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Transcript
All right. Thank you so much, Josie, for
sitting with me here today and to talk
about Palestine. I know you've done so
much over the last two years alone and
more than that, of course. And I'm
hoping we can cover a few topics,
primarily your time in the military, uh,
entering pro Palestinian activism and a
very troubling experience that you had
recently in Israel. Uh, but to get
started, I'm wondering if you can share
how you first decide to get involved in
the American military. Yeah. Uh, well,
thank you for having me, Paul. It's a
beautiful country to be here in
Istanbul. Um, I joined the military when
I was 18 years old. I came from a very
poverished family. Uh, I grew up with a
father who we lived off of veteran
disability. Um, so I don't know if
you're familiar with uh how this works
in America, but when you become a
disabled veteran, you collect a a check
monthly. And uh it wasn't really enough
to survive. And so once I um turned 18,
I really didn't have a whole lot of
options. So I chose the military. Uh in
America, we call this the economic
draft. Um it's just satire for
recognizing the fact that America um you
know sort of uses uh people who live in
poverty to join the military. And so
this is uh when I joined 18 uh 2006 and
I became a combat medic.
And uh you were also serving as an
intelligence officer um in the post 911
years. I'm wondering if you could speak
to that and perhaps describe what the
environment or the culture was within
the American military at that time.
Yeah. Um well, I'll rewind back to when
I joined in 2006. Um, looking back now,
I can recognize uh often during training
how the military programs us as young
teenagers um to have such a a bias and a
disdain for people in the Middle East.
For example, during training, our
simulations, our urban operations, um
everything that we're doing is focused
on uh people in the Middle East that
wear traditional clothing, speak the
Arab language. oftentimes there are
speakers with the Arab language playing
in these
simulations and even targeting our
targets are of uh people who are u male
Arabs in the traditional clothing and
this is all what I'm recognizing is to
program us to be able to deploy to the
Middle East and be truly convinced that
the people that we're seeing in these
areas are um terrorists or are the enemy
me, if you will, because now we're
trained to believe this. And coming into
the military at 18 years old, not really
knowing anything about the Middle East,
everything that I'm being told by my
government and this institution, I'm
trusting because, you know, the military
in America is held to such a high
standard. You are almost put on a
pedestal once you join. And so I really
didn't have any reason not to trust
these
institutions. But um I after about eight
or nine years as a combat medic, I got a
college degree and became an
intelligence officer in
2013. And uh from here I worked for
several agencies uh DIA, ODNI, and I was
at NSA for almost 5 years. And um there
were several assignments that I had that
involved the Middle East. The first
being in 2017 um where I did a habius
corpus writ contract for the detainees
in Guantanamo Bay. And this was the
first time that I really had experienced
um what my government was capable of
doing uh when it came to how they
treated detainees and and human beings.
really it was my first um experience
viewing the inhumane treatment that my
government was capable of. And while
you're in the military and this was sort
of, if this is the right word,
normalized. Yes. What were you um
perceiving the outside world where there
was demonstrations against the invasions
of Middle Eastern countries? How were
you seeing that at that time? Well,
honestly, during the invasion of Iraq
and then of course Afghanistan, it was
so all of these protests were so
censored, especially being in the
military. We I I didn't even know that
there was such a large descent towards
invading Iraq until most recently um
becoming an activist because of the
genocide in Palestine. I've met people
who are who protested during this time
as well and and veteran organizations
who were created during this time
actually. But I to be honest with you
had no idea that anyone in America was
des dissenting bec towards our invasion
of Iraq. So is there an effort on the
part of the military to keep you
insulated from from what's happening in
the public realm? Right. I think there's
not only an effort within the military
and our government institutions but it's
an effort by the media by our executive
branch legislative branch I mean uh even
local state governments I think every
institution at this point is has a level
of corruption that keeps us censored to
the truth and reality of what's actually
happening right uh looking back do you
feel that during your time in the
military the the military itself was
mostly invested in maintaining American
dominance um perhaps informed by a
racist or even colonial outlook rather
than protecting America itself. Yeah.
