our relationships forward. And also be sure to really be carrying respect for the dead and acknowledgement of the fact that, you know, we've seen what, 16-17 million people die from COVID in the last four years. We are seeing thousands of videos that, you know, are in people's social media feeds every day. And it's -- I think it's easy to quickly abstract Palestine into a group of dead, right?

Danya Qato 1:34:22

Yep.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:34:22

And we absolutely can't do that. And, I mean, maybe this is a good moment to actually pivot to COVID, speaking of grief, and things that we haven't been able to mourn. Our listener, G, had a really, really interesting thing to say that I think a lot of listeners will appreciate and find interesting and fascinating, but in our last conversation back in 2022, you and I spoke about the early response to the pandemic in Palestine. And we talked about that a little bit earlier when we were talking about data infrastructure and the WHO comment about, you know, marginal degrees of improvement right now. Reasonable -- "reasonably good" health systems, etc. But listener G, you know, really appreciated the way that we talked about COVID in terms of what was going on in Palestine within the existing political and economic dynamics of the region, in particular the kind of vaccine nationalism of Israel and Israel's relationship with Pfizer. And listener G says quote,

It can be hard to get people to care about COVID when there are bombings all day and night, snipers, drones, block by block warfare. But all day long, I am making masks out of whatever materials I can find, and handing them out.

It is very hurtful and alienating to see people in the Global North say that our deaths are taking away from necessary attention to COVID. The exact opposite is true. And more attention needs to be paid to the ways that COVID is overlapping with this attempt by the settler state to make die that is happening at a scale I have never seen in my lifetime.

I talk about Long COVID and COVID to everyone who will listen. And while many people say that I am crazy, many are also learning COVID is still an ongoing pandemic because of calls to mask at protests in solidarity with Palestine happening in the Global North.

Can you talk about what the pandemic is like right now in Palestine, as far as you know, not just so people all over the world can know, but also for our people here who need to know how to protect themselves and their health from infectious diseases.

Danya Qato 1:36:35

What a beautiful, thoughtful question. It's hard to say what it's like in terms of the numbers because the Ministry of Health has stopped counting COVID since I want to say 2021. The last count I could find was from 2021. So they unfortunately took the lead from US state death-making institutions, like the Centers for Disease Control, and stopped measuring and counting COVID. Whether the logic of industrial scale mass murder was the same, it's hard to say, because the context is so different. So I would just say from the Ministry of Health, there's been this move away from prioritizing COVID-19, not just in terms of surveillance, but also in terms of preventative measures. I think, you know, this shifting has obviously happened in Gaza, it's happened in the West Bank. Rarely will you see someone here wearing a mask, for example. And if we want to extend, you know, this kind of -- I say the word abandonment loosely here, because abandonment feels like a very ruthless decision, and I don't know if it's quite motivated by ruthlessness, but it could be changing funding priorities. A lot of the Ministry of Health decisions might be motivated by funding decisions that are made by bodies outside of the Ministry of Health. And there has been a general global pivot away from supporting preventative measures and the treatment and acknowledgement of COVID and Long COVID. So this is part of, you know, Palestine's not a solitary geography. It's part of a global community of health actors and funding actors that have deprioritized COVID, in every way. And then you layer on to that just the role of the settler state in terms of early on preventing adequate access to COVID vaccines. And then once access was allowed, doing the normal everyday things that they were doing as part of the occupation, to prevent the healthcare system from operating fully, and being able to address emerging issues related to COVID-19 and related to other public health issues. So I also just, I think it's important to point out here the role that Israel has played in shaping the global discourse on COVID. And I think I spoke about it in the previous episode that I was on, it was and has been very alarming to see Israel continue to be centered in those conversations. I think it's been decentered in many ways, because of what's happening.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:39:24

