what's the trend that you were seeing
again i was seeing a lot of like arab or
muslim
uh social media influencers
oh
this is
you probably heard
that muslim guy who's that muslim guy
and well he's right next to me muhammad
salam
how are you doing
how you doing muhammad alhamdulillah so
far so good my first time in chicago and
so far it's been great you're all the
way coming in from canada that's right
that's right from halifax nova scotia
canada all the way in the east first
time chicago first time yeah first time
and trying to do all the tourist
activities i travel out today i was
doing the amp american muslims for
palestine event for pal for palestine
activism raising awareness and i had a
little bit time today to do some some
tourism i did all the typical
stereotypical tourist things the
millennial park get deep dish pizza
our uber driver told us that that's a
stereotype and jacob people from chicago
don't actually like deep dish pizza so
but i had to do it you know what i mean
so it was so far so good alhamdulillah
it's been very nice how did you come up
with this that muslim guy what made you
uh it really took me a few months when i
was still trying to figure out what to
call myself what to call the channel
when i first came up about five and a
half years ago or so
and there are a lot of names i was
trying to go through in my head and i
had like a list of 50 60 names and
subhanallah
somehow like that muslim guy
is what
is what came out
and i really liked it and just you know
popped up and i was like you know what
this is a great name
and a lot of people
told me to perhaps use my name
but i've seen a trend where people come
up using their own names they start
talking about islam they talk about
arabs and islam and middle east et
cetera and stereotypes
and then when they build a following
they start shifting away from islam and
doing other things that you know as
muslims would probably should not be
doing so i figured that would also be a
great control in place where if the name
muslims in my name i would feel way more
accountable to make sure any content i
talk about still pertains and relates to
islam back it up a little bit what did
you mean so what's the trend that you
were seeing again i was seeing a lot of
like arab or muslim
uh social media influencers yeah
you mean you can't eat anything nothing
just eat one i can't man i know you want
some of these
and they would start off appealing to
the muslim community the arab community
doing
the interviews and comedy skits and
really growing with the community
support and then once they reach out to
a broader community not just the muslim
community and they become way more
well-known
i would see a shift
from islamic content and more towards
just other mainstream content
and then they will start getting into
other avenues
that are not more or less islamic that
way that caught my attention and so it
wasn't it was it was uh kind of a trend
you said so it wasn't one two
it wasn't just multiple accounts that i
used to follow yeah and i saw that trend
and i had good friends alhamdulillah who
also told me
like
make sure that you don't fall into that
trend so have some controls in place so
one of the controls i thought about was
if the name muslim is in my name then i
will immediately feel that
responsibility of making sure anything i
do which will be representing islam must
be presentable in accordance with islam
and then i figured that muslim guy has a
nice comedic tone and also
a muslim tone and kind of catchy as well
yeah and i liked it what do you think
just uh just to touch on that a little
bit more do you think sometimes there's
a systematic attempt by some of these
people out there to go ahead and target
let's say the muslim community and then
you know come on make some videos
inshallah subhanallah
and then you know kind of get you all
excited and get you um and then once you
debate out there
you know i believe there's def that that
definitely does happen
i try not to assume malicious intent by
anyone i just assume you know hustle run
i will assume that they started off with
great intentions and once they grew a
fault they got a really large following
money started flowing
start running out of content
and then you got to start having to
expand and then they start falling into
just that trap and sheila is very smart
and slowly but surely you start falling
into that trap of course there are
people out there and i don't want to
drop any names but i remember there was
a while where
there were some people who were doing
things the name of islam but they're
only doing it as a form of entrapment to
get people to deter away from islam
and i believe that does happen but i
think for the most part people do start
off innocently with good intentions
and slowly they get pulled pulled away
and
i pray that that does not happen to me
and many other people out there i mean
all of us yeah this is very important
intention that's why intention is so
important always checking our intention
and just speaking of intentions i think
the most important thing about the
intention is
when you don't see results it really
comes down to your intention
so if you
put because i was putting
maybe because i have a full-time job and