Um, I think there are a few factors that
I consider when when thinking about our,
um, invasion of the Middle East, uh,
more specifically. And, uh, of course,
there's Israel. Um, learning about how
much Israel was involved in convincing
our congressional uh, our legislative
branch, if you will, to go to Iraq
because of weapons of mass destruction
really shocked me. I don't think that
most Americans understand how much
influence Israel had over our American
government to invade Iraq. Uh he came
and testified in our Congress. Uh
Benjamin Netanyahu came and testified in
our Congress saying that he was 100%
sure that there was weapons of mass
destruction inside of Iraq, which we all
know now that was a complete lie. And so
there's this factor that I I'm
witnessing that as we maneuver inside of
the Middle East, I'm noticing that a lot
of it has to do with the fact that
Israel is the influencer over this. And
then there's also the
military-industrial complex, which is
something that I'm learning more about.
Um, I work for Eisenhower Media Network
and you know, President Eisenhower was
someone who brought this to the
forefront and said, "If we continue down
this path, our economic stability will
be placed on the military-industrial
complex." And we're witnessing this
right now. and uh Representative Thomas
Massie just recently made a statement
about how we're pulling out of the war
in in Eastern Europe, but now starting
to invest in a war uh a greater war in
the Middle East again. And this is
because there's an expectation of how
much investment and spending we will
have in America on weapons, on
manufacturing weapons, on selling
weapons, on using weapons because this
has become such a life cycle uh
implanted as a life cycle of our economy
that without this now there would be an
economic devastation. And so I think
there are two factors in play here.
imperialism, of course, uh a land grab
by Israel in the Middle East. Um any
anytime there's stability with a country
in the Middle East that does not
recognize Israel, then Israel tends to
implement some sort of influence to
destabilize the country, crash it
economically, uh bring it back into
poverish um conditions so that they
don't have any influence. And so I think
the factors here that I'm recognizing is
um there's twofold at play. The the
Israeli influence in the Middle East and
then also our military-industrial
complex.
Perhaps you can link what your awakening
um was in terms of the American military
not being what it says that it is and
your entering earnest pro Palestinian
activism that you do so well today. Yes.
Yes. Um I come from a Republican
background. Uh in 2016 I was a supporter
of Trump. My entire family was a
supporter of Trump. Um over Hillary
Clinton, of course. And um as a
Republican, one of the pillars that
people do support and why they vote
Republican is because of the defense
budget. And so for my entire life, I
always believed that it was necessary to
have this defense budget. And this is
why I always voted towards the right
side of the aisle. I've noticed now that
the the reason we have this defense
budget is not because we need to
actually defend our borders. It's for us
to be able to wage wars in other
countries. And so this level of
awakening tied back into my 17 years in
the military and trying to recognize
what I participated in, what my
colleagues participated in, what people
that I consider family and friends
participated in, who deployed to Iraq,
who deployed to Afghanistan. And then I
I look at this and this awakening of how
much my entire life has just been a lie.
We don't need this defense budget to
defend our country. We need this defense
budget to fund the military-industrial
complex and to wage war and and d death
and destruction in other countries. And
so October 7th really was that moment of
awakening where I was watching the
footage coming out of Gaza. I'm
following these news media outlets from
other countries at this point. And so
I'm watching the real footage coming out
and not the Western media footage. Um,
Fox News, CNN, even, you know, MSNBC,
all of these news organizations have
been censoring the truth. And but I'm
watching Alazer, Won, Hinduism Times,
I'm watching all these this footage
coming out of Gaza and I immediately
knew that this was not self-defense.
This was not a military operation. Um,
you know, I know that Israel has the
best weapon systems. They have the
ability to use precision precision
guiding weapons. They can do urban
operations. This is what we are trained
to do in the military where you go in
with a team, take out a commander or a
military operative, and then move out.