I think that there's, you know, the kind of idea of COVID being over is something that G says is quite common. I mean, G said people literally talk to them like they are out of their mind for handing them a mask and G's like, you know, I've actually had a lot of success in sort of being like, yeah, here's this mask, wear it for the dust from the falling buildings, and also it'll keep you safe from COVID, and that everybody's question is then like, oh, COVID still a problem, right? Because, you know, G's like there's just a level of normalization that's happened within the region because of Israel's role and power in terms of influencing the normalization of all sorts of types of abandonment. And the way that the Palestinian Authority's funding works is a great example of that, right, because it's that we're sort of looking at what happens when a public health system has no resources to continue surveilling whatever, in the face of external pressures, right? And sometimes those are going to be ideological, sometimes those are going to be social, sometimes those are going to be just like straight up financial. And, you know, G was saying that what really, really frustrates them is that folks in the US, in particular, and in Canada, and in Australia, you know, we're here, we're doing COVID analysis, and we're advocating for COVID, and definitely pushing folks who are doing actions on Palestine on masking, G's like it's working, because it's starting the conversation here. And there is some recognition of the fact that, you know, everybody is sick with a URI. And whether it's COVID or not, you know, the mask is helpful, and the mask is helpful against the dust. And that after sort of months of being the crazy COVID person, years of being the crazy COVID person, G's like, finally, I'm having a moment with some people where I'm given an opportunity to talk about COVID again, in a way that shows that solidarity that can be built, the power that we can build for each other, in particular, is really important to consider. And I think G's big point here is that it's necessary to make sure that COVID doesn't become something that happens separate from this sort of settler project, or from this escalation of violence, which I think G really feels that, that it's not about one taking away from the other, but the fact that what's actually really needed, and I think what G is calling on people to step up and do, is we need to be doing this work to connect these two things, you know, speaking from the position of people who work on and give a shit about COVID.

Danya Qato 1:42:19

I have so little to add to that. The few reflections I have is that Israel systematically steals billions of dollars from the Palestinian Ministry of Health. They give it a euphemism, the World Bank gives it a euphemism, it's called fiscal leakage, right? It's, you know, it's something that you know, you'd left the faucet on too long. Now, they steal billions of dollars that are owed to the Palestinian Authority, every year. And these monies are partly apportioned to go to the healthcare system, to the Ministry of Health, to pay government healthcare workers. And because Israel steals billions of dollars, with such frequency, there's frequent strikes of healthcare providers because of inadequate pay, or delayed pay, delayed salaries. And so even from that angle, the ability of the Ministry of Health to develop a cohesive program -- and I'm not letting them off the hook here, by the way, but I think it's important for people to understand sort of the totality of the story -- the ability of the Ministry of Health to make decisions, even when it comes to, for example, the purchase of essential medicines is so contingent on whether or not the dollars that are going to be stolen the current year are going to be the same quantity of dollars that are gonna be stolen the next year. So they're making these decisions based on a lot of contingencies. And this is -- I did a research project in 2015 specifically on essential medicine shortages. And this issue came up regularly, this inability to have a long-term strategy to ensure access to essential medicines, and to ensure drug warehouses are stocked appropriately. So I think that's an important data point here. I think what you've just laid out is a symptom of biomedicalization of healthcare writ large, is this obsession with biomedical interventions. And Israel, unfortunately, is often the poster child of some of this work, and has been for about 10 years. And the abandonment of public health measures and mitigation efforts is part and parcel of that biomedicalization. And it lends itself to the very nature of the settler state. We do need to be talking about that more. You laid out the stakes so very clearly. And I think that's one of the challenges that is so profound, and we sort of hinted at it earlier, but that you may have healthcare providers and public health professionals in Palestine that are deeply committed to addressing COVID in a comprehensive way, but that, one, they're unable to leverage tools, because those tools require resources, and those resources require funding that has been stolen from them.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:45:19

Yeah. I really appreciated especially, Danya, just talking about the kind of economic relationship and how different it is, as well. And remembering to always think about, you know, the context of occupation, the context of the settler colonial project, being something that you cannot forget how it supersedes everything else. And that's part of the point in how these things operate.

