Latest / Israel Policy Pod / The Hostage Crisis: Alana Zeitchik’s Fight for Her Family

Transcript

The Hostage Crisis: Alana Zeitchik’s Fight for Her Family · Israel Policy Pod

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Shalom and welcome to Israel Policy Pod.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I'm Shini Reichman, the Director of Strategic Initiatives and IPF Atid at Israel Policy Forum, and I'm based in New York City.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: This is a very rare week in which we are recording two podcasts, since we had the opportunity to amplify a very important voice for you to hear from.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be joined by Alana Zajic, an Israeli-American advocate, speaker and writer.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: She's written op-eds in the New York Times and the Forward, made countless media appearances, given speeches at the UN and built quite a social media community.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: While she's at it Now, on October 7th, six of her family members were taken hostage by Hamas.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: We will talk about her family, who remains in captivity, the ongoing hostage crisis and the impediments, both political and practical, that are preventing its resolution, as well as the distance and dissonance between Israeli and American Jews in their advocacy and their activism.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome, alana.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you, shani, happy to finally get you on the podcast to talk about this.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: On October 7th, your cousin Sharon Aloni Cuneo and her husband David Cuneo and their three-year-old twins Emma and Yuli, as well as your cousin Danielle Aloni and her five-year-old daughter Amelia, were stolen from kibbutz near Oz in an act of barbaric violence by Hamas.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Sharon Danielle and their three children were released in the November 2023 hostage deal.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: However, your cousin's husband, david Cuneo and his brother Ariel were left behind and they remain in captivity.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Today.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Tell me your family's story.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: What happened on October 7th and how did you find out about it?
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: So I was here in New York and I woke up that morning to, you know, a red alert.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: It's not here, but we all know because my family is all very connected.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: We stay connected to everyone in Israel and we knew that they were missing.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: In our cousin's group chat, sharon, who lived on Mir Oz, was always the first person to tell us that she was okay, and this Saturday we didn't hear from her.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: So we sat around here, my brothers and I, like in New York, my family and I here, watching the news, waiting for news, like everyone else except we were waiting for the news about people that we love, and during that time they were in their safe room in the Mamad and fighting for their lives.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Because, you know, the terrorists were ravaging the kibbutz around them, shooting people, massacring people, setting houses and cars on fire, and they set their house on fire.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: So all six of them were in the room, trying to keep the door closed, by the way, because they didn't have a lock on the door, so they had to actually hold the door shut to make sure no one would get in.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: And the house went up in flames around them and, as time progressed, smoke filled the room and they were choking and they they came to the realization that this was the end for them, that it was either go out the window and be shot or kidnapped, or stay in the room and choke to death as their children were around them.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: You know, they weren't able to breathe.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: The girls were screaming I can't breathe, they can't breathe.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: My cousin Sharon almost passed out and they eventually, you know, decided that they'd rather be shot than choked to death.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: At least my cousin Danielle decided that and said to her daughter you know, I'm sorry, honey, but we're going to die.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: That's really what they believed when they left that room and they went through the window and were miraculously not shot but were put onto tractors and taken to Gaza and bringing back to me in New York, sitting around waiting to find out what was happening to them, one of the twins, yuli, surrounded by terrorists screaming and just taking them across the border.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Goodbye.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Just seeing my family swept away from me, it was deeply traumatizing, I'll say, to see that, and at that point we didn't know if they were alive or dead or otherwise.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: We knew that there was no blood in the room, because once people were able to get onto the kibbutz, we knew that in their house there wasn't any blood and that was a sign of maybe that they were still alive.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And I, at that point, became my family's advocate.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I just started screaming.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, I was on Instagram, quite literally, like sharing stories about it.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: In the moment it came naturally to me to just start screaming about them and what was happening to them.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: And yeah, they were taken away.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: And eventually, you know, a few days later, we got confirmation that they were alive in Gaza.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: And so my mission as an advocate began.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Can you help us get to know Ariel and David a little bit better?