None of this was happening. All I could
see was bombs dropping absolutely
everywhere on children, women, elderly,
on hospitals. There was there was it was
completely indiscriminate. And so by
October 24th, I will never forget this
day, I I recognized that Israel was
committing a genocide. And I also
recognized that most of my life had been
a lie. Wow. I mean, how have people who
know you from the military or within the
government responded to your activism
especially because it's been so
outspoken to your credit. Yeah. Um I've
had several respon I've had different
responses from both my family, former
colleagues, current colleagues. There's
one side where I think people are
so hesitant to accept the truth because
of the amount of guilt, shame and um
processing that has to take place. You
imagine a soldier who's deployed to Iraq
two maybe even three times who's part
participated in war crimes realistically
is what happened and now they have to
internalize and accept that what they
did was to innocent people. I think this
is the hesitation that I get when it
comes to speaking to former colleagues
in the military where they're not
they're not, you know, psychologically
prepared to accept that what they
participated in were war crimes and um
on behalf of the oligarchy, on behalf of
the elites, on behalf of Israel. That's
why we have 22 veteran suicides a day in
America. And I and I anticipate that
number will rise now that so many
veterans are actually waking up to the
truth. But I think that I I I continue
conversations with these people. I don't
want to push the issue so far to where
they do end up, you know, thinking about
uh su having suicidal ideiations or self
harm. But I do continue having
conversations with these people and and
al also offering support because I'm
internalizing what I participated in as
well. I mobilized for Operation Enduring
Freedom. And so there were missions that
I participated in as well that I look
back on and think I think that those
people may have been innocent, but we
were told that they were guilty of
participating in some terrorist
organization. But I'm being accused of
the same thing. So now I look back and
think were they actually guilty of
something or were they just dissenting
against Israel and so therefore were
categorized as a terrorist and then
there's the other side of the aisle that
I that have come to this awakening as
well as I have and are wondering what is
our country doing you know on an
internet anyone that has this ability to
look at this situation
from the outside lens, from the bigger
picture, from an international picture.
We're watching bricks grow. We're
watching countries start to isolate
America, start to isolate Israel. We're
watching the global south align
themselves together, both economically
and security-wise. And what does that
mean for my country? What does that mean
for my children? What does that mean for
my children's children in the future
when we become such an isolated country
that we fall as a global power? Because
that's ultimately what's happening. The
American empire is falling and and it's
because we are unwa providing this
unwavering support towards Israel to
expand and and take over this the the
resources and the land in the Middle
East and control the Middle East, if you
will. And so I do have colleagues that
are even active duty now um or just
recently got out of the military,
friends who are really concerned about
the direction that our government is
going. There's a significant gap
happening even on the Republican side
because Trump campaigned that we would
not participate in war. he was going to
bring bring peace uh on at an
international level. And now just in the
past 48 hours, they have slaughtered
almost 1,000 people in Gaza with the
approval of Trump. Um they are bombing
Yemen. You know, they are talking about
resuming aid to Ukraine. So all of these
campaign promises that were made are,
you know, not being fulfilled. And so of
course there's a level of dissent
happening even in the Republican party.
Absolutely. I mean, how do you feel that
veterans who are against war, veterans,
who are against Israeli aggression,
criminality against Palestine perhaps
are uniquely positioned to do something
activist-wise that perhaps um segments
of the other activist comm of the
activist community may not be. Yeah. I
think as as veterans, we have an
interesting perspective because we were
in what we call what I've learned this
term, the belly of the beast. We
actually functioned in the war machine.
We were a part of the machine of the
American government that that you know
goes into these places in the Middle
East in eastern Ukraine. We know that
Ukraine is a proxy war. Of course, we
were a part of this machine. And so we
come from a place of having that actual
experience of being someone who in a way
at this time was complicit in in this
war machine. And now we're realizing
what we participated in whether directly
or indirectly and we're speaking out
against that recognizing that it was
wrong. Recognizing that we cannot s
sustain our country by continuing to
wage wars for almost four or five
decades now in the Middle East that it's
not sustainable for our future. It's not
sustainable for our children. Um, and so
for our economic future, our our our
national security. And so for us, I
think, you know, it's so important that
we use our voices because it's hard for
the the propaganda from from the other
side, from the enemy, if you will, to to
say that we're lying or to say that we
don't know what we're talking about
because we know exactly what we're
talking about. We literally participated
in this. Mhm. And recently you had quite
a troubling experience if I can say in
Israel. I'm wondering if you can speak
to that and describe what happened. Yes.
So um several months ago I decided to do
a Christian pilgrimage into Israel uh
into the West Bank and occupied Israel.
