Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:23in the development of
00:00:44This report tells the story of why, for Fidel Castro,
00:00:47Palestine was never a distant cause but an
00:00:51extension of his own
00:00:52battle.
00:00:57of
00:01:06I was a correspondent for refugees are living witnesses to Prensa Latina in
00:01:10Lebanon. While there, I was able to
00:01:13feel the identity
00:01:17of the
00:01:20Palestinian fighters. Some had adopted Fidel Castro's
00:01:24name as their war name, and
00:01:27Che Guevara's, but especially Fidel Castro's. And
00:01:30I met, on more than one occasion, some who, in the
00:01:34South above all, bore that name,
00:01:37were identified within their
00:01:40groups with that name because for them
00:01:43it was the greatest symbol of courage,
00:01:46daring and dignity. This love story,
00:01:50I say, between Cuba and the Palestinians, was also with
00:01:54the brilliant idea and the
00:01:57internationalism, the solidarity. The internationalist
00:02:01solidarity that characterizes this revolution with a
00:02:04leader who is a symbol of internationalist
00:02:06solidarity in the history of
00:02:09humanity. No leader in the
00:02:131979 in world, on the planet, has
00:02:15conceived
00:02:17the depth and essence of
00:02:21internationalist solidarity as
00:02:24Fidel has conceived it. The day after the Israeli invasion
00:02:27of Lebanon in '82, a message of solidarity from Fidel
00:02:31for Arafat was received, and Fidel
00:02:34gave the order to Marmierca, the Cuban Foreign Minister,
00:02:38to go personally to Beirut and
00:02:41meet with Arafat, to make him feel
00:02:45the solidarity, the message of
00:02:48solidarity from Cuba and the non-aligned countries. For
00:02:52song of them, that was inconceivable, unspeakable. Wherever
00:02:56the caravan that was forming as we
00:03:00entered the areas controlled by the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Lebanese
00:03:03Progressive Movement, passed, they knew that the
00:03:07Cuban Embassy car with the flag was coming.
00:03:10Everyone applauded, everyone cheered,
00:03:14and it was recorded in history as an
00:03:17unprecedented event in revolutionary
00:03:20diplomacy. Cuba has always
00:03:23defended Palestine, to the hilt,
00:03:26to the last, to the last, no matter the
00:03:30cost. Cuba broke off its
00:03:33relations with Israel, unlike the Arab
00:03:36countries that have shamefully
00:03:40normalized.
00:03:43Cuba has been offered, and I have
00:03:46proof of this. The former Secretary
00:03:49General of the Uspal was at
00:03:52one point at the Cuban Embassy to the United
00:03:56Nations, and the Israeli ambassador.
00:04:02of him constantly and brought him a
00:04:04The basis for a just peace in proposal, he said: tell your government, your
00:04:07government, that the blockade against Cuba will be lifted in
00:04:1124 hours if
00:04:12Caribbean, that's what they call us, the resistance of it reestablishes relations with the Zionist state of
00:04:16Israel, and Cuba did not accept,
00:04:20the immensity of
00:04:22countries, especially from Fidel, said that man and morality and
00:04:25ethics are worth much more, and we will
00:04:28continue fighting. And resisting
00:04:32and we stand by the side of the poor and the
00:04:37land, nor oppressed, the dispossessed, this is the Cuban
00:04:40revolution, this, this is the
00:04:43light of the Cuban revolution.
00:04:54destruction, nor Cuba was one of the 13 nations that
00:04:58voted against the plan to partition Palestine, which led to the founding of
00:05:02Israel in 1947 at the
00:05:04UN. The only country in the Americas and one of only two non-Islamic
00:05:08states that defended the right of that people to self- determination.
00:05:2112 years later, the Cuban revolution, led by Fidel
00:05:25Castro, transformed that historic position into state
00:05:28policy.
00:05:37Utopia on the shoulder, charisma on
00:05:40fire.
00:05:43The first contacts with the Arab country took place in June
00:05:461959 when Che Guevara, as part of his international
00:05:50tour, included a visit to the Gaza Strip
00:05:54controlled at that time by Nasser's Egypt. For the first
00:05:57time a Latin American leader set foot on
00:06:00Palestinian land.
00:06:06The Palestinian cause became part of the island's international
00:06:10agenda, not as a diplomatic gesture, but as an
00:06:13unnegotiable principle: the fight against colonialism,
00:06:16imperialism and racism in any of its forms. Only the
00:06:20closest alliance between
00:06:23all progressive forces in the
00:06:26world will give us the necessary
00:06:29strength to
00:06:32overcome the still powerful
00:06:35forces of imperialism,
00:06:39colonialism, neocolonialism and racism, and to fight
00:06:42successfully for the aspirations of justice and
00:06:46peace of all peoples of the world. It is
00:06:49precisely at this summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in
00:06:531973 in Algiers, where Cuba announces the
00:06:56rupture of diplomatic relations with Israel.