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Those are your two relatives who remain in captivity.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're both kibbutzniks.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: They grew up on the kibbutz.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Um, they're two of four brothers actually.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: David is a twin.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: He has a twin brother named Eitan.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Ariel is the youngest of the family and they have an older brother.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Their parents came to Israel when they were young, from Argentina, so they were Argentinian immigrants to Israel.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: But David and his siblings all grew up there and they really loved living on the kibbutz.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: They really loved that world and the kibbutz.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: They really like, they really loved that world and the community and like the earth.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: You know, they're like that type of simple, simple men.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: David is like quite literally the best husband and father.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: When he joined my family, I was so excited.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I was so excited.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: When he makes my cousin so happy, he really balances out her neuroses and when he had twins of his own, that was like my cousin was terrified and he was so excited to share that connection and that relationship with them and really is the type of father who gets down on the ground and plays with his kids.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: And Ariel is the partner of Abel Yehud, who a lot of people know, who returned a few months ago.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: He's, he and her, were big travelers.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: They wanted to travel the world.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: They had just returned back from a trip and he's a loving uncle to the twins and, like I said, these are just good boys.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: They're just good young men who deserve to live and deserve to be home.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing that context about them.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I think it helps us humanize and personalize the experience.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: What has it been like to be?
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many of your relatives are with you in New York City advocating alongside you, but I definitely see you all over the community raising awareness and, as you said, really shouting to bring them home.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: What has that experience been like for you the past 21 months?
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: What has that experience been like for you?
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: the past 21 months it's been life-changing, truly.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I never expected to find myself in this position, but in some ways it feels like a calling, like if this horror was going to happen to my family, at least I was here to do something about it.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I have my two brothers here and my parents, and everyone advocates differently.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: For me, speaking up and using my voice comes naturally to me.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: For my brothers they did it in their own ways, but for me it's become kind of a full-time job in many ways.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: I mean especially in the beginning.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: In the beginning I really was everywhere.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: I was on every single news channel, from here to CNN, romania, um.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: But during that time I uncovered, you know, a lot of things, a lot of holes.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: I wasn't in the Jewish advocacy world before this.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: I was just living my life, um, and I am a problem solver.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: So when I started seeing all of these holes and all of these kind of fractures, both in my political reality here in New York, in the States, within the Jewish community, between Americans and Israelis, and I just felt like there is so much more work to be done, and so I continue to try and do that now.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: But it hasn't been easy.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: It hasn't been easy because, on the one hand, everything is so polarized and divided, everything is seen through a political lens.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: No matter what you say, someone has a political opinion to project back onto you.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: So, for me, I have tried to place the humans of everyone, my family or Palestinians I try to place the humans at the forefront of everything that I do.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: I try to place, you know, human behavior and emotions and feeling at the forefront of what we're doing.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Of course, politics is a huge part of it all, but I think that I personally feel like I have to lead with humanity in order to even be able to have effective political discussions.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thinking about the politicization of this issue.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: You've advocated.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: You started advocating for your family under the Biden administration.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: You've continued under the Trump administration.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: What does it look like to engage in Washington in the last administration and in this?
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've noticed any differences.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Obviously, there have been hostage deals secured under both administrations, so I'm sure you have you know what to be grateful for to both of them.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Look, I spent more time in Washington during the Biden administration.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Personally, Unlike a lot of the other family members, I'm an American with very strong, loud American politics.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: So I would say, for me personally, things have shifted, because I do things a little bit harder.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: It's not that I don't want to engage in that, I don't want to be there, but I think it's a little bit harder for me when I am generally in opposition to the current US administration.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: That said, I would talk to anyone about my family and I would never turn away from it, and I have continued to advocate wherever I can.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: In general, though, I would say both administrations are incredibly equally sympathetic to the cause.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: A lot of the weight falls on other advocates here who are not American.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: A lot of the weight falls on other advocates here who are not American who are advocating here in the US, and I've heard a lot about, you know, the care and the treatment that the hostage families are really receiving, and the attention that this administration is giving them is really similar to what we saw from Um, from the previous administration.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Steve Whitcoff has been a really like a source of strength for the family members, has gone to Israel quite a lot Um and look, both secure deals for us.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I will say I do feel that the deal that already happened was still Biden's deal.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: This was a deal that existed a year ago, that I was advocating for a year ago, that I was in Washington last July advocating about, and should have happened a lot sooner, and so you know I really can't give Trump the credit for it, but I do think it was bipartisan is what I'll say.