Danya Qato 1:45:45

No, I think your point is important. Because, yes, we're living under occupation, but we care about life and living. And that also requires us then to care about the forces that are pushing us closer to death. And that includes COVID. So as a community, and as a society, we do need to be taking on this charge. And what I'm just saying is that I think it is -- it is difficult. So I sympathize with the plight of G, and because it is difficult to bring this up. But you can do it through modeling. And G is doing an extraordinary job of that, obviously, and sharing of resources, of masks, for example, and just allowing people to look at you as the crazy, crazy one that's still talking about COVID and being totally okay with that. You think that in the US, you know, at academic institutions that have abandoned any form of COVID mitigation, that you don't look like the crazy one, when you show up in a mask? Well, it is what it is. You show up with, you know, righteousness. So I think that's part of the story, too. I don't want to just give excuses for the Ministry of Health, for example, or to use the context of the occupation to absolve us of responsibility as a collective, especially people that are most vulnerable to the impact of COVID and Long COVID. We do have a responsibility as a community to that, and I think providing opportunities to have those discussions. I talk about it, and I think people know about it a lot in the abstract, but I can't overemphasize the impact. And I'm speaking now specifically of the West Bank, of the impact of the military checkpoints, the illegal settlements, the settlers armed to the teeth, of preventing us from strategizing together, from convening together, from communing together as a people. And COVID requires that kind of connectedness, mitigating COVID requires that kind of connectedness.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:47:57

Very well said. I'm sort of sad to be on our final question, though I know, you know, this has been long, and I so appreciate you taking the time to talk through all of our listeners' questions. I know they're gonna really appreciate hearing from you. We all agreed when we were planning it out that we wanted this to be the last question. This one's from S, who said,

I was 18 in 2018 and the Great March of Return is what made me want to go into public health. I cling to that memory when I am disillusioned with our field, and it helps keep me going.

Lately, I have been finding solace in thinking about what plants I would like to have in my garden one day: strawberries, sweet lime, my own olive tree.

I dream I will make my world green again. This keeps me going. What is keeping you going, and what keeps you dedicated to public health, despite the ways the field, our colleagues, and the world lets us down?

Danya Qato 1:48:57

Well, first and foremost, to this question of what keeps me going, I don't have any other option. What is the alternative to keeping going? To fall into deep despair? To stop resisting? I think it was Dr. Refaat, may his memory be a blessing, who said at some point in one interview, you know, what are we going to do, just kill ourselves? And I'm not going to say that I have not had these moments of deep despair. I've spoken a bit about it today. But what keeps me going is the righteousness of our cause, the justness of our cause, and a moral obligation to resist, if not for our liberation, for the memory of our martyrs who've preceded us and who gave their lives to the cause. You probably always hear that quote of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. And I really struggled with that quote, for a large part of my life. And it's interesting because it's invoked as a kind of way of empowering people, but I actually found it so deeply disempowering in the way that it was used, and because I don't necessarily believe it to be true, that the moral arc bends towards justice. And not believing it empowers me to continue, despite the challenges, despite, you know, the ethnic cleansing and genocidal campaign of the Zionist state, because there's no expectation that I place at the end of my personal journey on this earth, that I'll find freedom and justice in my lifetime, even if that's what I aspire to. But what that does is it prevents me from despairing. And as I mentioned before, I believe there's a cosmos beyond our lifetimes. And in that cosmos, I believe that justice will be served. And this is something, you know, I think even leftists especially don't like talking about, but I think it's important to talk about in the context of Palestine. I think it's important to think about, what are the families saying when they're burying their martyrs? When they're able to bury their martyrs? What are those, the mothers, and the fathers, and the children of martyrs saying, to the media? And this is where understanding Arabic is really important, because it's not just something, you know, someone's not just yelling. People say things. And so what are they saying? And I want to encourage people to think deeply about what the families of the martyrs say. Because however uncomfortable it makes people feel, because we have a hard time talking about spirituality. There's a deep spirituality reflected in their words. You hear things like, Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un [ إِنَّا ِلِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ ]- we belong to God and to God, we will return. You might hear someone who's in such distress, saying Hasbunallahu wa Ni’mal Wakeel [ حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ ], meaning we rely on Allah and Allah is the best disposer of affairs, that Allah will take care of this, that God will take care of this, this calamity that has befallen us, this injustice that has befallen us, this crime that has befallen us. And I think, for me, I take a lot of comfort in the words of these family members. I myself have had family martyred. And I was young when one of my family members was killed on a New Year's Day. It was very difficult for me to make sense of it, except with that idea that this was a cousin who resisted his erasure, and who made a choice to resist his erasure, and stood steadfast in the righteousness of the cause to resist erasure. And how can I let him down? Oh, my goodness, how can I let him down? So you know, we're -- when I look at the martyrs and their stories, they are still victims of the settler state and its annihilatory violence, but they're also martyrs. And we believe deeply that martyrs live forever. We believe that in a very profound way. And that they weren't just fighting for their own freedom and liberation, and that we're not fighting for our own freedom and liberation, that we're fighting and resisting out of a moral and spiritual obligation to resist oppression wherever it is. And to resist the idea that we're going to be eternally subjects of a settler colonizer, a foreign settler colonizer, a European settler colonial project. That's what keeps me going. You know, I don't have a simpler answer.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:54:17

