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Recorded March 21, 2023
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In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP’s Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with Ali Awad, writer & activist from Tuba in Masafer Yatta, and Cassandra Dixon, a carpenter from Wisconsin. On March 7th, Cassandra was present on Ali’s grandfather’s land in Tuba when Israeli settlers attacked. One of them hit Cassandra with a stick and fractured her skull, giving her a concussion. In this podcast, Ali and Cassandra discuss the attack and its aftermath, including appeals to the Israeli authorities to hold the perpetrators accountable, and put this attack into the context of an overall escalation of state-backed settler violence in Masafer Yatta.
Resources and references discussed in this podcast:
- Ali Awad’s Instagram account, where he documents state-backed settler attacks and human rights violations in Masafer Yatta: https://www.instagram.com/ali_awad98/
- Humans of Masafer Yatta, which documents life in Masafer Yatta on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/humansofmasaferyatta/ and on Substack: https://humansofmasaferyatta.substack.com/
- Article by Yuval Abraham on +972 about the attack on Cassandra: Who hits a 64-year-old woman with a bat?
- FMEP podcast from February 2023, Settler Violence: More Than Criminal, in which FMEP’s Kristin McCarthy speaks with Yesh Din’s Ziv Stahl about settler violence and impunity based on this new Yesh Din publication: Data Sheet, December 2022: Law Enforcement on Israeli Civilians in the West Bank (Settler violence) 2005-2022
- FMEP’s spotlight on Masafer Yatta: https://fmep.org/resources/?rsearch=&rcat%5B%5D=671
Bios:
Ali Awad is journalist and activist from the village of Tuba in Masafer Yatta. He is co-founder of the new media project Humans of Masafer Yatta.
Cassandra Dixon is a residential carpenter in Madison Wisconsin and lives near Wisconsin Dells at a Catholic Worker house that provides hospitality to low income women families visiting a loved one at a nearby federal prison. She is 64 years old.
Sarah Anne Minkin is FMEP’s Director of Programs & Partnerships.