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned that you're willing to speak with anyone and everyone, and so I have to ask you about meeting with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: It's not super common for an Israeli American, jew to be engaging with her, so can you tell me more about that and what brought you to meet with?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: her and I understand the reasons why I don't agree with every reason, but I understand them and I found myself there last summer in July.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: It was when Netanyahu came to speak to Congress and I was there on an advocacy trip and sort of in protest of that, with a group of other hostage family members.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: But part of our group was also a Palestinian, a Gazan American, named Ahmed F Vod Al-Khatib, who a lot of people are really familiar with.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: He's now at the Atlantic Council and has an incredible vision for the pro-Palestine movement called Realign for Palestine, and he's become a really good friend of mine and a close ally and we decided to go meet with her together.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: We decided to really embody what it looks like to bring a shared vision of Israel and Palestine to a very contentious, polarizing political figure in Washington.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: We wanted to present a united front where we were able to have her hear our stories side by side, not on one side here and one side there and we wanted to show, we wanted to share the stories together.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: The story of my family is obviously incredibly painful.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of children in my family who were, who were kidnapped, and their experience in captivity was horrific and I was able to walk her through all of those details, and Ahmed has lost 33 family members and has horrific stories about some of those family members, of course.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: And I wanted to do that because I wanted to challenge the way that people think we should be advocating and I wanted to, you know, create a new, and also I wanted to create a line of communication between me and her office and her team, because the way I view it is, if we want people to change, if we want people to evolve, we have to have a voice in the room, so I can't turn my back to someone I don't agree with.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I had to make a relationship and therefore, when I feel like I can, if she steps out of line, I always have the opportunity to email her and say here's why what I think you're doing isn't okay.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I think this is a great example of your activism or advocacy that's a little bit unconventional for the American Jewish community, and something that you and I have spoken a lot about over the past two years is the distance between how the hostage families and their allies in Israel are viewing this war and how the crisis is perceived in the American Jewish community, both in institutions and at an individual level.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So can you explain the source of this disconnect between how you and the Hostage and Missing Families Forum and their advocates on the ground are viewing this crisis and how you see it playing out here in the States and the Jewish community?
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: So I think the source of it is ultimately Israel is not where they are politically engaged, it is not actually their country.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that there isn't a connection, of course.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I am extremely aware of the American Jewish connection to Israel and I don't want to ever deny that it's a strong bond that we have to maintain, but it's still not their country, that it's a strong bond that we have to maintain, but it's still not their country and it's not their politics.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: And there's a cultural difference as well.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: There's a major one, one growing up.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: One of the reasons why I always loved Israel is that it was different from here in America.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: So we're just different.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: And the disconnect for me has seemed to be that in Israel the hostage cause is really about the government, about pressuring their government to make a deal.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: It's not necessarily about Hamas per se, of course.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Like the overall hostage family forum is really nonpartisan, I would say, or tries to be bipartisan non-partisan, I would say, or tries to be bipartisan.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: But here it's become a little bit of a tool in the rhetoric wars and our fight against anti-Semitism in many ways, and here it's become more of a solidarity campaign.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: So the way I see it is that in Israel it's far more of like an advocacy and activism and a protest movement, and here in America it's far more of like an advocacy and activism and a protest movement, and here in America it's a bit more about solidarity and less about pressuring the Israeli government.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: And I really do think and I have for a long time really felt like that needs to change.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: We can't be letting kind of the right wing voices take over.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: We have to get past our fears of what other people will do if we speak out against the Israeli government, and American Jews, in their love for Israel, need to step up and call out the Israeli government, who does have the power to bring David and everyone home.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Would you say that in the American Jewish community it's used as this, like unifying message, to bring people together across the divide, whereas in Israel there are more clear cut policies and ideologies that different people support and they kind of recognize that, and the hostage families forum tends to take a particular approach.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Others take a different approach, but there's clarity around what people are actually advocating for.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: That's a good question.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: I think in Israel it's very clear what the politics are.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: It's a deal.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: It is a prisoner exchange or an exchange of hostages for prisoners.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Support it, it's actually one of the things.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: I think is so amazing about the hostage cause in Israel is that, even though it is perceived and it is believed to be a left-wing cause in Israel because it doesn't demand military action or any further military action, it still has support from a very wide coalition of people politically who are even very right-wing In America.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's just, it's really the Jewish community and like a certain portion of the Jewish community, not even everyone.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Look, I think even anti-Zionist Jews think the hostages should come home and see their humanity, but I they're not out there like fighting for us, necessarily, but they're also sympathetic towards us, even though some people don't think that, but I believe that most of them are.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I think it's a more powerful movement in Israel.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: I think it's a more powerful example of what you can, how people can rise up together over politics in the name of not just their country but their people.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, despite some of the lack of clarity between those groups, I do know that many diaspora Jews really want to be helpful in the pro-Israel community.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: They just don't necessarily know what to do, but I genuinely believe people when they say bring them home.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I think they mean it and they believe it and they want it, even though you and I could, we might argue that it's a little bit generic and lacks, like the true meaning because of how generic it is, but I really believe that they want to do effective advocacy.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: What would it look like on an institutional level?
