Omar Suleiman: Palestine, Gaza, Oct 7, Israel, Resistance, Faith & Islam | Lex Fridman Podcast #411

You always know when you live in Gaza that it's only a matter of time before the next bombs drop. You know if you're in Gaza that you are waiting for your death. People dream about going out in the world and pursuing education. People dream about going out in the world and pursuing economic opportunity. In Gaza, your idea of opportunity is an opportunity to see the next year. That has been the case. And so when we talk about, you know, this not existing in a vacuum, if people only hear about Gaza on October 7th, that is, that is a major part of the problem, and that is, again, part of the problem of our ignorance and our apathy. Right? Why is it that the plight of the people of Gaza is not brought up until an attack happens on Israel?

The following is a conversation with Imam Dr. Omar Suleiman, his second time on the podcast. He is a Palestinian-American, a Muslim scholar, a civil rights leader, president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, and is one of the most influential Muslims in the world. Our previous conversation was focused on Islam. This time, the focus was on Gaza and Palestine. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Omar Suleiman. What did you think, feel, and pray for in the days that followed October 7th?

I think the first feeling was that, uh, there's going to be a lot of death and destruction in Gaza as a result, right? We always kind of see this, where one Israeli casualty leads to hundreds of Palestinian casualties, right? So it, it's a pretty familiar cycle in some ways, where there are daily transgressions against Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza. The checkpoints, the aggression on Masjid al-Aqsa, the settlements expanding, the stories of Palestinian death, and then you have rockets fired from Gaza, and that's when the Western press catches up and starts to cover it. Israel responds with hellfire missiles, white phosphorus bombs, and the casualties are wildly disproportionate. And so I think that, you know, I wasn't surprised. I prayed for the people that I knew were going to bear the brunt of this outbreak, but the outbreak was predictable.

You wrote a statement on October 9th. I was hoping, uh, to read it, if it's okay.

Yeah, go ahead.

"Our Palestinian casualties are always your footnotes, the daily humiliation of occupation ignored, the aggression by settlers and soldiers alike on holy sites and souls, the annihilation of entire families that follows, the devastation of whatever scraps remain in the open-air prison of Gaza. Unsustainable and inhumane. So if you're waking up to a sudden interest in the region and want to know what's been happening, dig a bit deeper than two weeks and try to read beyond the headlines of a media that has been dehumanizing us for decades."