00:07:00Israel makes a mockery of the United Nations agreements
00:07:03and refuses to return the territories occupied
00:07:06by force. Let us adopt concrete measures
00:07:10and agreements to...
00:07:19Fidel's commitment to the Palestinian cause then led to concrete
00:07:23actions: he invited leader Yasser Arafat to Cuba and opened in
00:07:27Havana an office for the liberation of
00:07:29Palestine. November 14,
00:07:331974, Yasser Arafat,
00:07:37President of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
00:07:39arrived in Cuba.
00:07:45Arafat visited the Antillean steel factory, the Lenin vocational
00:07:49school, and paid tribute to the national hero of Cuba. This is how the
00:07:53cinematographic newsreels of the
00:07:55time reported it.
00:07:58The Palestinian people have not submitted to Zionism. The Palestinian
00:08:01people have not been defeated, have not lost their identity or their
00:08:05national character. While the North American government
00:08:09adopts a hostile position against Palestine, arming
00:08:12the Zionist aggressors, the Palestinian people, grouped around the
00:08:16Palestine Liberation Organization, fight and struggle to
00:08:19liberate their land, their
00:08:22homeland, from the Zionist yoke.
00:08:28The President of the Republic, Dr. Osvaldo Dorticos, bestowed upon
00:08:32Yasser Arafat, the supreme leader of the Palestinian people, the
00:08:35Playa Girón order, as an expression of admiration and
00:08:38recognition of our people for his execution and example.
00:09:15Arafat visited the island eight times, one of them for
00:09:19the eleventh World Festival of Youth and Students in
00:09:221978, invited by Fidel
00:09:25Castro.
00:09:34We will never forget the heroic
00:09:38people,
00:09:45criminally stripped of their
00:09:49the just cause of the Arab peoples in their
00:09:53struggle against imperialist, Zionist
00:09:57aggression. Men and peoples will not
00:10:00resign themselves to self-
00:10:07to oppression.
00:10:10They will know how to conquer peace.
00:10:14And they will also know how to conquer
00:10:17freedom.
00:10:25Let us support decisively and resolutely the
00:10:29aggressed Arab peoples and the heroic people of Palestine.
00:12:25The Cuban leader did not miss an opportunity to denounce the
00:12:28injustices faced by the people of the Arab country in international
00:12:31forums. He did so in his capacity as president of the
00:12:35non-aligned countries in
00:12:38Havana. And from the bottom of our souls,
00:12:42we repudiate with all our might, the
00:12:45ruthless persecution and genocide that in
00:12:49its time Nazism unleashed against the Hebrew
00:12:52people. But I cannot
00:12:56remember anything more similar in our
00:12:58contemporary history
00:13:01than the eviction, persecution and
00:13:04genocide that imperialism
00:13:07and Zionism are carrying out today
00:13:11against the Palestinian people,
00:13:14dispossessed of their lands,
00:13:17expelled from their own homeland,
00:13:20dispersed throughout the world, persecuted and murdered.
00:13:26The heroic Palestinians constitute an impressive
00:13:28example of self-sacrifice and
00:13:31patriotism, and are the living symbol of the
00:13:34greatest crime of our era.
00:13:51Also memorable was this speech by... by the
00:13:55president of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1979 at the
00:13:58UN, the Cuban leader
00:14:01defended before the concert of nations the existence and future
00:14:05of humanity, and of course, the Palestinian cause could
00:14:08not be missing from such a rhetorical piece. For the Non-Aligned
00:14:12countries, the question of
00:14:14Palestine is the core of the Middle
00:14:18East problem. Both form an integral
00:14:21whole that cannot be solved
00:14:25separately.
00:14:29the region begins with
00:14:33the total and unconditional withdrawal of
00:14:35Israel from all occupied
00:14:39Arab territories, and implies for the Palestinian
00:14:42people the return of all their
00:14:45occupied territories and the recovery of their
00:14:49inalienable national rights,
00:14:52including the right of return to their homeland,
00:14:55self- determination and the establishment of an independent
00:14:59state in Palestine, in accordance with
00:15:03General Assembly Resolution 3236.
00:15:06In the early 80s, Havana became
00:15:10one of the first Latin American settings where the Palestinian
00:15:13flag would fly in an official representation,
00:15:17coinciding with the start of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June
00:15:201982, the representation was granted embassy status.
00:15:38decides to grant to His Excellency President Fidel
00:15:42Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and
00:15:45of State and Ministers of the Republic of Cuba,
00:15:48special Order Bethlehem 2000,
00:15:52acknowledging the historical positions of
00:15:56Cuba, the personal position of President Castro
00:16:01the struggle of the Palestinian people for their freedom, for the
00:16:05achievement of their hopes for independence.