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Because the American Jewish community has extremely strong and viable institutions here that do a lot of advocacy work in general.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: So what does it look like for institutions?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And then for individuals, because a lot of American Jews are on social media talking about this every single day.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: So what does it look like to do that in a way that's actually helpful to you and helpful to your cause and has potential to genuinely help bring your cousins home?
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like to see the institutions continue to elevate voices of hostage family members over influencers or advocates who are not so intimately affected by it.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I'd like to see them also elevate Israeli voices, specifically, who are really championing the hostage cause, perhaps even politicians who are part of the opposition.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Those are some things I could see them doing.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I'd really like to see them hold the Israeli government accountable and, look, some of the institutions will say, well, we don't really take sides in politics.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: We're technically nonpartisan, but the truth is at the institutional level, whether it's about just the hostages or about the relationship with Israel, we need them to start breaking this habit of hiding the transgressions committed by the Israeli government against their own people and to ensure that we're not always conflating the Israeli people with their government, that any threat to Israel and its people is a threat, and I would love to see them look, they're probably not going to use language like that that I'm using, but I would like to see them move more in that direction and I would like to see them educate people about the hardships that Israelis face within their own political system and that we, as hostage families, are facing.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: For example, you know there is a lot of media in Israel On the news.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: There is a lot of commentary political and social commentary that's not getting translated to the American Jewish audience.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that we have to translate everything for non-Jewish audiences, but why aren't we making, an institutional level, more of an effort to like actively translate from Hebrew into English and share what's happening and what the hostage families are going through?
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: A lot of them don't realize how awful we've been treated.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: We've been treated horribly by the government, the things that they have said to us, and I feel that if American Jews, if more of them, saw it and knew that, that they would be horrified and they would start to understand.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Now, in regards to other advocates and influencers, I feel very strongly about this, which you and I have talked about and you know this.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I feel deeply frustrated when American influencers or advocates use hostage family members without echoing their demands.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: So really, simply, right in the language, it does matter.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Bring them home is a bit vague.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Let our people go is really specific to Hamas and that's not who the hostage families are focused on.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: We're focused on the Israeli government and placing pressure on them and we want everyone really love to see American Jewish advocates or activists let's say pro-Israel activists and influencers actually echo what we're saying and not use us as some sort of political volleyball or political cause.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: That is really more about Western politics than anything else.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, to tie it to the American politics piece, I think part of the reason we see that here is because people don't want to give a pass to Hamas and the Jewish community, when we know that there are people among us who do normalize Hamas and accept Hamas, and so we want to push back and we want the focus to be on them, and that's what's different in Israel.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: You don't have to have that concern.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: And also, at this point, maybe that doesn't matter as much as actually achieving a hostage deal, right Like.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: The priority needs to be less what do the anti-Semites think and say?
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: And more how do we actually get a hostage deal?
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Which I think is your point, which is that, yes, we need to raise awareness about the awful atrocities committed on October 7th and after by Hamas, and tangible policies matter and we need to be working to achieve those, and what is in our power is to impact the Israeli government.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: What is in your power as hostage families and as Israelis, is to impact the Israeli government.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: There's not a lot of potential to impact Hamas, unfortunately, especially for Israelis and Jews.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, I agree with that and I'll say so.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I will tell people about what Hamas has done to my family until the end of time.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I will, and we can and we should.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: And you're right, there are people who are sympathetic to Hamas and I love putting them in their place, but that's not an effective use of time when David is rotting in a tunnel right now.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: In the very beginning, my message was the hostages must be the only priority, the number one priority, and that's what I was saying on the news every single day after they were taken and what I still say.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And the Israeli government has, even with words, made it clear that it's not the number one priority, and I really want people to stand behind that message that the hostages are the only priority.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: And then we'll get to the rest later.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what does accountability look like for the Israeli government when it comes to this issue?
