The Listening Post

The threat to ban TikTok in the United States has prompted an online backlash. Critics question the premise that Chinese ownership poses a security risk and suggest the real reason may be the surge in pro-Palestinian content since October 7.Contributors:Julia Angwin - Tech Policy Writer, New York Times; Founder, Proof NewsRussel Brandom - Tech Editor, Rest Of The WorldMarwa Fatafta - MENA Policy and Advocacy Director, Access NowEvan Greer – Director, Fight for the FutureOn our radar:In yet another deadly raid on Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, Israel abducted Palestinian journalists covering the story – including one of Al Jazeera’s own. Producer Nicholas Muirhead reports.Why Russia has looted Ukraine’s artFollowing Vladimir Putin’s expected re-election this week, we’re revisiting a story about the Russian military’s targeting of Ukraine’s heritage. Producer Tariq Nafi explores how Russia’s war on Ukrainian culture is designed to rewrite history and weaken the country’s resistance.Featuring:Milena Chorna - Head of International Exhibitions, War Museum in UkraineAlina Dotsenko - Director, Kherson Regional Art MuseumIhor Poshyvailo - General Director, Maidan Museum

Elections are weeks away in India and opposition parties are attempting to take on the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seeking a third consecutive term.The opposition claims that Modi’s success rate has very little to do with his governance – but more because scores of his political rivals have been arrested or charged on questionable grounds. They say it has kneecapped the opposition and gamed the political arena in favour of the governing party.In this episode of The India Report, Sreenivasan Jain examines whether these actions are – as the Prime Minister claims – part of his crusade against high-level corruption, or an unprecedented campaign against of the opposition which is deeply dangerous to India’s democracy.Featuring:Derek O’Brien - Member of Indian ParliamentAdish Aggarwala - President, Supreme Court Bar AssociationAnjali Bhardwaj - Founder, Satark Nagrik SangathanPriyanka Kakkar - Chief Spokesperson, AAPMaya Tudor - Professor, Blavatnik School of Government

With the global media’s attention trained on Gaza since October 7, things have worsened for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and near impossible for journalists to cover.With their movement severely restricted, dozens of Palestinian journalists have been arrested, often held without trial or charge.Contributors:Anan Quzmar - JournalistAssal Rad - Middle East Scholar and AuthorMariam Barghouti - Writer and JournalistOren Ziv - Journalist, +972 MagazineOn our radar:Ahead of an upcoming election in India, there has been a slew of movie releases built around key Modi government talking points. Producer Tariq Nafi discusses Bollywood’s role in electioneering.George Soros - Financier, philanthropist Or bogeyman?Hungarian-American billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros has been at the centre of countless conspiracy theories. Flo Phillips sifts through fact and fiction to understand how the crusade against Soros became one of the most destructive smear campaigns of the 21st century and a blueprint for others.Featuring:Emily Tamkin - Author, The Influence Of SorosHannes Grassegger - Reporter and Founder, Polaris NewsMarius Dragomir - Director, Center For Media, Data and Society (CMDS)Credits: George Soros images courtesy of the Open Society Foundations

The politics of Hindu nationalism have played a central role in the dramatic rise of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As the elections have neared, the Modi regime has turbocharged its Hindu-first agenda - best exemplified in the inauguration of the Ram Temple in the city of Ayodhya.Veteran journalist Sreenivasan Jain explains how the opening of this temple - and the whitewashing of its controversial past - illustrates how Modi and his party have made their brand of Hindu supremacism not only acceptable, but a key part of Narendra Modi’s appeal to Indians.Featuring:Asaduddin Owaisi - Member of the Indian ParliamentUma Bharti - Former Vice-President, Bharatiya Janata PartyHartosh Singh Bal - Political Editor, The Caravan

The United States' airdrops of aid into Gaza are a textbook case of cognitive dissonance on the part of the US administration - dropping food while continuing to send Israel bombs with which to pulverise Gaza. And the gulf between what’s happening on the ground and the mainstream media’s reportage continues to widen.Contributors:Laura Albast - Fellow, Institute for Palestine StudiesMohamad Bazzi - Professor, New York UniversityAntony Loewenstein - Author, The Palestine LaboratoryMouin Rabbani - Co-editor, JadaliyyaOn our radar:Since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, the war has been a delicate subject for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The war has led to censorship of news coverage and suppression of public protest. Meenakshi Ravi reports.Israel's cultural annihilation in GazaThe Listening Post has covered Israel’s war on Gaza through the prism of the media, including the unprecedented killing of Palestinian journalists. But there’s another level to what’s unfolding in Gaza: the genocidal assault on Palestinian history, existence and culture.Featuring:Jehad Abusalim - Executive Director, The Jerusalem Fund

