So we're very, very, very excited to be talking today about what's currently going on in Palestine and in Israel, and as we all know, a ceasefire is supposedly tentatively in place.

Now, why would you in the show? This is why.

Episodically, over the last few years, the plight of the Palestinian people is raised, it is discussed in mainstream circles.

It is discussed to some degree on broadcast outlets, in newspaper outlets, and then when a bout of violence subsides, the Palestinian people suddenly disappear again. They vanish.

We don't have discussions about the plight of the Palestinian people living under occupation, or indeed, as human rights watch, perhaps the most mainstream international human rights organization, it put it a part-time.

So what we're going to do today is talk to two very, very courageous Israelis, one of whom is from Bethalem, which is a human rights organization in Israel, extremely courageous human rights organization.

It is not easy to be an Israeli human rights champion of the Palestinian people, and it's become harder and harder and harder.

So we're very honored to have people who show such courage and dedication and determination against huge odds and facing terrible consequences, often personally, for the work that they do.

And we're also joined from New York by Abraham Gutman, who was an Israeli refusenic, that someone who did not, on grounds of conscience, participate, join Israel Defense Forces because of their objection to the occupation.

Now we've seen some horrific scenes over the last few weeks.

We've seen a huge loss of life, and we know, of course, all loss of life is terrible, including the loss of Israeli lives.

What we see from the death, the statistics, the death statistics, is what underlines what is often called an asymmetrical conflict, that is where one side vastly outnumbers and strength the other.

But calling this a conflict itself is an accurate, because one side is a military superpower armed and supported by the West, and the other is an occupied people who are not a military superpower armed backed by the West.

And we can see that in the horrific disparity in deaths, huge numbers of Palestinians have died, including devastatingly many, many children.

What we're doing today is talking about what's happened over the last couple of weeks, but we're talking in more depth about the nature of the occupation, about now that word, which is becoming increasingly mainstream, discussing what's happening in the occupied territories, which is apartheid.

And what next, is there any hope?

Last week we spoke to two very courageous Palestinian activists, one in occupied Jerusalem, the other an 18 year old girl in the Gaza Strip.

Today we're talking to two Israeli voices, as I've said, very courageous voices who have so much to say, and from whom we're going to learn a lot.

Okay, that's enough of me. We're going to go straight to our fantastic guests.

And we're going to start with Sarah McIly from the Israeli Human Rights Organization, Betzeler.

Sorry, it's such an honor to have you with us.

Well, it's a pleasure to be on with you as well on how you're doing.

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