Noura Erakat, Palestinian-American humans rights lawyer and professor

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? the History Bureau Putin and the Apartment Bombs listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts with the European Athletics Championships the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport and the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists More Than The Score from the BBC World Service.

1:05Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

1:15Hello, I'm Nomiya Iqbal, the BBC's North America correspondent. And this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world. I'm disappointed in him. I had a deal done four times and then you go home and you see just attack a nursing home in Kiev. I said, what the hell was that all about? I was still in an induced coma in hospital when the world was defining me, but I was still 15 years old and I did not know who I was. I love singing and so my goal was always to do better and better at it. Today we are spending trivians on war and peanuts on peace.

1:54For this interview, I met Noura Erekat, a Palestinian-American human rights lawyer and a professor of Africana Studies and Criminal Justice at Rutgers University in the States. By the time she enrolled in law school, Nora knew she wanted to fight for the Palestinian cause. As well as being a legal scholar, she is also an outspoken advocate for justice in Palestine. She went on to become one of the first Palestinian women to address the United Nations Security Council in October this year, where she spoke passionately on the plight of women and girls in Gaza. The International Association of Genocide Scholars declared in September that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, which Israel denies, and says their actions are justified as a means of self-defense.

2:39Nora Erekat reflects on the global response to the war in Gaza and what international law can and cannot do in times of crisis. We explore what accountability might look like, how narratives around resistance and violence are shaped, and why for many Palestinians the law has so often failed them. She also talks about growing up as part of the Palestinian diaspora in the United States, survivor's guilt, and how this has all shaped her life. Palestine still was very central to my identity. I grew up with a lot of family. It wasn't until I got to college, you know, and nobody knew where it was. Everybody thought, oh, Pakistan, you're from Pakistan.

3:19They couldn't even name Palestine. And I was very proud. I was always, you know, doing Dapke for the cultural night. I, you know, I was very involved civically and it was just, you know, but I took it for granted how politicized my identity was until I got to college and I realized, oh, there are people who know where this is. This is a matter of public discourse. I can be involved. And hence begins a new chapter of my life where I decide I care about all of humanity, but clearly there is not enough advocacy on the question of Palestine and so here this is where I will contribute. Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Nora Erekat, Palestinian American human rights lawyer and professor.

4:06When I enroll and go to law school, I have a singular goal of wanting to become a human rights attorney for the Palestinian cause. I believe in all of humanity but I think that too little has been done about Palestine And so I want to become a Palestinian human rights attorney. And this naivety, you know, makes me believe that the law will overcome the political obstacles that have been put in our place. And if I can just come up with a better legal argument, I can compel a panel of judges. So some 20 years later, when I'm addressing the Security Council for the first time, this is the apex of what any human rights attorney trained as a human rights attorney would want to do.

4:40You're entering into, you know, the lion's den, so to speak, the sole source of enforcement authority in the international system. So it's a big deal. You must have felt like real pressure, like this is such an important moment for you. I was, in the course of the genocide, only the second Palestinian woman to address the council. So knowing that, I constructed an argument because this was also part of the open debate on women and security and peace. And so this was monumental to celebrate 25 years since the Security Council resolution determined that women are central to any sustainable peace and must be included within that framework.

5:23I am presenting this to the Security Council an argument that Palestinian women are not only excluded from peacemaking, as all Palestinians are, but are also subject to a particular kind of gender and sexual violence that has rendered the reproductive capacity to be moot in the service of undermining the possibility of a Palestinian future. You know, this is known as reproside, right? But also it is a pillar. It satisfies three of the specific acts of the Genocide Convention. We can demonstrate genocide, preventing births, preventing even becoming pregnant, then preventing a safe opportunity to be able to deliver, then preventing an opportunity to be able to survive, all within a gendered framework.

6:08You know, I did that in a way that brought in all of the Palestinian women who couldn't be there to speak for themselves, because as you are familiar, the United States earlier this year has denied all visas to Palestinians to enter the United States. So I was using also my privilege as, you know, a U.S. born Palestinian in the diaspora to center the voices of Palestinian women to be able to speak for themselves and be heard in that chamber. When it comes to the UN, though, I wonder, you know, everything you've laid out there, the importance of that stage, do you think it still has power and value in terms of a crucial role to play?