i'm an accountant by trade
and i would work you know full-time job
hours we have busy seasons we could work
you know nine to 12 hours a day
sometimes and then i'd go home and put
another two three hours of videos and
con and script writing and editing
and then could only get 50 views
100 views
and i'm like wow is this even worth it
but then it comes down to your intention
is your intention to just get views and
eventually make money
or is your intention to educate people
about a topic or passion about like
islam like activism about palestine or
any other any other country and once you
remember what your intention is
then it doesn't matter
what the results are because you can't
control the results you can just control
your intention and the amount of work
you put in
and there's many many examples of of
numerous prophets and messengers in the
quran like prophet noah peace be upon
him
where he made dawa to his people over
950 years and still had a handful of
followers so we don't control the
results but we can control our work and
our actions and our intention i think
that's always important to remind
ourselves of yeah this is really
important tell me at what point muhammad
did you did muhammad start actually
following or were you always
a practicing muslim were you did you
grow up in a muslim household at what
point did you realize okay this is my
purpose in life you know islam and what
convinced you about islam also to have
you practicing it to where you're doing
what you're doing today also well that's
that's a very good question and that's a
very deep question
and alhamdulillah i grew up in a muslim
family a practicing muslim family
and i grew up between
i'm a palestinian originally
but i was born in kuwait
and i grew up between kuwait and canada
so when i was a very young kid we
migrated to canada
and then
lived there for quite a while then
migrated back to kuwait graduated high
school from there moved back to canada
did my university and been there ever
since
but alhamdulillah my when i was in
canada
we always went to
islamic schools on the weekends
later at night we always had to learn
quran and
our parents made sure that we
at least knew the basics of our religion
and we always had to learn arabic on the
weekends so other kids would be going
out playing outside on a saturday or a
sunday and we're just studying arabic
we're just learning arabic
and as a kid you don't really see that
big picture of how that's important you
just want to go out and play
and now i see the importance of that so
growing up alhamdulillah we had my
family always made sure that we were
immersed or at the very least well
educated in our religion
but i only really
saw the need and necessity and saw
myself doing this in the future for the
foreseeable future
started in university
and because around high school
university time
i used to like watching stand-up comedy
do you have any favorite stand-up
comedians that used to like back in the
day yeah eddie murphy maybe chris murphy
okay before they became famous actors
and huh before they became famous actors
they were no
i mean this was back you know before i
start practicing islam you know okay but
you know a lot of the stuff that these
comedians a lot of us
it's not proper
things the kind of words they're using
and the stories they make someone can
get r-rated you know yeah yeah that's
right that's your giant yeah that's
right that's right and yeah nice uh
there's a lot of comedians i used to
love listening to
and now my favorite is probably well
you're you're so you do comedy too also
i do some comedy as well yes
probably like baba ali now or something
okay
that's not a bad one either right it's
very very pg-rated islamic friendly
family friendly family friendly
and that's what i try to do as well keep
it family friendly because if the kids
can't watch it then you're probably
doing something wrong right
and i got i started really liking comedy
and i realized oh that's a great way to
express yourself
and making people laugh and i realized
they could talk about anything but if
people are willing to laugh they're
willing to listen they're willing to
learn
and that's like the first seed that came
into my mind and then in university i
started getting into politics now
politics is kind of boring right nobody
likes politics nobody understands
politics
and then i started watching like the
daily show with jon stewart
i was like wow
this is entertaining i'm learning
without even knowing i'm learning it's
just like a whole satire skit
comedy skit and i'm learning from it so
i said why can't we do that with islam
why can't i use comedy to educate people
about islam
but then i was still in university i had
to get you know 4.0 gpa because i'm
error my parents want me to be an
engineer and a doctor and a pharmacist
and a lawyer so i was like i don't got
time for this i need to i need to study
and then one day i went to a friday
sermon
during friday prayers and one of the
imams he was saying this was at a time
when there was some islamophobia
happening in halifax whereby some
newspapers were writing some
pretty
you know unfortunate things about
muslims in islam
and the imam he said
he said you don't have to be a scholar
to stand up
to
