MSNBC Reports
October 14, 2023
10:20 a.m. Eastern
ALICIA MENENDEZ: The conflict in Israel and Gaza has brought devastating consequences with mounting casualties and heart-wrenching stories emerging every day. Americans with ties to the region wait agonizingly to hear the fate of their loved ones, and unfortunately not all news brings comfort. My next guest, Dr. Fady Joudah, received tragic news this week from Gaza. He learned that 17 members of his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Dr. Joudah himself is a son of refugees, and he joins me now. He's also an award-winning Palestinian American poet -- a physician based in Austin, Texas; a former doctor with Doctors Without Borders in Zambia and South Sudan. Dr. Joudah, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. We know this is a difficult time. We want to know how you are coping -- how you are processing this?
Dr. FADY JOUDAH, PALESTINIAN AMERICAN PHYSICIAN: I've already said elsewhere that we are, you know, we wake up, we go to bed with what we wake up with, the same horrible concern and flashbacks of memories that go back decades. I'm 53 -- my father is 90 in good health, so, you know, I have to ask you, "Why does a Palestinian such as myself appear on American TV only to represent the dead and the dying? When do Palestinians get to be a regular feature of the American consciousness and psyche so that we are people who can speak of life -- of all aspects of life -- not just a representation of death, dying and absolute horror?" I think we have to --
MENENDEZ: No, go ahead, Dr. Joudah, go ahead.
Dr. JOUDAH: Yeah, I think we have to ask ourselves deep questions about how we do not in any sense of the word away from flowery language -- we do not see -- we have not seen Palestinians as equal human beings in the U.S. for decades. I'm not sure we ever did starting from the point of equality of the humanity of the Palestinians anywhere. And they are not perfect people. No people are perfect, but everyone is equal. Just to accept that in the U.S., I think, is unthinkable. And to imagine that you accept the equality of the humanity of Palestinians will actually solve so many problems.
Common sense is uncommon -- a shortcoming in all humans -- but it is particular problem of the language of power. We talk about the siege -- I mean, the Hamas, the war, the whatever. Nobody fought for two decades to lift the siege off of Gaza, simple things. The children in Gaza -- 40 percent of people in Gaza are children -- are adolescent. What future have they had for the last 20 years? What future for the next 20 years? What is the price of equating suffering? Where does it stop in the human mind? Even if you permit me your title -- Israel-Hamas war -- as if somehow there's this isolation between an entire people and a few bad apples, so to speak. It is not that. It has been a total dehumanization of the Palestinian people in Gaza, in the West Bank, anywhere. Just start from speaking of the Palestinians as truly equal human beings to anyone anywhere, especially in English.
MENENDEZ: Dr. Joudah, I want to pick up on a piece that you referenced here, which is the displacement, especially because it is happening amidst a global displacement of young people, and, as we have watched that has consequences that extend generation to generation, so as you look forward on that question of what happens to these young people just in the days and weeks ahead, but beyond what questions are top of mind, what are you thinking about? What is it you want us to know?
Dr. JOUDAH: I would like people to know that it is very possible that a further dispossession of Palestinian land is afoot -- that a further displacement and removal of Palestinian people is afoot -- that the possibility of those people having lived through horror for the last 20 years who are -- as you would or I might with my own children -- not want to return to a place that has been utter destruction is very possible. The depletion of Palestinian souls and numbers on the ground is afoot. These are serious things. This is a repetition of the dreaded words of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians -- dreaded words in English -- ethnic cleansing of Palestinians yet again.
I am a physician, and I want to ask, even in general: "When will the medical community in the U.S., as physicians, say, for example, 'No life is better than another'?" You know, we have in medical schools and in institutions across the U.S. declarations about this war that are -- that are not even both-sided -- they're one-sided. But, as a physician, I do not turn away from the poor, the uninsured, the, you know, people I like, people I don't like, people who like me, people who don't like me. We uphold a level of impartiality and neutrality in the name of humanitarianism and humanity. And here we are, a medical -- the largest, most wonderful medical system in the world, and we can't come up with a statement that says we are for all lives as equal.
So I think the problems are deep, and we have in the media as the major field of creating a culture industry in the U.S. to begin to really work hard and bravely and courageously at making sure that Palestinians are truly seen as beautiful and equal people to anyone because they are and because no one is more beautiful or less beautiful than another in this world.
MENENDEZ: Dr. Fady Joudah, thank you so much in the midst of your own grief for spending some time with us bringing us your perspective and your voice.