6:49I mean, we've seen the way the US sort of has this, certainly under President Trump, has this very tumultuous relationship with the UN, where a lot of the UN actions are kind of ignored, aren't they? But I just wonder, from your point of view, how high do you hold up the UN? Do you still think it's a very important institution? I think it must be a very important institution. I think we must make it so. Because the UN is born out of the ashes of a failed League of Nations that was unable to stem, you know, a fascist Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1936. It was born out of the ashes of being unable to stem a world war and the annihilation of Jewish people across Europe.

7:31And so it is born as a response to our failures as humanity. And so when we ask, is the UN doing what it's supposed to do? No, but we must make it meet its potential. We're at a crisis point. And that's why it's really refreshing when we hear, for example, the Malaysian president say, let's revisit the authority of the Security Council, that the five permanent members cannot exercise their veto power in the case of atrocity crimes. Right. So now we're seeing, you know, at least the seeds being planted. We do not have to stay this way. This must be reformed. And the infallible optimist in me. And so I left the Security Council imbued and reminded of what, you know, many of us already know, no one is coming to save us, that we are the only ones who can save ourselves, and that humanity must prevail.

8:24And so I left squarely convinced and uplifted that we are the only people who can save ourselves. And we have to do this. You said that, you know, you're conscious of your privilege as a Palestinian born in America. So can you tell us what the situation is actually like for women and girls in Gaza? Well, I encourage all listeners to read those women and girls who are writing despite the siege, who have literally written in the course of starvation, of, you know, harm being done to them. Despite all that, they're still writing. And many of them are writing in English because they're hopeful that you'll read it.

9:04So some of the testimony that I read were about women that gave birth without anesthetic, who said that they could feel every part, having C-sections without anesthetic, feeling their body ripped apart. Other women like Shema Abdel Thabit, who miscarried in her first pregnancy because her shelter was being bombed and she was running away and frantic. other testimony of a woman who, you know, under the name of a pseudonym of Muna, who the hospitals were so full in refah that she was forced to give birth in a public bathroom. And then afterwards, be so emaciated and malnourished, they could not breastfeed their own children.

9:46And later, parents had to watch their six-year-old Asma die because there's no food to sustain her, her immunity is destroyed and there's no hospitals to take her to. These are the stories Palestinian women are telling us. As a Palestinian American, what was life like for you when you were growing up? I'm really curious to know how much you were aware of what it meant to be Palestinian and how did you sort of understand your identity? Tell me a little bit about that. Well, I am the daughter of, you know, first generation immigrants. I'm born shortly after they arrive in the United States. And so I grow very much in like this, in an immigrant bubble.

10:25And I am aware that I am a girl in the world well before I realize I'm Palestinian or Muslim or Arab or even an immigrant. Right. I just am very aware that I'm a girl because I have brothers. There's a maldistribution of privileges and responsibilities. I'm naming it as unfair. I'm seeing it in that way. And it's that lens that's allowing me to see how superiority and privilege is constructed and not natural, right? By the time I become aware that I'm Palestinian, it's very cultural. My family, and this might make me distinct from younger generations of Palestinians, my family is not encouraging me to be politically active.

11:07They're not telling me stories of our homeland or giving me a key and saying we have the right to return. If anything, they're discouraging me from even becoming involved because they've escaped and they want me to create some sort of alternative future. That's interesting. I mean, do you think that was deliberate? Do you think they just wanted you to fit in and not be burdened by any of that? They wanted me to escape what I guess I would call the responsibility to advance our cause of liberation. But what they would describe as a burden that has harmed so many around them that they had seen destroy and take away so many lives.

11:44And for what? You know, that was the constant thing. Like, you know, all these other leaders couldn't do anything. What are you doing? I mean, it was to the point of even being punished to keep me away from it. But Palestine still was very central to my identity. I grew up with a lot of family. It wasn't until I got to college, you know, and nobody knew where it was. Everybody thought, oh, Pakistan, you're from Pakistan. They couldn't even name Palestine. And I was very proud. I was always, you know, doing Depke for the cultural night. I, you know, I was very involved civically. And it was just, you know, but I took it for granted how politicized my identity was until I got to college.

