AMY GOODMAN: Professor Khalidi, I want to get your response to the latest developments in Gaza. At least six more Palestinians have starved to death there in the past 24 hours as famine spreads. At least 181 Palestinians, including 94 kids, have now died from hunger-related causes in Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed at least 92 Palestinians Sunday, including 56 who died seeking food. Another 34 Palestinians have been killed so far today. And yesterday, on Sunday, an Israeli strike hit the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Khan Younis, destroying the facilities, one staff member killed. Can you respond, Professor Khalidi, to what’s happening there now, the emaciated video of hostages coming out? You had 10,000 Israelis protesting in Tel Aviv, demanding a ceasefire, demanding an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.

RASHID KHALIDI: I wish nobody were starving in Gaza, but the cause of that is Israel’s war on Gaza, including the starvation of the hostages, if in fact they’re starving. And that’s enabled by the United States. The United States put up the money for these killing fields — calling it international, humanitarian, whatever they call it — where hundreds of people are killed every single day. And only people who are young and able — and there are not that many left in Gaza — are even able to access these sites. The United States is responsible for this.

We, Americans, should be protesting this. The bombs that they dropped on the Red Crescent headquarters, in which one staffer was killed, are American bombs. They have bombed every single hospital in Gaza at least once, and some of them have been completely destroyed. They have destroyed every single university in Gaza. They’ve destroyed water treatment plants. They’ve destroyed sewage treatment plants. This is genocide. And this is American-facilitated, -supported, -financed genocide. The Israelis should stop the war. The Israeli people should rise up. But it is Americans who have to rise up. It is our war. It is our money. These are our bombs. These are our bullets. Every single warplane in the Israeli arsenal is American — F-35, F-15, F-16. Every single combat helicopter is American. They do not do what they’re doing without the United States holding them up. And we must stop this.

The specifics of the massacres of people at these so-called humanitarian aid centers are an American initiative. The United States is enabling Israel to slaughter people seeking food, in a situation where Israel is systematically starving. I think that — I think that — I mean, my reaction is we have to do more. We are responsible. The United States government and people are responsible. And to their credit, most Americans have now woken up. Support for Israel is at the lowest point that it’s ever been in the entire history to the Zionist project or of the state of Israel. More than — a majority of Americans oppose Israel’s war on Gaza, including growing numbers even of Republicans. It’s time for Americans to stand up and force the Trump administration and force the craven cowards in our Congress to do something to stop this. To their credit, 27 Democratic senators voted to stop arms aids to Israel. Much, much more has to be done, by all of us.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Khalidi, the Khalidis are one of the most prominent families on the West Bank. I wanted to ask you about what’s going on there. Israeli authorities are continuing to refuse to release the body of the Palestinian activist Odeh Hadalin, who was fatally shot by an Israeli settler last Monday in the occupied West Bank. Israel is also still detaining seven members of his family. Sixty Palestinian women from village of Umm al-Khair began a hunger strike Thursday to demand justice. On Sunday, Israelis held demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to protest Odeh’s killing and also the withholding of his body, the young man who worked on the Oscar-winning film No Other Land. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities have released the settler accused of killing Hadalin, Yinon Levi. He had been under house arrest. Earlier this year, the Trump administration lifted the Biden-era sanctions on him. Your response?

RASHID KHALIDI: All of this is par for the course. The Israelis have imposed conditions for this poor man’s family to hold a funeral. They’re not allowed to bury him in his home village. They’re not allowed to have public mourning for him. And this is what they do all the time. They’re holding the bodies of hundreds of Palestinians whom they’ve refused to return to their families, alleged, quote-unquote, “terrorists,” people who have been engaged in resistance, and others, who have done nothing. And so, this is par for the course.

There is a jackboot military dictatorship in a country that claims that half the population under its control have no rights, but claims that it’s a democracy. What kind of democracy is it when half of its subjects have absolutely no rights, are subject to this kind of treatment, murdered by settlers, the settler who murders them goes free, the body of the victim is held in a refrigerator somewhere? It’s typical of the way in which this institution operates.

You have ministers — I mean, our family is actually from Jerusalem. And you had a senior minister go up to the Haram al-Sharif and lead public prayers of several thousand — apparently, he was with several thousand other Israeli extremists, leading public prayers in an area which never — in which that was never, never allowed, under any regime, including the Israeli military occupation, previously. This was never, never acceptable. Imagine people going into a synagogue or a church and having Muslim prayers. Imagine. And this is what — this is what Ben-Gvir, senior minister in this government — in fact, one of the most important figures in the whole Israeli government — did the other day, on the Tisha B’Av, the 9th of — the date on which Herod’s Temple was destroyed by the Romans.

