Kakhova dam explosion and Fatima Muhammed at CUNY

Black Diplomats

This week on Black Diplomats, I start off with news about the Kakhova dam explosion in the Kherson region that has claimed at least 5 lives and is causing a massive ecocide in the area.

For on the ground coverage, please read these articles that break down what is going on:

The New York Times: U.S. Official Says Spy Satellites Detected Explosion Just Before Dam Collapse

The Moscow Times: Norwegian Seismologists Detect Explosion Signals From Ukraine Dam

The Kyiv Independent: Zelensky: 'Russia needs to bear full responsibility for ecocide'

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My featured guest this week is Nerdeen Kiswani, a Palestinian organizer from New York City and close friend of Fatima Muhammed, the CUNY law graduate student who delivered the student address at this year's graduation. As you all know by now, Fatima’s speech was unfairly criticized for its strong stance against white supremacy and Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians. Of course, it’s all bullshit and untrue.

You can listen to it here. The time stamp is 1:16:54-1:28:30.

Nerdeen, who delivered CUNY Law School graduation address, also drew criticism and accusations of antisemitism for her remarks, which challenged the very white supremacy and Israeli apartheid Fatima did recently.

We spoke about that, why everyone should stand up for Palestine and more. Enjoy.

Here is Nerdeen’s full biography: Nerdeen Kiswani is a Palestinian organizer from New York City. She is the founder and chair of Within Our Lifetime - United for Palestine, a community organization revitalizing the revolutionary spirit of the Palestinians in exile in pursuit of liberation. Nerdeen has spoken for the Palestinian cause at events and conferences worldwide and has organized rallies with tens of thousands of attendees in support of Palestine.

Nerdeen recently graduated from the CUNY school of Law and has organized successful campaigns on and off campus to pass a resolution by the student government and faculty of CUNY Law to cut all ties and divest from all israeli institutions that service the occupation. The resolution also defends the right for Palestinians to resist colonization and calls to protect Palestinian speech. In 2021 Nerdeen led a campaign that successfully defeated a proposal to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism which it equates with anti zionism.

While her organizing led to Zionist organizations orchestrating character assassination campaigns against Nerdeen demanding she is expelled, in the summer of 2021 CUNY Law issued a statement defending Palestinian activism and denouncing anti-palestinian hate. Not only was this the first statement of its kind from a U.S. law school, contrary to the zionist demands to discipline Nerdeen, she was chosen to be the commencement speaker at her graduation, marking another victory for those fighting for Palestine and our refusal to be silenced.