12:22And I realized, oh, there are people who know where this is. This is a matter of public discourse. I can be involved. And hence begins a new chapter of my life where I decide I care about all of humanity. But clearly, there is not enough advocacy on the question of Palestine. And so here, this is where I will contribute. And, you know, and I cared about the world. I thought I would be the first American woman secretary of state. I wanted to work on, you know, homelessness, on women's issues. I wanted to work on, but in a very universal way. The turning point to dedicate myself, you know, focused on Palestine comes when in my freshman year of college, I receive a scholarship of, you know, a few hundred dollars for, you know, getting above a 4.0 or whatnot.

13:11And so I got a scholarship and I lied to my parents and I told them that I had a job and they were sending me to Palestine to work in a refugee camp. They would have never been okay if they knew I received the scholarship money and used the money to buy a ticket. And when I get to the refugee camp, that's when I begin to see, wow, our struggle is varied and vast. And it puts me, in a tailspin, especially when I see the disconnect between general Palestinian society and Palestinian refugees who are contained in one square kilometer refugee camps. And then later, I'm in Palestine studying abroad when the second intifada begins.

13:51And my neighbor in Abu Dish, I'm studying at Hebrew U, and I'm the only Palestinian there using my best Hebrew in these classrooms. One of the first five Palestinians killed at the start of the second intifada is my neighbor. And I'm driven so much by survivor's guilt. How is it that I get to survive all of this? Because I have a blue passport and I can leave. I hear that a lot, Noura, about survivor's guilt. I mean, even the fact that you're born here. Number one, that's complete fortune, right? No, that's complete fortune. I could have been born in Refah had my family been moved in a particular way.

14:30I could have been born in Lebanon and continued to be stateless. Or I could have been born in a refugee camp, but I'm born in the United States. What really motivates me first and foremost is humanity. I am driven by humanity. I have just become aware in the course of coming to political maturation that Palestinians have been excluded even from progressive agendas that agree with me on everything else. That motivation was driven, I'm sure, by PTSD, by survivor's guilt, I'm sure. And it took years to be able to pause and to say, I don't want to be driven by guilt. I'm going to be driven by love.

15:13And that includes love of the humanity that initially drove me and love and grace for myself, because when you're driven by guilt, you can never do enough. And so you have no grace for yourself or for others.

15:28You're listening to the interview from the BBC World Service People shaping our world from all over the world If journalism is the first draft of history What happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed Hundreds killed But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

16:10With the European Athletics Championships, the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place, 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport. And the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action, bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

16:47For this episode of The Interview, I'm speaking to Nora Erekat. I wanted to really get a sense of what life is like for the Palestinian diaspora. What's significant here is that Nora is also a Palestinian American, born and raised in a country that is Israel's closest ally. Human rights lawyers and scholars can often speak in a way that feels weighty and clinical. But what struck me about Nora was the way she blended her personal experience as a Palestinian in a way that just felt very real and accessible. OK, let's return to my conversation with Noura Erekat. You went on to set up this e-zine, didn't you, in 2010 to cover the Arab world.

17:28Tell me about how that came about and why you felt that you needed to set that up. So the primary brainchild of Jadaliya, an electronic magazine on the Middle East, is Professor Bassam Haddad, who brought us together, you know, a number of, you know, folks in academia and advocacy and basically had said, look, All the knowledge production on the Middle East in this form is done in order to help the U.S. or other, you know, other colonial powers advance their interests, their national interests in the Middle East. Right. Or to talk about the Middle East. But there's no form that allows peoples of the Middle East to speak for themselves.

18:06And so we launched this. You know, this is the moment of the proliferation of blogs and magazines. And, you know, now you can do it independently. It didn't exist. So we built it. Now, two months, literally two months after we launched, the Mohammed Bouazizi self-immolates in Tunisia, thus sparking the Arab uprisings that we see. We are in the right place at the right time. And now all of this academic expertise in our field, we are able to filter into shorter form to be accessible and distributed. And it creates, you know, Jadaliya basically fills a space, you know, unbeknownst to us. And this is what we have continued to do now publishing across the region in multiple languages and in multiple disciplines.

18:50Since the war began, I mean, I've certainly seen this. And of course, I know you will have. There has been this much bigger spotlight now on Palestinians and their rights. We're seeing that on social media. You know, certainly I would say that I have seen more people talk about what's happening to Palestinians, what's happening in Gaza, especially younger generations who probably didn't know a lot, right? Or anything. Or anything at all. Or if they did, they knew it from a certain angle. I'm curious to know from your point of view how you have seen the conversation change and what that has been like for you.