In December 2023, The New York Times published an explosive article - now widely discredited - that detailed Hamas’s agenda to weaponise rape and sexual violence on October 7. We reveal the controversies surrounding the article along with the broader issue of Western media outlets’ pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian bias.Lead contributors:Ali Abunimah - Director, Electronic IntifadaChris Hedges - Former Middle East Bureau Chief, The New York TimesYumna Patel - Palestine News Director, MondoweissOn our radar:After they won an award at the Berlinale film festival, the reaction to a speech by filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra has become the latest example of Germany’s toxic debate on Gaza.  Meenakshi Ravi reports.Genocide in Gaza through the eyes of Israeli soldiersFor months, Israeli soldiers in Gaza have been documenting their own war crimes against Palestinians and sharing them on social media.The Listening Post collected and reviewed hundreds of items. We asked three experts on human rights and torture to examine the material.Featuring:Basil Farraj - Assistant Professor, Birzeit UniversityLisa Hajjar - Professor of Sociology, UC Santa BarbaraSarah Leah Whitson - Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)Producers: Tariq Nafi and Elettra ScrivoWith thanks to: Younis Tiwari and Tali ShapiroSubscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribeFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglishFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeeraCheck our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile@AljazeeraEnglish#Aljazeeraenglish#News

With Alexey Navalny’s death and Julian Assange’s extradition appeal happening within a week of each other, we look at the selective treatment of the two dissenters in the Western media.Lead contributors:Chip Gibbons - Policy Director, Defending Rights & DissentMatt Kennard - Chief Investigator, Declassified UKBranko Marcetic - Writer, JacobinRebecca Vincent - Director of Campaigns, Reporters Without Borders (RSF)On our radar:Usually silent in the face of the suffering in Gaza, Israeli TV channels broadcast segments on the abuse of Palestinian captives - with a positive spin. Tariq Nafi reports.Namibia’s (mis)remembered genocideGermany’s genocide in Namibia early in the 20th century has long been a misremembered episode in colonial history. Despite efforts to correct that record, many are yet to hear the testimonies of the victimised communities: the Herero and Nama peoples.Featuring:Christina Haritos - Communications ScholarSuzie Ndaundika Shefeni - Researcher and JournalistJephta Nguherimo - Herero Activist and Poet

More than a million Palestinians have been crammed into the city of Rafah -  which is being bombed by Israel with the imminent threat of a ground invasion. Western media, however, has once again failed to communicate the severity of this moment.Contributors:Laura Albast - Media Analyst, Institute for Palestine Studies-USANabih Bulos - Middle East Bureau Chief, LA TimesAdel Iskandar - Professor of Global Communication, Simon Fraser UniversityJacob Magid - US Bureau Chief, The Times of IsraelOn our radar:Haaretz newspaper published an article about Israeli soldiers cooking food in Palestinian homes– the same homes these soldiers chased them out of, all while Palestinians themselves are being starved by Israel. Nic Muirhead on the mocking of Palestinian suffering.The Kremlin’s youth militarisation pushSince Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has invested considerably in managing domestic perceptions of the war - including among younger citizens.With the war dragging on, the government’s youth propaganda has escalated. Educational institutions have become part of an orchestrated effort to shape loyal militarised nationalists and passive media consumers.Contributors:Alexander Borodikhin - Editor, MediazonaEkaterina Kotrikadze - Anchor, TV RainIan Garner - Professor, Queen’s University Centre for International and Defence Policy

This past week’s elections in Pakistan were meant to be a formality, the outcome - a win for the PMLN - predetermined by the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus.But despite their attempt to manage the narrative and meddle with politics, former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his party, the PTI, had an unexpected pull with the people.Contributors:Amber Shamsi - Director, Centre for Excellence in JournalismAsma Shirazi - Anchor, HUM NewsFahd Husain - President, AIK NewsMoeed Pirzada - Journalist and YouTuberOn our radar:Two weeks after the International Court of Justice concluded Israel may be committing genocide in Gaza, Israeli soldiers continue to film and upload evidence of their own war crimes. Tariq Nafi examines the material being posted online.John Kirby: US messenger on the Gaza WarFor Israel’s primary backer in its war on Gaza, the United States, getting the messaging right has not been easy. The face of the White House’s policy is US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.Despite some uncomfortable exchanges with reporters, Kirby has maintained an aggressive approach in his delivery. Whether audiences are buying it is another matter.Meenakshi Ravi explores the figure of the spokesperson and the challenges of being President Biden’s messenger on Gaza.Featuring:John Nichols - National affairs correspondent, The NationKristian Denny - Associate professor, Columbia UniversityPrem Thakker - Politics reporter, The Intercept

Israeli intelligence accuses a UN refugee agency of collusion with Hamas – and the media take it at face value.Israel has for years been claiming that the United Nations refugee agency (UNRWA) is in cahoots with Hamas. The latest allegations – which coincided with the International Court of Justice’s order for Israel to prevent genocide – bear the hallmarks of a distraction tactic. So far, the media have taken the bait.Contributors:Diana Buttu – Palestinian lawyerTal Mimran – Former Israeli government adviserAbdaljawad Omar – Academic, Birzeit UniversityKenneth Roth – Former executive director, Human Rights WatchOn our radarLast month, a New York Times investigation carried Israeli allegations of sexual violence by Hamas during its October 7 attacks. Meenakshi Ravi explains why that story is being called into question.Germany’s ‘Palestine exception’ to free speechHistorical guilt and the stifling of pro-Palestinian dissent in Germany.Contributors:Hebh Jamal – Palestinian journalistHanno Hauenstein – Journalist and former editor, Berliner ZeitungWieland Hoban – Chair, Jewish Voice for Peace