I no longer recognize Israel as a
sovereign state. Um, and I flew into
Jordan. Uh, and then I was going to
cross directly from Jordan into the West
Bank. And, um, I didn't realize, I don't
think I I was told that the Israeli
occupation has a very, um, um,
difficult, uh, immigration and customs
process. But I don't think I realized
exactly what I was walking into. Upon
entering upon exiting Jordan and going
to enter into the West Bank, there's
about a a mile of
um electric fences um individuals with
AR weapons, um check at least three
checkpoints that your vehicle has to go
through where they're they have um
they're looking in your vehicle, um
checking your passport. And so you get
through this this area and then you
finally get to the customs and borders
where you're going to present your
passport and explain what you're going
to do inside of occupied Israel and and
Palestine. And so I make it finally to
here and I have my itinerary, my list of
uh holy sites that I want to visit and I
present my passport. I present my
itinerary um which has the hotels I'm
going to stay at, everywhere I'm going
to be. and um he asked me uh he says so
so what are you doing here and I present
this I said well basically I'm coming on
my Christian pilgrimage and he looked up
at me and he said basically and I said
yes and for some reason this word just
threw him off and so I have I get
escorted to sit in a in a an area and
wait to be um basically ask more
questions. So during the during the next
hour or two, I have two or three more
people come ask me questions. Uh what
does it mean to be a Christian? What
does it mean to visit the holy sites?
And as someone who is born and raised a
devout Catholic, uh currently practicing
Catholic, of course these are easy
questions for me to answer. And so I
answer the questions, but I guess they
are still not convinced. And so now
they're going to take me into they're
going to detain me and interrogate me.
So they take me to another area of the
of this building and uh meanwhile there
are no Palestinians here uh Palestinian
police, Palestinian authority.
Everything is controlled and operated by
the Israeli occupation. And this is me
trying to enter into Palestine. So I'm
I'm trying to enter into Palestine from
the Jordan border, but I but everyone
that I'm coming into contact with is is
the Israeli occupation, the Israeli
government. And so because and it's
important to mention this because this
is what an apartheid state is. There's
no influence by Palestinians to be able
to accept me into their country. It's
all reliant on the approval or
disapproval of the Israeli government.
They the Palestinians have no say so if
I could come into their country or not.
So I go into this interrogation and she
starts asking me questions about my job.
Of course I tell her I was in the
military. Uh I'm not working right now.
Um, and then she asked what I did in the
military and I told her I was an
intelligence officer. And she starts
asking me about my
assignments. And the questions got so
detailed I I I finally looked at her and
I said, "With all due respect, you
should understand that I cannot answer
these questions. You are forcing me to
commit espionage against my country. You
You can't ask me details about my
assignments inside of the NSA, inside of
DIA. you can't ask me these questions
and um because we're supposed to be an
we're supposed to be allies. Why would
you be asking me to commit espionage
against my country? And I had to say
this four or five times to a point where
we we almost got into this sort of like
conflict about what I was going to
answer and what I wasn't. Then she
wanted to go through my phone. And of
course I'm against this because for you
know the past 11 12 years I've been an
intelligence officer. Of course I have
colleagues, friends who are in my phone
contacts, people I'm having
conversations with that are in the
intelligence community. I can't give
this my phone to this foreign government
who will of course download everything
that's in my phone. And I tell her this.