19:29Yes, you are absolutely correct. There has been an absolute explosion across social media of the production of knowledge, of covering the stories, of telling the stories, where we have seen Palestinians speak for themselves. We've followed the genocide because brave Palestinian journalists who were systematically targeted took that risk to show us and to bring us in when Israel had imposed and continues to impose a media blackout so that we cannot see. And so this duality exists. Now, what does that mean in the future? We're really at a turning point where the biggest site of battle for those outside of Palestine.

20:08But those outside of Palestine, especially for those in the United States, have a tremendous responsibility because we're funding this and we're providing the cover to Israel at the UN Security Council to continue to do it through impunity. And we're providing arms. And so for us, the greatest battle in this moment is a narrative battle. How will this moment be remembered? I mentioned the social media, but actually, if you look at the political level as well, things seem to have shifted. So obviously, we know that the US has long been Israel's biggest ally, still very much is at the political level.

20:41But there is this shift in terms of voters, right, who are caring more about Palestinian rights, you have high profile members of the Republican Party saying, why are we pledging allegiance to Israel? So I would love to know what you make of those shifts. And do you think they will make any kind of difference in the long run to the Palestinian cause? Absolutely, it's going to make a difference because this is about to be a generational struggle. Everybody who saw what they saw cannot unsee it. And that generation in some time will become those in power, will become the leaders and will become those in political power, cultural power, right, financial power and so on.

21:21That I think that this is a generational shift that we're seeing the beginning of it. How does that translate on the ground for Palestinians? That's unknown and yet to be seen when almost nothing has changed. The conditions are worsening on the ground. And even that debate that you're talking about amongst the Republican, amongst the right, who, you know, America first, why are we pledging allegiance to Israel? Their main issue of discontent is why don't we have the right to free speech? And why do I have to care about Israel? And why is my money tax dollars going there? Their main concern isn't Palestinians.

21:55Who are the next Palestinian leaders that can create that freedom, that can take it to that level that you're talking about? Who are they? For those who are keen on Palestinian leadership of merging in full force, we need to do our part to do no harm, which means arms embargo, which means an end of aid, which means allowing international norms, and at least give the chance of a popular Palestinian leadership to emerge. To imagine that Palestinians are able to rebuild in a moment where children are still being blown up because, you know, they're in unexploded landmines that have been left across Gaza, where there are no hospitals, schools or even homes to get shelter in.

22:40It really is insensitive not to prioritize accountability for ourselves for causing this destruction in order to rebuild, in order to give a people a chance who are probably deeply traumatized. 17 ,000 Palestinians have been orphaned and many of them have been pulled from the rubble with no limbs and no surviving family. We worry in the West when somebody witnesses a car accident, right, or see someone die in front of them and the trauma and they get therapy and they have support. We're literally expecting a people to emerge from genocide to build a political future without addressing that they are humans.

23:23They are enduring emotional trauma and still unable to survive. They've proposed a one-state solution, a two-state solution, a binational federation. Palestinians need to lead themselves. We need to let them live first. I would like to end on hope. Something hopeful. You said you're an optimist. What, if anything, gives you hope moving forward? The greatest amount of hope that I've been able to conjure, you know, is watching Palestinians make something out of nothing. Listening to Palestinian, you know, new mothers who have created life in the midst of the genocide when life is the primary target or witnessing the young man on, you know, Instagram who doesn't have access to a gym, so is now making makeshift weights out of water bottles.

24:10The only thing I can say that's good about the ceasefire is that it gives Palestinians an opportunity to sleep and to eat. And if they have are able to sleep and to eat, they are able to continue moving forward to craft a vision for their own freedom. And so how can you not have hope. And especially for me as a Palestinian, when I think to myself, I come from these people, I am part of this lineage. We create from nothing. We practice love. We teach life. How can I not have hope? And so, you know, I encourage people who lose hope to turn to Palestinians because they will teach you quite a bit and help you strengthen that muscle of hope.

24:57Thank you for listening to the interview from the BBC World Service. You'll find more in-depth conversations on the interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including episodes with released Israeli hostage Keith Segal, author Sir Salman Rushdie and former US Vice President Kamala Harris. Until the next time, bye for now.

25:30If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. With the European Athletics Championships, the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place, 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport.

26:15And the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action, bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.