00:16:37But solidarity has not only been political. Thousands of young
00:16:40Palestinians graduate and study in Cuban universities, such as the Latin American
00:16:44School of Medicine. They say they are making their dreams
00:16:48come true.
00:16:56My dream was to be a doctor and I wanted to study
00:17:00medicine. I like the relationship between Fidel
00:17:03Castro and Palestine because the
00:17:06best option to study medicine is here in
00:17:09Cuba. Life in Cuba is a
00:17:12little difficult, but it's very, very beautiful.
00:17:15I hope to be a doctor, yes, in Cuba
00:17:19as my dad and my
00:17:22mom want, because in
00:17:24Palestine, life is
00:17:28difficult because of the occupation.
00:17:31Fidel supported Palestine and in a
00:17:34practical way, Cuba ...
00:17:56The relationship between Fidel and
00:17:59Palestine, as far as I know, is a human
00:18:03relationship and friendship.
00:18:05Pedro Castro is a great man
00:18:09and supported the Palestinian
00:18:11cause as the only legitimate
00:18:14representative. He received Yasser Arafat as
00:18:18head of state in
00:18:21Havana,
00:18:23which is why there's such a verse of history in the
00:18:29sincerity.
00:18:30sinceridad.
00:19:18Retired from the presidency, Fidel Castro continued to speak out in favor of the
00:19:22Palestinian cause. In 2014, during the Israeli offensive
00:19:25on Gaza, he signed a document titled "In Defense of
00:19:29Palestine," where he condemned the military operation as a systematic
00:19:32genocide. A few months later, he published in the newspaper
00:19:36Gramma "Reflections on the Palestinian Holocaust in Gaza,"
00:19:40warning then that a new and repugnant form of fascism was
00:19:44emerging with notable force, and reproaching the complicity of
00:19:47the United States in what he called a brazen
00:19:50massacre.
00:19:58Never has the Palestinian cause seemed
00:20:00more just in contrast
00:20:04with the repulsive brutality of its adversaries.
00:21:59an 18-month-old baby, burned with
00:22:03cigarettes,
00:22:05pierced with a nail, everything is possible in Gaza, today,
00:22:09when the world observes with astonishment the genocide in real time, here the
00:22:13lasting echo of a conviction is felt: defending Palestine
00:22:16is defending Cuba.
00:22:28On this island, any pretext is sought to talk about
00:22:31Palestine, so assure Leslie Alonso and Yodeni Maso,
00:22:35who reported for 30 months as Prensa Latina correspondents
00:22:38in Lebanon, the attack on Beirut and the extermination and
00:22:42occupation in the Gaza Strip. They tell
00:22:45Telesur that they lived through stormy days and risked their
00:22:48lives. There we are. The drones
00:22:51flying,
00:22:53uh, when the plane, when the war plane breaks the sound
00:22:56barrier, as if it were a, it
00:23:00feels like the bomb is right there, close by, and we are not only talking about the
00:23:04enemy that threatens with bombs, we are talking about a
00:23:07barbaric, cruel enemy. October
00:23:107 changed our reality and our
00:23:13lives, when Operation Al-Aqsa Flood
00:23:17began. Well, since we were close, it was our
00:23:20responsibility to cover it. What can be in the
00:23:24heart and mind of an Israeli soldier,
00:23:27of any Israeli, who is capable of
00:23:30running over a girl's head with his war
00:23:34tank, like Jin Rahab? There is a word that Cubans have always
00:23:37mentioned, which is resistance, but I did not understand the
00:23:41value of resistance until I got there, until
00:23:45I interviewed for the first time the mother of a martyr
00:23:48of the resistance. Mila was only three years old, she was
00:23:52murdered by Israel's infanticidal army along with her mother
00:23:56after a bombing in southern Lebanon. Zionism continues to kill
00:23:59children daily, whether in Gaza or Lebanon, while the press normalizes
00:24:02it. We returned from Lebanon
00:24:06being more convinced of being
00:24:09anti-imperialists. That's how Fidel was.
00:24:12So Fidel, Che Guevara, the revolution, the
00:24:16example of the Cuban revolution are always present. Visiting a Palestinian
00:24:20camp or a solidarity campaign with
00:24:23Palestine is undoubtedly something linked
00:24:27to Cuba. I believe that behind all those
00:24:30thoughts of Fidel that made us feel that all humanity is home,
00:24:34that all humanity is the homeland,
00:24:37there are those convictions
00:24:39that we incorporated throughout our work in Lebanon. We did not arrive
00:24:43like that, we did not leave Cuba as the professionals
00:24:47who returned. We always say, and it is not a cliché,
00:24:51that Lebanon changed us, transformed
00:24:53us.
