This is a conversation with Mohammed Sulaiman, a Palestinian writer and researcher who grew up in Gaza and currently works at the University of South Australia.

The core of our conversation was Mohammed’s two essays for Hummus For Thought:

• Wretched of the Earth: Thoughts on Syria, Palestine and Discourse (2016)
• Israel and ‘The Right to Maim’ (2017)

Topics discussed: growing up in Gaza and surviving the Israeli wars and blockade; his and his partner’s difficult journey to Australia, himself via Israel and herself via Egypt; the Western Left’s failures on Syria and Bosnia as well as its relationship to Palestine; the dehumanisation of Palestinians and Syrians; Israel’s politics of domination; Israel’s ‘right to maim’ as inherent to colonial logic through Jasbir Puar’s work; and Palestinians being asked to show gratitude by self-appointed ‘saviors’.

This episode was re-posted on May 18th 2021 with a brief new intro.

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Music by Tarabeat.