islamophobia you don't have to be a
scholar or someone who has years in
dawah to be able to do anything
what are you good at
and use those skills
for the benefit of islam
are you are you a great writer
beautiful write an article write a book
defending islam
expressing your opinion expressing your
perspective
you're great at public speaking great
lead a rally make a video
use your public speaking skills you're
not great at writing you're not going to
speak and you're good at editing great
get together people and edit videos do
what you're good at
for the benefit of islam
and that's when it hit me i said i like
comedy
i think i think i'm kind of funny
so i've been told i don't know so i was
like
why not what do i got to lose and
subhanallah after i graduated university
when i started doing my cpa my charter
professional accountancy
i started that muslim guy and hamdullah
since then it's been a long five and a
half years but has been very rewarding
and definitely at the very least keeps
me productive
in my free time and i'm able i'm able to
utilize my time productively and i'm
able to also help do my part to try to
educate people about islam using comedy
and talking about taboo topics that they
wouldn't otherwise want to talk about
help us understand like at that phase in
your life because university can be a
playground for so many destructive
things
so what at what point are you reflecting
thinking like okay what's the purpose of
my life and then you have so many
different religions and then you also
have a lot of muslims who go through the
motions of islam because okay daddy
mommy told me you know i should pray i
should this but then they're not well
grounded in the dean and then they take
a philosophy class
and they get into this secular
institution which is pushing and pumping
atheism right yes and you get lost yeah
what kept you well anchored
subhanallah i feel like that's a very
complex and nuanced topic as well
because it's different from one person
to another right
and i remember i believe you've had
hijab on the show before i remember
watching that
i think we're replying to some of the
things that joe rogan said and when i
was
so i was listening to a few other
muhammad hijab lectures and he was
talking about philosophy and there's and
he mentioned something i believe it was
him he mentioned something about
most muslims should not be studying
philosophy for example they should just
know enough
to
be able to
you know
to protect themselves so it's kind of
like a vaccine in a way where you're
just getting a small dose of the virus
just to be able to build that immunity
but some many muslims
in university try it out and they get
into it and they don't have a strong
islamic knowledge or background and then
they just get confused
it does depend from person to person and
i think the very very first thing is who
are your friends
who are you hanging around with
once you go to university
what are you doing so that's one key
thing yeah being around good friend you
were around good company
yes and i understand some people
gravitate towards certain people if you
have if you are used to
going to the masjid used to meeting
people at msas and muslim associations
and all that then you're going to meet
good people some people are just more
inclined you know to go try out the
other things later at night at 11 p.m or
12 a.m so you're gonna meet
you know not i guess the best people
from an islamic perspective
so it does depend on in people's
personalities but i think the very first
thing is who are you hanging around with
because your friends will pull you in
arabic would say
right your friend will pull you
so sometimes you think you're the one
pulling but if all your friends are
doing one thing you're doing the other
they will slowly but surely pull you in
that direction so you really just need
to be aware of who you're with what had
what had you who was your mentor who was
you know to have you at that young age
to be like okay i need to have good
friends like
what's what's
you know we need mentors like was it
your family did you have like was this
friend all all along like how did you
understand that at that young age was
this your upbringing to as when your
parents uh sent you off to or you went
to university that you already had this
you had the game plan or
very interesting question i guess i was
just always wise you know just okay
i think it is a combination of the two
it was a combination of my parents
always giving me advice going like you
know now you're on your own and we trust
you we've raised you we've sent you
we've given you islamic education now we
trust you as a fully grown adult to do
what's right yeah and fear allah
are you so now being done with
university what
because as we go on we're seeing with
one generation to the next from my
generation we were thinking like our
parents were thinking hey you know this
is crazy what everything that we're
being exposed to and now your generation
but you're seeing people now who are in
university so from your experience what
are some of the things that you would
warn or advise we got one good
companionship good friends ship
other things now that you a couple more
gems you know that you if you can go
back let's say you would advise someone