I said I cannot give you this phone
given my background. this is something
that I I'm not comfortable doing. And so
she said, "Okay, well, I want you to
open up your contacts and type in the
area code
972." And so I did this and I had two
contacts that had the area code 972. One
of them is an individual inside of Gaza
who I've helped uh provide food and
financial aid to, who's helped feed
children who are orphaned inside of
Gaza. And then the other one was a
doctor that I've met. I I honestly don't
even didn't even remember who this
person was that I've met just through
this movement. But um and this was
enough for her to say that to think that
I was pro Palestinian
um that I didn't support uh Israel. And
so I explained to her what I just did
that I you know help raise money for
these people, etc. And she said, "Have
you donated to Sudan?" And I said, "As a
matter of fact, I have." And she said,
'Well, what about Ukraine? And I said,
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I've donated
thousands of dollars to the Ukrainians,
helped coordinate uh trucks coming from
Yorkshire to the Pol Poland border with
baby formula." Um, so this has always
been like these humanitarian missions
have always been a part of my life. And
she was upset by this. All of these
things were just like frustrating her
even more. And so she started asking me
about my husband's job and I said, "I'm
I can't answer these questions." And she
said, "Well, if you're not going to
answer any more questions, then this
interrogation is done." And uh I exited
out of the the interrogation room. And
um probably about an hour later of
waiting in this one area where I was
detained, they came and uh gave me a
paper saying that I was not allowed to
enter into Palestine. I was being banned
for five years and I was a public
security threat. That's so bizarre. Just
for having a pro Palestinian stance uh
for having to stance against a genocide
that they're committing. That's so
bizarre. I mean, do you feel that they
were like fishing to see whether you
supported them more? Yes, for sure. Oh,
they asked those questions as well. The
the the Israeli government wants to know
our stance on the war. So this is a part
of their interrogation. They asked, "How
do you feel about the war?" They even
asked me what I thought the solution
was, of which I told them, "Maybe the
Jews should move to Florida because the
governor there really loves the Jews. So
maybe you guys should go to Florida."
And she said, "Oh, so you think we
should leave?" And I said, "Well,
wouldn't it be safer for you? Don't you
want to be safe? If you feel like you're
unsafe here, then maybe you should
leave." This is so bizarre. I mean, it's
almost turning into like a political
debate. Yes.
Yes, a political debate of some kind in
an interrogation context. It is strange.
There's so many questions I have. I
mean, this provoke so many questions. I
mean, in the US is is the prevailing
attitude in the US among the public
that being Jewish is to be u an Israeli
is to be a member of a distinct racial
group. Is that kind of
Yeah. I think
that when it comes to
like what Christians recognize, what
Jews are, I think it's just I I don't
think they think about it in a sense of
like a color of race. It's just
identifying as someone who practices
Judaism.
But this this
situation really is expanding um the the
historical context of what Judaism
actually is versus what we're witnessing
the Israeli government do. And you go
back, you can go back and use the same
um sort of ideology of what happened to
the Native Americans because I had to
recognize as a Catholic what
my you know religion did under the name
of
Catholicism when they the pioneers came
to North America. They had these
boarding schools where they would take
these indi- indigenous people's children
and force them to go to these boarding
schools. And now we're seeing these mass
graves in Canada as you know. And so you
know what we're witnessing is history
repeating itself. The colonizer, the
imperialism that exists, history
repeating itself over and over. It's the
same playbook, but now it's just being
done in modern times. So Israel is doing
what it's doing under the name of
Judaism. And that's why you're seeing so
many Jews throughout the world rising up
because they're saying not in my name.
One Holocaust does not justify another
one. And so yeah, I think Christians are
slowly coming to recognize that a the
state of a country, the name of a
country does not necessarily mean
Judaism. It just it's just being the the
name Judaism is being abused. It's so
important. I'm here in Istanbul. I spent
the last week in Jordan. I think it's so
important for me to humanize the people
here, the people here in Turkey, the
people in Jordan, the people in
Palestine. Um because as Americans, this
propaga, all we know is this propaganda
that we're told by Western media, even
the curriculum that we learn inside of
grade school and high school and even
college curriculum, there's this
propaganda that defines the Muslim
religion, the Islam religion as
something that is dangerous, as that if
we don't stop it, it will infiltrate
into our lives. And I just think it's so
important for me to say how beautiful
this religion is. I've learned how so
much of the Muslim religion actually
overlaps my own religion. Um, I think
that the Muslims actually respect and
love and follow the teachings of Jesus
Christ more than the American
Christians. They don't even say the word
prophet Jesus without saying peace be
upon him. There's such a there's such a
deep level of love for this this this
person that we worship in in our
Christianity religion. And so I just
want to humanize Muslims. I want to
humanize the people here in the Middle
East and just say how absolutely
wonderful and beautiful the people have
been here towards me. Well, that's a
beautiful, beautiful way to wrap things
up. Thank you so much, Joseph. It's been
an honor and pleasure. Thank you, Paul.
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