So, this is typical of the absolute trampling on Palestinian rights all over Palestine, whether we’re talking about people actually being subject to starvation and death in Gaza, or whether we’re talking about people driven out of their homes in Jenin refugee camps, in the southern part of the West Bank, or in Jerusalem, or we’re talking about this kind of ridiculous arbitrary detention. Imagine, a man is killed, they won’t let the family hold a funeral, and they arrest members of his family. And the perpetrator goes free, because he’s a distinguished figure in the settler movement, which dominates this government.

I mean, it’s time for people to wake up and realize that this crystal, ideal vision of Israel is a lie. It is a systematically developed, systematically built-up lie. This is a state that has deprived an entire people of its national rights for generations. This is a state that is built on theft of other people’s property, their land, their property — their books. Books of everybody in the cities that were conquered in 1948 were taken and are now in the Israeli National Library. We’re talking about theft on a scale — on a vast scale, going back decades and decades and decades. And you can see videos of Israeli soldiers, posts of them stealing things from Palestinian homes in Gaza to this day. So, I think it’s time for people to wake up. I think it’s time for this idealized vision of Israel to shatter and for people to come to terms with the fact that we are funding and financing this ethnic cleansing, this genocide, this theft, day by day by day, of people’s land in the West Bank.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Khalidi, I wanted to get your response to this protest that took place on Friday. Democracy Now! was there.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now! We’re standing outside the offices of New York Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. Jewish Voice for Peace has shut down this office building. A number of people are getting arrested. Inside, others are about to be arrested, among them New York State Assemblymember Claire Valdez of Queens and New York City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán. Also protesting are the actor Sara Ramírez of Sex and the City and other TV shows, as well as well over a hundred people, Jews and their supporters. Their T-shirts say “Stop arming Israel” and “Stop starving Gaza.”

PROTESTERS: Not in our name! Not on our dime! No more money for Israel’s crimes! Not in our name! Not on our dime! No more money for Israel’s crimes! We want justice! You say “how?” End the siege on Gaza now! We want justice! You say “how?” End the siege on Gaza now!

AMY GOODMAN: Are you getting arrested?

TIFFANY CABÁN: We’re going to stay here until they take us out.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

TIFFANY CABÁN: Because we have to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza right now. It hasn’t been two weeks, two months. It has been far, far too long. And our government is funding this genocide.

AMY GOODMAN: What can you do as a New York City councilmember?

TIFFANY CABÁN: Stand with my constituents who are demanding an end to the siege in Gaza, who are demanding aid to be let in to help to feed the folks who are starving in Gaza right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Say your name and your position.

TIFFANY CABÁN: Sure. My name is Tiffany Cabán. I’m councilmember of the 22nd District in Queens.

PROTESTERS: Stop starving Gaza! Let Gaza live! Stop starving Gaza!

REP. CLAIRE VALDEZ: I’m here because it’s unconscionable for anyone to stand by while a genocide is perpetrated on innocent people. We’re seeing a human-made famine unfold in Gaza that we’ve been warning about for years and months now. We need to let aid in as soon as possible. We need to stop funding [inaudible] in Gaza. The senators in New York state are complicit in that. They do not stand up against it. That’s why I’m here.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was New York State Assemblymember Claire Valdez and New York City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán. They both were arrested with around 50 other Jewish protesters and their allies in an event that was — a protest that was sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace. Among the people who were protesting were Sex and the City’s Sara Ramírez and many others. As we wrap up, Professor Khalidi, your response to the response, as you just talked about the polls, lowest ever in support of Israel, what needs to happen here in the U.S.?

RASHID KHALIDI: American politicians need to realize that the people oppose their policies of unlimited support for Israel. It’s about time that the people who are elected by the people respond to the demand that’s coming up from almost every sector of American society: Stop this blind support for Israel. End this genocide.

The United States can end it, and it is their responsibility to do it, or they will face a reckoning, because people are not going to support representatives who simply do not represent them on this issue, that everybody realizes is of enormous moral significance. They should wake up and do the right thing for a change. I’m happy to see that some of them have done that. A couple of them were at this protest. Some senators did the right thing the other day. Many, many more need to do the right thing, or they will be tossed out of office, and will deserve to be tossed out of office, by angry constituents — not physically, voted out at the polls.

AMY GOODMAN: Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, author of a number of books, including The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. We’ll link to your piece in The Guardian, “I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump.” He was speaking to us from France.

When we come back, a ProPublica investigation reveals how hundreds of Venezuelan men, deported to El Salvador from the U.S., then released to Venezuela by the Trump administration, say they endured months of physical and mental abuse inside CECOT. Back in 20 seconds.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Contra Todo” by iLe, performed in our Democracy Now! studio.