Kathleen Peratis: Visiting Gaza

Unsettled

The Gaza strip has been under Israeli siege for 14 years, with cycles of violence happening over and over again. In the latest round of fighting, at least 254 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died. 2 million people live in the Gaza strip, and they’ve endured over a decade of air raids, and an economic blockade that deprives them of basic necessities, like power and clean water. But in the Jewish community, conversations about Gaza tend to focus only on Hamas terrorism and claims of widespread antisemitism. Kathleen Peratis has been to Gaza five times in the last decade, and what she saw there tells a very different story. In this episode of Unsettled, Kathleen talks about what she learned from her experiences in Gaza and the people she met while she was there.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Kathleen Peratis is a Partner at Outten and Golden, an employment justice law firm in Manhattan. She's also the Co-Chair of the Middle East and North Africa Division for Human Rights Watch, and the former director of the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, succeeding Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Kathleen's published works on her time in Gaza:

• One Day in Gaza (May 2011)
• If You Want Two States, Support BDS (October 2013)
• Remember Gaza (November 2013)
• Walking Amid the Rubble of Gaza (September 2014)

Unsettled's 4-part series on Gaza:

• The Great March (Gaza, ep. 1)
• Refugees (Gaza, ep. 2)
• Hamas (Gaza, ep. 3)
• Energy (Gaza, ep. 4)