Running for Mayor in Lyd: Conversation with Councilwoman Fida Shehade

“If you do not stop, I will submit your name to the Shin Bet. Once you are marked there, your whole life is under their surveillance.” This is the threat that Jewish-Israeli Mayor Yair Revivo hurled at Palestinian councilwoman Fida Shehada after she highlighted how their city neglects its Palestinian residents. Now, she is running an election campaign, challenging to unseat the mayor in the mixed Jewish-Palestinian city of Lyd (or "Lod" in Hebrew) in the upcoming mayoral elections.

Here is Miko Peled's interview with Fida Shehade, who is a central figure in the Palestinian struggle against systematic racism in Lyd, a city located exactly between Jaffa and Jerusalem. During Israel's establishment in 1948, Israeli militia forcibly expelled the majority of the city's Palestinian residents in an event now known as the Lydda Death March. The Palestinians who now live there, holding Israeli citizenship as effective second-class citizens, face severe systematic racism, including frequent home demolitions and advancing Israeli settler organizations.

In this interview, Miko and councilwoman Shehade discuss the bleak realities of the racism in Lyd, connecting the situation of the Palestinian citizens of Israel in this city with the larger Palestinian struggle against oppression. They discuss her work to fight for local Palestinian rights and running for the upcoming elections, and the significance of the movement of those Israelis who were pulled out of Gaza close to two decades ago and have now set their eyes on Lyd.

This is the shortened podcast version. The full video is available to Premium Patrons on patreon.com/mikopeled