who's in university right now maybe
struggling male or female doesn't matter
and now you got all of these temptations
all of the things that are just being
you know the traps straight down the
setting yeah what advice would you get
the second thing i would advise
is
what are you actually looking for
and i'll elaborate more on that
i can tell someone you know have good
friends get an islamic education
if they don't want that they're not
going to do it
i've met many muslims
many people i knew back in kuwait
actually
and then we all went to when i went to
university they came to university as
well and we were in the same city
and they turn to 180 degree 180
a full 180 in kuwait like they would be
a certain type of person because muslim
country i guess the norms are in a
certain way it's difficult to access
certain things
that are illegal and then you come to
canada
and everything's available everything's
legal everything's encouraged rather
it's not just legal it's encouraged if
you're not doing it
what
why aren't you coming out to party with
us come on there's a huge party at the
dorm that's still happening oh yeah i
wouldn't know
but yeah and i guess now social
distancing parties right yeah just got
to keep six feet you know
and
some people
want to try that no matter what you say
to them
and you tell them you know if you're
allah
you came from you have you come from a
muslim background you understand
and i've had people tell me i went out
with a friend once
and
he's muslim and he orders a beer
and as we're eating now if it was a
non-muslim i would understand but as a
muslim he sat down and just ordered a
beer i was kind of confused i was like
okay
all right
didn't say anything i was like oh let me
see let's see where this goes and then
he goes like aren't you going to get one
i was like whoa hold up so now it's on
me wait what i should be questioning you
but you're questioning me i was like
dude like why are you ordering a beer
like i don't know if you're practicing
or not but why do you order a beer and
he said because it's haram and i want to
know why
i was like whoa how do you how do you
how do you
comprehend that and
converse with this person right
so it's all about what do you want
if someone does not want anything to do
with this now
then you
you can keep giving them advice
whenever you know it comes up but you
can't really change them right you just
have to do your part to respectfully and
using wisdom try to
bring them towards uh towards them and
doing what's islamically correct
but if they don't want to you know you
can't do anything at the end of the day
it's all it's on them and only allah can
change their hearts but i would say be
honest with yourself
so first of all have good company
second of all
it is important to be able to be well
educated in islam even if it's just the
basics
quran
what is our core belief
the major what is
major sins
but the last thing is be honest with
yourself
be honest with yourself what are you
what are you trying to do
and
because everything you do will be based
on
your intentions if your intention is to
try to do what's right and try to have
better company you will slowly make
decisions that work towards that you
will seek help you will seek advice you
will take the advice and try to work
towards that there will be trial and
error
but you will work towards that gradually
versus if you don't want to doesn't
matter how many people come at you and
try to talk to you you're just going to
blow them all away
and go do whatever you want so the last
thing i would say is be honest with
yourself
and
at the time you were in university was
the hate propaganda
was it the same or have you seen it
revved up
compared to then and now
with the whole islamophobia with the
whole
you know propaganda against islam how
was it back when university university
compared to now because you cover a lot
of different topics you talk about
different you know things that happening
in the news and were you paying as much
attention was it affecting you
definitely and i would say i guess i
guess we can break out having the name
having the name muhammad
after the last and final message sent to
manchester united
upon him jesus and all the messengers so
having that name was there some bullying
or there's like you know terrorists
mohammed you know what
interestingly enough
i've dealt with some comments
but not as much it was mainly more
subtle
racism so for example i could have i
would be a muhammad there could be ahmad
there could be someone who's not even
muslim but his name is antar preet right
and you can all apply to a job and you
all have like a 4.0 gpa and then someone
else applies like a 3.0 gpa and less job
experience
and only he gets it and he's because his
name is john
so there is that subtle racism that i
did notice and it's slowly fading away
because now there's like where i'm from
because now there's a lot more
immigration towards nova scotia
and you can see
muslims and just you know brown people
in general from the middle east from
south asia
now they're becoming a little more
prominent so that slowly will
will decrease but i think the second
thing is
the muslim communities
once the muslim community has a presence
