There have been violent
confrontations between Palestinians
and the Israeli police over the past
several months.
Amnesty International has documented
18 Israelis and 34
Palestinians killed in March and
April, including six children.
In May, footage of the funeral
of an Al-Jazeera reporter allegedly
shot by Israeli police.
Whether you want to call for an
international investigation, though
overshadowed by other wars and
crises around the world, the
Israel-Palestine conflict,
stretching three quarters of a
century, is intensifying.
A growing number of Palestinians are
in favor of living within Israel,
having given up on the idea of
breaking off to form a separate
state. But their lives are
constrained by both the Palestinian
Authority's corruption and the
omnipresence of the Israeli
military.
The Palestinians comprise a
community roughly the same size as
the Jewish population within Israel,
but don't enjoy the same freedoms
and face major restrictions on
their movement.
What policies could help the
Palestinians achieve more political
and economic freedom?
Fadi Eslameen is a political
commentator on Arab-Israeli
affairs and an adjunct
senior fellow at the American
Security Project.
He's a vocal critic of Mahmoud
Abbas, the head of the Palestinian
Authority, and has survived two
assassination attempts.
As Al-Amin believes that an
important step in liberating the
Palestinian people is monetary
freedom, specifically Bitcoin,
which can help them bypass the
Palestinian Authority's control over
their finances.
Reason caught up with us in limine
at the 2022 Bitcoin conference
in Miami.
Fadi Elsalameen, thank you so much
for speaking to Reason.
Thank you for having me.
I'd like to start out a little bit
about your background.
You've started your political career
since you were 16 years old.
I was born in Hebron.
I'm the oldest of nine children, and
I initially came to the US as
part of a Palestinian delegation
for an organization called Seeds
of Peace, where we
would meet with Israelis
who are also participants in
the same organization, and we would
discuss what life was for
the Palestinians.
It would have been the first time
for many Israelis to meet
Palestinians.
The setting the area was done
was done in the United States,
away from Israel,
Palestine.
And that was really my introduction
to the political world,
the world of politics.
And
that was also the
first time where I've genuinely had
serious conversations with Israelis
about how life is for
And to my shock, I assumed
that all Israelis would know how
difficult it is for Palestinians
under Israeli occupation.
But many had no
idea.
What did you take out of that
experience from it and from meeting
Israelis in terms of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
It's hard to put it in a concise
statement. There were many.
First, for example,
you talk about what it is
to have, you know,
what it is to be Palestinian.
You know, if you're an Israeli
living in Tel Aviv, you
don't really you know, you don't
come across Palestinians.
But if you're an Israeli who is a
settler living inside the
West Bank, you see Palestinians,
but from through the lens
of right wing
extremist Israeli politics.
You know, at 13, at 14, at 15.
These are not concepts that
you are comfortable
with or
easily, you know,
trying to define or even explain
to to someone who is the same
age as you.
So I would say the first
takeaway was they
would see me as a human being, as a
normal person
who was talking, eating,
playing sports with them and so
forth.
But then you get into the weeds of
the issues, right?
The Palestinian rights of the
Palestinians, the history of
the creation of Israel.
And then you start getting into
the narratives and how the
narratives diverge.
Right?
But then also, you know, almost
something that remains with you,
regardless whether you agree on the
politics or you disagree, is
that you see the humanity of the
other side.
For the average person was
even more removed from
the Israeli-Palestinian,
you know, issue.
What's it like to be a Palestinian
in Palestine right now?
So let's just take an example.
If you're a Palestinian today
living under Israeli military
occupation, your life
from A to Z is fully
under control by the
Israeli military.
Meaning, if you want to go to a
hospital, if you want to go to
get an education outside, if
you want to get married, if
you want to get your ID, if you want
to get your birth certificate, your
passport.
