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

Omar Suleiman argues the Gaza conflict is a predictable outcome of decades of occupation, apartheid, and US-shielded impunity — not a spontaneous crisis.

• In 2023 alone, over 600 Palestinians were killed and 13,000 new Israeli settlement units were advanced before Oct 7.
• Human Rights Watch (2021) and Amnesty International (2022) both formally designated Israel’s policies as apartheid.
• Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh lost his wife, two children, and a grandchild to an airstrike while reporting live; later lost a son in a separate targeted strike.
• AP documented Israeli snipers kept tallies of Palestinian knees shot during the nonviolent Great Return March — many Gazans now walk without legs.
• A 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, was stabbed 26 times in Illinois in an anti-Muslim hate crime directly following Oct 7 media coverage.
• Suleiman rejects ‘why won’t Arab states take refugees’ framing as bigotry, comparing it to the US turning away Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust in 1939.
• He says interest in Islam surged after Oct 7 — more people converting and reading the Quran than he has seen in his lifetime, drawn by Gazan resilience on video.

Guests: Omar Suleiman — Palestinian-American Muslim scholar, civil rights leader, President of Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research · 2024-01-31 · Watch on YouTube