00:24:59that we are the resistance of the
00:25:02the left there, it's really something that
00:25:06we feel, that we experience. We have
00:25:10never felt the same for other human beings, and Fidel was the
00:25:13inspiration. From Cuba we are calling
00:25:17on Latin American women for an action of denunciation against the Israeli
00:25:20colonialist genocide, which has lasted 75
00:25:24years.
00:25:26We are fully aware that our destinies are intertwined with
00:25:30our sisters and brothers in Palestine. A feminist
00:25:33look at the armed conflict is offered by the "Juntas por
00:25:37Palestina" movement through the performative act of shaving their
00:25:40hair. They problematize from their
00:25:43bodies the childhoods marked by violence, misogyny,
00:25:47abandonment, misery.
00:25:50Hair grows, murdered children
00:25:53don't. It was so hard to know that so many children had gone.
00:25:56After two months there were already 500 children murdered. It was such a
00:26:00huge impact, and I realized that I was living my life
00:26:04every day, and every
00:26:07now and then I remembered that this was happening, and
00:26:10it's a feeling
00:26:14of incoherence, that it's
00:26:17also one's responsibility to continue living a normal
00:26:21life when there are children being murdered, when there is a
00:26:24people in resistance that is being
00:26:28eh, that is being massacred.
00:26:33So I decided to cut my
00:26:35hair. The therapeutic clown Aniel Venereo
00:26:39leads the initiative that started in Cuba and now includes
00:26:42women from Mexico, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Argentina, Venezuela,
00:26:46Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Puerto Rico and the United
00:26:50States, so that people discover with
00:26:53our own shaved heads, that every year of the
00:26:5776 years
00:26:59Israeli
00:27:02occupation there has been this type of horror that
00:27:05horrifies us today. The
00:27:09the tragedy that began in 1948.
00:27:12They are the essence of the Palestinian cause. It is not
00:27:165 months, it is more than 76 years of genocide
00:27:19and occupation. It is the same enemy, the
00:27:22enemy of what is happening today in Gaza is
00:27:26happening to us, what we don't have are bombs. In
00:27:30Cuba there is also a genocide,
00:27:33because the lack of food, the lack of medicine, the lack of
00:27:36fuel to generate the electricity we need to live,
00:27:40that, that, that, that is also a genocidal
00:27:43thought, and it is the same, it is the same enemy.
00:27:47I believe that the people of Gaza and the people of Cuba have many things in
00:27:50common, it is the
00:27:54decision of "homeland or death," the
00:27:57decision
00:27:59that you cannot come and trample on and...
00:28:02comment that I love your boot, and the
00:28:06decision that for my people and for
00:28:10just causes we are capable of giving up our lives. Mr.
00:28:13Fidel, so
00:28:15profoundly, that generations pass and generations will
00:28:19pass and that will
00:28:21remain.
00:28:27how can one lead that
00:28:30life forward?
00:29:02circumstance to anything, exactly, a space built
00:29:06from art and memory is born from a common need, and that's why we
00:29:10do it together, because it's everyone's problem
00:29:13and we do it through social networks because that's disputed
00:29:17political territory.
00:29:21The Palestinian cause is the cause of the world, because sometimes we forget one thing that
00:29:25we have said many times, that we have a common enemy, because the same one who
00:29:28finances the genocide of the occupation against Palestine is the one who has the blockade on Cuba.
00:29:32And the land without a people that Zionism refers to is the Palestinian land that was
00:29:36inhabited by Palestinians who had lived there for centuries, meaning
00:29:40it was the Palestinian population that had
00:29:42customs, beliefs, they had coins. These are the filmmakers of the
00:29:46documentary "The Root of the Olive Tree," a
00:29:48film
00:29:51Do you know that when I'm alone, I don't remember when I was little,
00:29:54I remember you.
00:30:00"The Root of the Olive Tree" gives voice to five Palestinians living far from
00:30:04their homeland to tell their experiences in the face of the re-escalation
00:30:08of the Israeli genocide and occupation. From
00:30:11a distance, Waatan, Omaima, Murid, Bailasan and
00:30:14Basel share stories of struggle, loss and hope.
00:30:18To talk about Cuba and Palestine and
00:30:21to talk about the relationship between both
00:30:24the figure of the historical leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel
00:30:28Castro, who has been one of the exponents who has inspired
00:30:31the director of the documentary and me as part of his
00:30:35team to carry out this project. We must understand that
00:30:38these two countries are narrated, especially by international media, by hegemonic
00:30:42media, from frameworks that often
00:30:45have nothing to do with the objective reality of these two countries. I believe that
00:30:49Fidel Castro understood this from the beginning, and that is why he always supported
00:30:53the struggle of the Palestinian people. For Fidel,
00:30:56Palestine is not just a regional conflict, but is
00:31:00among all peoples.