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: For you, Well, accountability.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Well, first and foremost, I want them to make a deal.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: I want them to make a deal that includes a release of all of the hostages, that includes a withdrawal from Gaza and a commitment to a day after plan that commits to a practical plan for the region, for Israelis and for Palestinians, that involves working with our partners, that ideally helps to expand the Abraham Accords.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: This can be a real moment that we can actually make change in the direction of peace, because peace is an agreement.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Any ceasefire is going to be temporary that's just the truth unless it's an agreement, and what I want to see is agreements.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: But for this government, accountability is stepping down.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: It is calling elections and it is an inquiry into this, into the security failures of of October 7th, so I don't trust that that will ever happen with this government.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: But real accountability we've seen in the past in in history.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Other prime ministers have stepped down immediately.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: That's what I would like to see, and I would like to see a dissolution of this coalition that gives the Israelis an opportunity to put people in power who they feel like they can trust.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: To bring in some of the other sort of calculations.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: When it comes to hostage deals, this is a talking point that you know I don't agree with, but I want to name it, which is that whenever there's a kidnapping in Israel and we had saw it with Gilad Shalit and several other times there are those who warn against advocating for their return.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: There are government officials who continue to insist that advocating publicly for their return is a mistake because it causes the price of the deal to go up and makes it harder to secure their release.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I want to know how you respond to those claims.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Is that something that you hear often from people?
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: I do hear it sometimes.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: I think it is propaganda that is spread by a government who has political reasons of their own that makes them want to silence us and keep us quiet, because they have an initiative, they have a rhetoric and a narrative that they want to present.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Initiative they have a rhetoric and a narrative that they want to present, and it is our voices, our power.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: If I have learned anything in the last 21 months, it's that it's that my voice is power, and anyone who wants to diminish that power should be questioned.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: I know that speaking up for us has been a good thing.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: It has made sure that the hostages are always, are always, being talked about, especially in Israel.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: It's it gets harder.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: New cycles move on.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: The suffering in Gaza is massive and, rightfully, is on the news all the time, here in America at least, and it's critical that we keep speaking up.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: And I think the price that they're talking about is different than the price we're talking about.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: The V is paying a price every single day.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Ariel is paying a price every single day for the government to tell us you know what their lives are worth.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: So I think that people need to wake up to that.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Um, it doesn't mean that we are giving Hamas more.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Um, it also helps for Hamas to know who our family members are and to know that we are giving Hamas more.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: It also helps for Hamas to know who our family members are and to know who we are Like.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I can't tell you this for sure, but I can say I have a hunch that because of our advocacy, emma, one of the twins in my family, she, was separated from the rest of the family early on, like before we ever like.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: When they were taken to Gaza, emma was taken by herself, like at gunpoint, to be alone, and she was alone for the first 10 days of captivity and like some house, and was eventually reunited with her parents, with Sharon and David and Yuli.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know for sure, I have no way of knowing, but we were talking about them so much that everyone knew these were twins and I like to believe that maybe us speaking about this was a way for Hamas to understand who this family was, to reunite them and bring them back together.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Not that Hamas would do it out of the goodness of their heart, but it's a lot easier that way.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: And also we know that the hostages sometimes get to see the news and get to.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: It's the one thing that keeps them going.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: When they come home they tell us seeing us protest, seeing us on the news, it's the only thing that keeps their hope alive.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: So just for that alone it's worth speaking up.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: You're demonstrating the tangible impact of speaking up, even if we don't see the policy outcomes that we would like to see.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: I think is important.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: October 7th shaped the Jewish people globally in a really profound way, probably a once in a generation type of way, and in many ways we are living in a very different reality.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: You hear people describe like a pre-October 7th world and a post-October 7th world.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: How do you believe the war is impacting the Jewish psyche and the Israeli psyche?