and they make their presence known
then the islamophobia somewhat decreases
depending on where you're from it might
be different in texas than it is in you
know toronto right
what i've noticed is when the mosques
became
more
out there
they would do
multi-faith conventions multi-faith
events
interfaith harmony weeks they would
invite people to the masjid we have food
come listen to our friday lecture
if a newspaper says something wrong
people message them email them make
videos about them hold them accountable
that has somewhat also
controlled and limited the islamophobia
for example
but now with the rise of social media
anyone can create 10 accounts and send
you 10 hate messages right and on social
media now that people are less
accountable and they're hiding behind a
screen it's easier to spread hate
islamophobia racism etc
so i believe from one end it has been
controlled but from another round social
media has opened up a whole new avenue
as well
you talk i had a look at some of the
the videos the topics you cover is
interesting what happened if you bring
us up to speed for those people it was
trending news you had the cartoonist you
covered that yes the believe the swedish
christians lars wicks yes
and
i believe i heard of him a while back
and i don't remember until recently when
he passed away and then i just covered
that
in regards to
you know this is the legacy this man
left behind you know talk about only
thing he left behind
no one says oh this man was a visionary
who had these 10 projects and did this
for humanity and did that
no the only thing he's going to be
remembered for oh yeah he's that guy who
mocked the prophet of two billion people
and got a bunch of people angry
and it really got me thinking
if that's the only legacy you can leave
behind
you've gone you've done something
terribly right you've gone somewhere
you've you've gone wrong somewheres in
your life
and it got me thinking what kind of
legacy do i want to leave behind for
example because we all understand the
concept of sadaqajaria an ongoing
charity
once you once you're gone you want to
make sure your actions and everything
you did in this world
can continue building up your deeds and
benefiting you in the in the hereafter
once you're gone
and that just really got me thinking
about that what do i want my legacy to
be what do i want people to remember me
for when people remember me will they be
you know cursing me or will they be
making dua for me will they be watching
content benefiting and i can get hassan
after that as well
so that just got me thinking
and
and i hope that
i can all we can also educate people in
the sense where if someone does mock our
prophet
peace be upon him
if someone does mock a religion it
happens all the time unfortunately
and many people that's their claim to
fame like a certain french media company
as well
they they're never known until they do
that and for because of our reaction
they become famous
and then the way we react sometimes as
muslims sometimes you'll have very
emotional muslims and the way they react
is very
out there because you've insulted
someone they love very much many people
don't understand how much we love
prophet muhammad peace be upon him some
people can't comprehend it
so they just go all these crazy fanatics
so i think it is important and i made a
couple of videos about this i will
continue insha allah talking about this
if you love prophet muhammad peace be
upon him as much as you say you do
then react the way he can manage you to
react react in the way that islam tells
you to react when someone mocks you or
mocks your religion or marks your
prophet react how prophet muhammad peace
be upon him react reacted with wisdom
and and that's where having the islamic
knowledge comes in play and
understanding that understanding the
seerah and the story of prophet muhammad
peace be upon him yeah many people don't
know that we also
we we wouldn't be too fond of we'd be
very upset and angry if
jesus was insulted or
uh moses abraham any of the prophets
that god almighty uh sent for that's
right
of humanity so this is uh
something that obviously when you look
at that's interesting this person's
legacy what he leaves behind
you know just making a mockery of
the greatest man to walk the earth and
then also
um
you think
at the end what do you got you know what
what did you leave behind did you start
some charity organization did you commit
your life to doing good change you know
making a change for or you just made a
mockery of yourself in your life
and yeah
it's just interesting how
that's right at the end how it all came
to an end yeah yeah and uh and just to
add to that so like you said many people
don't know that muslims believe in
almost and all the prophets and
messengers sent by god from adam to noah
to abraham to moses to jesus to muhammad
peace be upon him
and i just also noticed that some
muslims we do have some hypocrisy in
this whereby there could be a movie done
about prophet nooh
there could be like a parody mocking
jesus peace be upon him
or ibrahim peace people prophet peace be
upon him
and we're like
oh but then democrat from muhammad this
upon him and we get outraged
and i once asked my friend about that i
said why are you so outraged i