I think it's a beautiful one.

Danya Qato 1:54:18

And that doesn't mean -- that doesn't mean I don't despair, though. And that's the thing, I think, I have my moments. I have my moments. And this, the past 100 days have been extremely difficult. And I've had my own personal struggles making it through. And I've had to leverage and rely on my relationships, to sustain me and to give me life. So I wish that for everybody, the ability to sustain relationships, because as you said it, they're so critical in our lives, and in keeping us as healthy as possible. I also take note of something one of my friends said that, you know, Danya, you need to take care of you yourself too, because you not taking care of yourself is not helping the cause. So I think I'm very mindful of that, too. And as I mentioned, I sort of started clocking how disabling it was for me to, even if I share some pretty troubling videos, I don't necessarily consume them all. And I share them because our people in Gaza have asked us to share them. But I just realized my own personal limitations in consuming that kind of pain, and then redirecting it to being able to mobilize, speak up and do other acts of resistance that I'm able to do.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:55:44

Beautifully put. Absolutely. And I know that --

Danya Qato 1:55:47

Oh, I didn't get to the second question, but --

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:55:49

Oh, sorry.

Danya Qato 1:55:50

Are you gonna get to the second?

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:55:52

I was gonna say, I know that S really did want to hear specifically about any, any advice, I think, to tolerate the intolerability of public health discourse too.

Danya Qato 1:56:03

Yes, yes.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:56:04

So I'll shut up so you can get to that second part. But just beautifully said, I just wanted to let you know.

Danya Qato 1:56:09

Well, one thing is public health is not the domain and the dominion of talking heads, opportunists, careerists, and propagandists who make a living lying to the public about what's happening, whether it's COVID, or Palestine. You know, the recent tweet from a physician who shall not be named, who said that COVID has no impact on the immune system. That was -- that was actually difficult for me to read. It was -- it was just -- it's that response to propaganda and lying, that I can never get used to. And this almost open advocacy for premature death for those who are disabled. So one thing is, I don't cede power in my own -- you know, my own personal space, but also in the work that I do, to those death makers, to control the parameters of the discipline that I find has a lot of radical possibility, and also has a very rich history and tradition in Palestine, and seeing public health and seeing community health as part and parcel of our liberation struggle since at least the 1950s. That's where I redirect my energy when I think about the possibilities of public health, the liberatory possibilities of public health is these caretaking models, the community care models, the mutual aid models that emerged during the Intifada, for example. And I think of the physicians in Gaza, the pharmacists in Gaza, the medics in Gaza, the nurses in Gaza, who have been steadfast in staying in place for the good of their people. I wanted to read some words from Dr. Hammam Alloh, the nephrologist at Shifa Hospital, who was killed November 11th, along with his father, his father in law and his brother in law. And he had appeared on Democracy Now, I think a few weeks before he was killed. And his words just keep appearing to me when I think about the possibility of public health and who I should direct my adoration to, and my attention to, and who I should direct others to direct their attention to. And it was when Amy Goodman asked him, why aren't you leaving? You can leave, why aren't you leaving? And he said, "If I go, who treats my patients? We are not animals. We have the right to receive proper health care. So we can't just leave. You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years, so I can think only about my life and not my patients? This is not the reason why I became a doctor." And a few weeks later, he was killed by the genocidal army. And I think of him, and I think of what his words represent: a commitment to the health of his people, a kind of a perfect embodiment of a commitment to public health. And I don't despair, because that's where the possibility lies. I don't pay much mind to the death-makers.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 1:59:47