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: So there was a recent study that came out by some psychologists out of Harvard who studied this and, at least for the Jewish community, they called it traumatic invalidation.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: So less about the war and more about the response to October 7th.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: I think that has affected all of us, jewish and Israeli, equally.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I think for Israelis in particular, it has reinforced their existing beliefs that the world hates them, that no matter what they do, that the world will still hate them anyway and not care about their lives.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: This is how they kind of have always felt, and I think this has reinforced that, and so I think the trauma that we're collectively experiencing um is going to impact us for generations again, um, and I think we need to approach it with consciousness and figure out how we're going to cope with this and what we're going to do to to not let it control us.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Um, um.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I think that the israeli, the israeli psyche in particular, is on defense more than it ever has been and, like I've always known israelis to be defensive, but I think that it's another level.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: These days, it is um become a coping mechanism, the defense.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: They're unable to see outside of what's in front of them, and I understand, understand it Like I really really do understand it and for me it's really heartbreaking to see because I'm not sure when that will change or if it will ever.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: But I think we're all really shattered and broken and unable to heal as a community as the war continues on.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: I think that we're not able to heal and I'll say the continuation of the war for Israelis is in many ways like a re-traumatization of what their own government has done, the abandonment by their government that I don't think they were ever prepared for, because a lot of people talk about this this contract between the Israeli government and its people that was broken on October 7th and was broken by not bringing back the hostages.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: And I don't know, if not this government, maybe another government will be able to sort of renew that contract or renew that promise with the Israeli people.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: But right now Israelis feel incredibly broken, alone and helpless.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I think yeah.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: My final question will bring this more to our domestic politics.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: You live in Brooklyn and you're a progressive and you're a peace activist.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't mention this earlier, but you run the Narrow Bridge Project, which is a dialogue project, so you do engage really across the political spectrum, but with the far left, too, circles that I think of as being pretty hostile to Israel.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: So what have your relationships with allies, friends, colleagues been like over the last 21 months?
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Have you found support in surprising places?
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Has it been an ongoing struggle?
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: What is it like?
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: places.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Has it been an ongoing struggle?
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: What is it like?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I wrote my op-ed in the New York Times.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: You know about this, about the, the feeling of being left behind by the liberal progressive spaces that I live in.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I live in a part of Brooklyn where there's never been a hostage poster ever, once, ever once in my neighborhood where I live and other neighborhoods I spent a lot of time in there were, but they were always ripped down and it was really painful to see that amongst community, because I think, like, as Jews, like we, I don't know I think we really understand what community means, and so I was really shocked to see what I thought was my community doing that I would say, like real friends have stuck by my side, but still not everyone speaks up.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: There's a difference.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Not everyone is willing to take the risk, the risk of speaking up for an Israeli.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Some people I just say goodbye to Goodbye, like I'm not interested in some relationships and I'm totally fine with that.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Like I, it's sometimes a blessing to find out who is so politically like um, uh, extreme.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Or politically like I'm not in a political cult, I don't want to be part of one.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: So in some ways there's been a silver lining of discovering that I don't have to be part of a cult anymore, um, but I have found new relationships because I've had to try, and these are some of my most fulfilling relationships.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Now I've made a lot more friends across the spectrum, even more to the right of me and to the left of me, and I have, I feel, a wider tent of people in my life.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Now I have amassed quite a a large number of Palestinians, of Palestinian peace activists I didn't know before and they have been an amazing silver lining on this for me.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: I never.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: It took me a while to find them, but once I did, then I just found more and more and that has been that has been really comforting.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: But I've also I've made new friends.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: That has been really comforting.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: But I've also I've made new friends.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Like you know, I have, like, a journalist in like Amsterdam who I've become friends with, who's very, very much the left, but she loves me and we FaceTime sometimes.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I just I try to lead everything as relationships first, as humans first, and so there are people who I really strongly disagree with on a lot of things, and so there are people who I really strongly disagree with on a lot of things, but I have developed new relationships that I think will help me continue to advocate for things that matter to me in the future and that listen to this what is a suggestion for a way to be talking about, or I don't know if there's like a slogan or language that we can use to talk about the hostages.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: That is more helpful than what we are currently doing.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think we touched on it before.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: But, like, bring them home is great, but it still continues to be ambiguous in regards to the demand.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: The demand is a deal.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: The demand is a diplomatic deal which includes the end of the war.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: So in Israel we're all saying end the war and make a deal to bring all of the hostages home.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Today is Emma and Yuli's fifth birthday.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: It is their second birthday without their father.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: The last time they saw him was when they left him in Hamas captivity.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: And my cousin spoke last Saturday at the rally that happens every Saturday night and she said we made a deal with Lebanon, with Hezbollah, we made a deal with Iran.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Now it's time to make a deal to end the war and make a deal for Emma and Yuli.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: So that's what people need to echo.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, alana.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: It was really wonderful to speak with you.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you were able to join us.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Thanks again to Alana Zajic for the generous time and for sharing her family's story, as well as her experience and insights on the fight to bring all the hostages home and to end the war, a call that we at Israel Policy Forum have echoed.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Also, special thanks to our producer, jacob Gilman, and to all of those who support Israel Policy Forum's work On this episode.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: We won't encourage you to donate to Israel Policy Forum, but rather to consider a donation to the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, whose website we will add in the show notes.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Once again, I'm Shani Reichman, and thank you for listening.