understand why you're outraged when
prophet muhammed swan gets mocked but
why don't you have a similar reaction
jesus peace be upon him gets mocked or
adam peace be upon him or any of the
prophets he said no i do i do get angry
i said okay
i don't see
you saying anything about those so we
also do have that hypocrisy where we
need to understand
that any prophets and messengers of god
should not be mocked just out of moral
that are principled it should not be
mocked and we should also feel
we should hate it in our hearts when
anyone mocks one of the prophets and
messengers and also vocalize it make it
known but make it known in a wise manner
and that's the most important thing you
also talked about what was the story
behind this uh
singer rapper was it rihanna
and yes had a hadith from prophet
muhammad in what was it her song
yeah so i believe rihanna rihanna had a
fashion show featuring someone else
called cuckoo chloe i think or something
like that and
it was an armageddon themed fashion show
and in one of one of the uh
one of the songs they had they also had
an extract of a hadith about the days of
judgment and prophet and i think who it
was recited by shari rashid lafasi
and of course that caused outrage and a
lot of people were angry about that like
how dare you use a hadith something that
the saying in teaching prophet muhammad
peace be upon him and of all things turn
it into music
and then put it in a fashion show like
vulgarity over vulgarity
so i understand where the outrage came
from
but then people also resorted to the
things that i hate the most and that's
the violence death threats and that's
the internet for you you look at
anyone's comment section
it's just uh it's just the worst of
humanity sometimes
so i made a video explaining first of
all i agree this is wrong and here's why
it's wrong
and then i ended up with however here's
how we should react
to someone who has made this mistake
if we just hate on them and alienate
them and it's unforgivable and you're
cast out from society and will never
ever look at you again
number one you're not giving them a
chance to apologize
and to rectify that mistake
and number two you're pushing them in
the opposite direction now you're
pushing them towards the islamophobes
who like this kind of content they like
it when you mock prophet muhammad and
make fun of islam
so it's important to be able to hold
people accountable number one
to to make sure that they don't get away
with just mocking muslims or using
whatever they want for muslims number
two
giving them the opportunity to also
publicly apologize so then even their
followers see that this was not the best
move this was this was a mistake
then third of all give them a chance to
learn
why you're outraged and then hopefully
they can also become an ally versus an
enemy
and i think that's what i was trying to
do in that video
did they
do you think that was uh
how would they come across so they used
this
was it her that was using it how it was
in a song the hadith yeah so it was used
in a song by one of the other performers
in her fashion show yeah so they were
just saying you know rihanna and her
management should have known better
and the performer herself should have
known better and it's like where did you
even get this from you must have known
it's a hadith because you're probably
looking up you know armageddon themed
anything and then you found this no one
really fact checked it or no one checked
you know who does this belong to is
there even a copyright issue now because
they're using the voice of someone like
himself
right so there's a lot of
a lot of things going on used
his voice in it what because i think he
had a video on youtube
and reciting the hadith and they
actually used him and they used his
voice in the um song yes and they kind
of tweaked the sound to with the
background music and everything yeah you
think there's a mistake or this is some
systematic setup like that what do you
think that's a very interesting question
and i don't know and i'm
a lot of money goes into these things so
they got to cover all avenues of you
know and what's going to push to get the
most uh reaction most attention yeah
like the guy what's his name he had
those blood sneakers yeah yeah yeah was
it luna so i said who was what sneakers
guys yeah yeah yeah okay so they like
this kind of you know hype it gets free
publicity sometimes right and yeah it
could be number one an innocent mistake
but i think when too many innocent
mistakes happen sometimes it's that
trend indicates that there might be more
of an agenda and even if it's not a you
know an agenda against muslims it might
be more than we don't care who you are
or what you are we don't respect you
we're just going to use whatever we can
for free medium free publicity outrage
is money media is media right publicity
is publicity so that could also be it
allah adam but at the end of the day
regardless of what it is it is important
to be able to stand up to it in a
correct and wise manner whereby we
represent ourselves in a stem
appropriately but we also hold everyone
accountable
the last thing i want to talk to you
about was this uh convention you went to
and
the message
and the education now that's so