Danya, thank you so much. That was beautiful. Also, I just want to say, Z, J, R, A, M, G and S, thank you all so much for collaborating on this episode and helping to put these questions together that we could bring to Danya for today. I really have appreciated this discussion so much. And I hope that you all feel that we did you justice. I mean, I have no words, except for, I would die for you, I have your air and I've got your back. And Death Panel is in solidarity with you, as are all of the other Death Panel listeners, who are, I hope by the end of this episode, thinking about you every time they hear me say, stay alive another week, from now on. And Danya, I really -- I can't even say how much I've appreciated our conversation today. And it's just been very nice to spend time with you and get to talk through some of these things. Because I think so often, we're dealing now in abstractions, and I feel like we have had a really strong hold on material sort of reality throughout this, in a way that asserts that not only is this stuff important, but I think it also is real, tangible proof to me, at least, that there is so much love, there is so much brilliance, there is so much deep commitment from so many people that goes way beyond, you know, just one discipline, right. And I think your words about public health really apply across the board. This is a way we should all think about the work that we do from inside the machine. And I just really, I can't thank you enough for our conversation today.

Danya Qato 2:01:55

Well, I'm really grateful to have been in conversation with you. And I'm really grateful to our family in Gaza, for thinking so deeply about these questions and sharing such intimate reflections of their lives. One of the things that I dream of is the ability to meet our families in Gaza. And I know they feel the same way about us here, in the diaspora, in the West Bank, in 48. And yeah, I dream of a world where Palestine is free, and Palestinians are free to get to know each other. And so I'm looking forward to that day so I can get to know all of the Death Panel listeners in Gaza, and take them to the best shawarma spot in Ramallah, per my kids. So thank you again, so much, for having me on Death Panel. It's my favorite podcast by a million miles. And I'm just honored to be on here a second time. So thank you so much.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton 2:03:04

Well, we're honored to have you back. I deeply appreciate it. As much as I don't want to end this episode, I think it's quite long enough. And Danya, again, thank you so much for joining us. And patrons, thank you so much for supporting the show. Please know that without you, this episode would not have happened. Thank you again. And to support the show, become a patron at patreon.com/deathpanelpod. And if you'd like to help us out a little bit more, you can share the show with your friends, post about your favorite episodes, pick up a copy of Health Communism at your local bookstore, preorder Jules' book coming out later this week called A Short History of Trans Misogyny, request them both at your public library, and follow us @deathpanel_. And I hope please, listeners, that you really think about all of our listeners today who wrote these questions, who have been thinking with me for weeks, who have been thinking with Danya for weeks, and really hold them in your hearts and know that you need to do whatever you can, as per what friend of the show, Rasha Abdulhadi, said when they were on: even if it's just the sand underneath your fingernails, throw whatever you can into the gears of genocide. And don't forget that you have many friends all over the world who are in solidarity with you, when you feel alone, no matter where you are. So patrons, we will catch you Monday in the patron feed. As always, Medicare for All now, solidarity forever. Stay alive another week.

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Transcript by Kendra Kline. (Kendra is currently accepting freelance transcript work — email her if you need transcripts!)