important out there for people who are
kind of ignorant on what's going on in
this part of the world where you're i
mean this is where your parents from
from palestine yes right so can you give
us an update like what's the latest
what's happening because a lot of times
uh i think it was several months back
you know there was a lot of headlines
but it kind of died down now yes is is
there
what's changed is there anything
different that it's not in the media now
the only thing different now is that
the energy's down and the trend is gone
and
with the oppression everything is
continues as was if not worse if not
worse yes so the way the way it is so i
was at the amp um american muslims for
palestine convention and they brought a
lot of speakers like mikko palette
and a lot a lot of people they even they
wanted to bring muhammad al-quran who is
from east jerusalem
and he was him and his sister munalkar
they were essential
in using social media to raise awareness
about what was happening in east
jerusalem
and i can give a quick overview as to
what happened just this year alone we're
going to have to talk about the 70 year
history of palestine and what happened
to the palestinians by by israel the
oppression
just this year alone
in around ramadan time
israel was
started bombing
and there was
there's just media silence
before that there was
a parade or a group of extremists
zionists in israel and jerusalem
marching through the streets
chanting death to arabs
and there's no media coverage at all a
few muslim outlets here and there but no
mainstream media coverage
then there's a parade a zionist parade
where they're threatening of of the
second nekba for those who don't know
the neck bet is when in 1948 israel was
created and it was created by committing
math ethnic ethnic cleansing and a mass
exodus of over 750 000
palestinians out of their homes
kicking them out creating refugees and
up to this day there's millions of
refugees palestinian refugees outside of
palestine who cannot return home so that
was the first necma
there were parades threatening of a
second neckbah to say we're going to
finish the job now when you say nekbo
for people that i don't know what what
does that mean so the neck by means the
catastrophe
the great catastrophe which is the mass
exodus the ethnic cleansing of 750 000
palestinians from their homes when
israel was created
so israel denies this ever happened
but then they have extremist zionist
parades threatening of a second nekba
while denying the first one ever existed
so there's a lot of hypocrisy in the way
israel does its propaganda
but then again no media coverage
and then there's the attacks in east
jerusalem whereby the idf the israeli
defense force or the occupation force
rather they would go in and invade
al-aqsa mosque they would beat up
protesters shoot tear gas shoot rubber
bullets or it's rather rubber bolts is a
very nice way of saying it they're steel
coated
or rather rubber coated steel bullets so
they can still cause a lot of damage and
internal damage they can cause blindness
to hit your eye they can give you brain
damage that you in the head they can
break bones they can cause paralysis to
hit you in the spine so they're just
bullets that
they might not kill you but they'll kill
your ability to live they'll you
they'll you for life
we're thinking when they do you think
like the kids are playing with those
rubber you know yeah the nerf guns
it's not a nerf gun yeah it's not a nerf
gun it's a it's an adult nerf gun that
can you for life
and again no media coverage
the only time media coverage happened
was when hamas which is the government
in of gaza
they said
if you keep doing this
we're gonna have to fire back we're
gonna have to defend ourselves we're
gonna have to do something
israel was like oh really okay cool and
they did another attack and they invaded
the mosque again and they kept doing
that and then hamas
fired a few missiles
which were obviously intercepted by the
israel's iron dome israel's nuclear
state it has one of the strongest
strongest militaries in the world
hamas can't do anything to them but
hamas threw a few missiles just in
retaliation to everything you're doing
and
just like that
the mainstream media covered it like
there was no tomorrow
it it's like they only the time started
the watch started
as soon as palestinians reacted to all
the oppression they start on their own
time
and that's what happened and then all
over the media it was like
it was um it was palestinians attack
israel hamas fires missiles at israel
hamas terrorist organization doing this
doing that but no one ever mentioned
anything about the months of of just
constant attacks of palestinians
happening right before that
and that's the problem the way the media
has started was covering it was
israel has the right to defend itself
against hamas a nuclear state has a
right to defend itself against people
who are making you know homemade rockets
and are resisting an occupation
and then the way the media covered it
was that
words matter and i made a video called
words matter
and
the media hypocrisy is so
it's so blatant whereby when a
palestinian dies they called it
palestinians
dead palestinian died when israeli died
they called it killed
israeli was killed was murdered because
those words invoke two different
emotions when i say someone died you're
like oh he probably had a heart attack
did he have coded right
when i say someone was killed you know
that there is some sort of oppression
happening some sort of violence took
place so they were using that as well
as part of their
their war on words i guess their
propaganda
and furthermore
in east jerusalem in places like beta
salon
there was there's a continuous ethnic
displacement of palestinians
whereby israel
will take homes away from palestinians
and they will give it
to any person who is a who claims to be
jewish from any place in the world
and the most famous the most famous
scene i don't know if you saw this but
it was where moon alcord was confronting
a
a zionist jew from
brooklyn i believe or from long island
new york
and she was like what are you doing in
my house
and he just blatantly said well why are
you
why are you blaming me if i don't do it
someone else will do it if i don't steal
it someone else will steal it yeah that
was the video that went viral yeah yes
and that's when people
like they just pump the brakes they're
like what the records crash was like
what
what happened hold up did that man just
actually say that if i don't steal it
someone else will steal it and then that
explosive was happening
whereby the government
and the
in the israeli supreme court just issues
orders
in order to get any jew from any jewish
person from any place in the world to
take over the home of a palestinian as
part of a larger ethnic displacement
program
and then that is just simply what's
happening and and then some as well in
the west bank settlements are all
illegal settlements by the way which are
illegal by international law are being
built
throughout the west bank military
checkpoints everywhere to ensure that
palestinians will never ever be able to
have you know a state to make sure that
palestine palestine will be annexed
slowly but surely until there's
absolutely no other option
but for israel to take over all of
historic palestine and in a nutshell
that's what's happening in uh in
palestine and the only thing that as pal
as people outside of palestine
palestinians and pro-palestinians the
only thing we can do at this point
is the most important thing and that's
raise awareness
give
give them a voice
when the media censors censors them
to be able to speak to pressure our
politicians our elected representatives
whereby in canada and the states can the
states are one of the biggest sponsors
of israel
be the united states giving israel 3.8
billion dollars a year
in canada selling israel hundreds of
million dollars in military technology
so it is on us as canadian citizens as
american citizens to be able to stand up
for palestinian human rights
and pressure our own governments to stop
funding oppression
because we need to remember
palestine is not just a palestinian
issue
palestine is not just a muslim issue
palestine is not just an arab issue
palestine is a humanitarian issue and if
you claim to care about humanitarian
issues about human rights about justice
then you have to also care about
palestine
and you also had a lot of how many this
year you have a lot of rabbis you have
israelis at this convention like mikko
pillaid
he's there you had the rabbi weiss yeah
yeah
and there was a lot of
i don't believe
trying to remember how many more there
were
but there were quite a few either
palestinians who lived in palestine or
israelis who also
saw what israel was doing they grew up
like incapable who grew up in the
israeli system
thought that these palestinians were
savages and then slowly realized and
started talking to them that it was
actually
the other way around and that israel was
oppressing palestinians but it was
definitely very insightful and it's very
very important that people don't don't
always see this is that jewish allies
for the palestinian cause are some of
the most important allies and that's
because
when people just see palestinians or
pro-palestinians talk about palestine
they just you they assume oh
it's a muslim thing all these muslims
these arabs right
obviously it's jews versus muslims when
that is not the case
it's
as palestinians we understand
pro-palestinian activists we understand
it's not judaism that's doing this in
palestine it's zionism and many jews
oppose
zionism and zionism is the political
movement the political ideology that has
hijacked judaism and used it in order to
further their own political agenda and
it's important to be able to
differentiate between these two so when
people see a jewish rabbi speaking
against israel it really
causes them to
to think and rethink their stance yeah
he has a good book if anybody wants to
get more informed somebody who doesn't
really know what's going on i believe
it's called the general son yes yes yeah
that's why mikko pillared
and um
yeah
so it's really nice uh talking with you
yeah thank you very much for having me
very nice being here yeah may allah
protect you and preserve you and uh get
you home safe and insha allah insha
allah and uh inshallah we can hook up
again sometime sounds good if ever in
canada let me know likewise
chicago definitely
thank you