The Palestine Pod

This week we sit down with Joudie Kalla, also known to the world as @palestineonaplate. A Palestinian-British chef hailing from a family of Nakba survivors who spent time in Syria before settling in London and author of two best selling Palestinian cook books, Palestine on a Plate: Memories from my Mother’s Kitchen and Baladi: A Celebration of Food from Land and Sea. Joudie talks to us about anti-Palestinian media bias she experienced, how divide and conquer manifests in the culinary world, and whether Palestinian cuisine would make a good fusion cuisine. Listen to find out Joudie’s recommendation for the best introductory recipe for a newcomer to Palestinian cuisine and hear Michael instigate bamya-gate part 3. Joudie’s dogs provide the soundtrack to this episode. If you liked this episode, join our Patreon where you will get exclusive access to an additional 45 minutes of footage from this conversation where we dive deep into trauma, memories, and exile and play a round of rapid fire questions to get to know Joudie better. 

This week Lara and Michael discuss Instagram censoring our profile by announcing that as of October 25, 2021 we would no longer have access to the link button on @thepalestinepod account for purported violations of community guidelines. Lara queries what threshold Instagram is applying to make this decision to deprive users of critical features since @thepalestinepod account has only ever had one post removed from its account (which in any event did not violate Community Guidelines). Several other Palestinian content creators have received the alert that they too would lose access to the link button with the application providing no recourse to challenge this decision. This unfortunate move appears to be a coordinated effort to continue to crackdown on free speech on the platform especially as it concerns Palestinian human rights. This is all the more so since Instagram’s decision to deprive certain users of the link feature comes only a week after a Human Rights Watch report detailing censorship of posts and accounts by Instagram including with specific reference to posts unjustly removed from Lara’s account @gazangirl. Instead of heeding the call by Human Rights Watch to carry out an independent investigation into the censorship of Palestinian content, Instagram has doubled down by unjustly depriving Palestinian content creators of their right to link to further sources through their profiles. Lara and Michael also cover the recent meeting of the UN Security Council where the US envoy to the UN made some ludicrous statements condemning Hamas for allegedly holding two Israelis prisoners while nearly five thousand Palestinian men, women, and children languish inside Israeli political prisons. Lara provides an update on the Burnat brothers, and sadly Muhammad Burnat, the younger brother remains imprisoned by the Apartheid State without charge with a so-called court date that continues to be postponed. The Palestine Pod also discusses the pivotal role Colin Powell played in getting the United States on the course to invade Iraq, something the Israeli lobby took credit for. Michael covers an article in Jewish Currents that exposes American Jewish businessmen who are funding the Palestinian activist blacklist, Canary Mission.

This week, the Palestine Pod hosts Yousef Mema aka @JoeGaza93. Yousef is a nurse, social media activist, and humanitarian. His Instagram profile rose to prominence during the May 2021 Israeli assaults on Gaza where he spent every day of the 11-day attacks showing the world first-hand accounts from life in Gaza. He shared photo and video (including live) footage from his home in Gaza City during the shelling as well as from Al Shifa Hospital, one of the main hospitals in Gaza where he was working at the time as a nurse in the orthopedic department. Joe talks to us about what it was like to survive these Israeli assaults. Lara recalls filming an Instagram live with Joe in May while he was at home during the shelling and the sound of Israeli drones and missiles interrupting the conversation every couple of seconds. Lara and Joe discuss one of the most brutal nights of the May assaults, May 16, 2021, when Israel committed the Al-Wehda Street Massacre, and heavily shelled one of the most prominent residential and commercial streets in Gaza, leveling entire apartment buildings and killing entire families including Dr. Ayman Abu al-Ouf, one of Gaza’s leading doctors, and several of his family members as they slept. The Israeli occupation forces are said to have used 11 advanced precision-guided missiles along several meters of Al-Wehda Street without warning, leading to the killing of around 50 Palestinians and significant damage to the street and infrastructure. In response to international condemnation, the Occupation forces said that the casualties were an unforeseen “freak” consequences of an attempt to target tunnels under the street. Michael queries whether anyone really believes their outrageous claim that this was unforeseeable (they did use advanced weaponry designed specifically to kill on one of the densest residential streets in Gaza after all - what else would you expect to happen?). Joe reminds us that the Israeli siege is intended to keep Palestinians in Gaza preoccupied with basic needs such as food and electricity to hinder the pursuit of liberation. Michael compliments Joe’s beard and Lara suggests Michael’s facial hair resembles that of Julian Assange.

This week Lara and Michael speak with Jon Elmer, Canadian writer and photojournalist specializing in the Middle East and Canadian foreign and military policy. He has lived in and reported extensively from the occupied Palestinian West Bank and Gaza - specifically based in occupied Jenin, Bethlehem, and Gaza City. He has covered the al-Aqsa intifada, the so-called Israeli "disengagement" of Gaza which was followed by the imposition of a siege on Gaza as well as factional strife in Gaza. His work appears in the Journal of Palestine Studies, Le Monde diplomatique, and The Progressive. He is also the co-host of an amazing podcast called “The Brief” with Nora Barrows Friedman, a dear friend of the Palestine Pod. In light of the recent 21st anniversary of the Second Intifada, Jon speaks to us about his time reporting on the Second Intifada while he was in Palestine. With first-hand accounts from occupied Jenin, to analysis on the tactics used by Palestinians to resist Israeli colonial violence as well as the impact of the Second Intifada on Palestinian life until today, Jon paints a complex, layered picture of life in occupied Palestine, the cost of resistance to daily life, and the bravery and heroism of Palestinians fighting for their freedom. Lara reminds us that Palestinians are in a rights-based struggle and Michael recalls that Jews of the Warsaw ghetto used similar tactics of resistance as Palestinians, calling anyone who supports the former but not the latter fundamentally inconsistent in their approach to the right to freedom.

This week Lara and Michael cover the recent UK Labor party’s passing of a motion recognizing the “ongoing Nakba in Palestine” and declaring Israel an apartheid state, echoing the findings of Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organisations. It also called for sanctions against Israel’s illegal settlements that usurp Palestinian land as well as a halt to the UK’s sales of arms to Israel. Delegates further demanded an end to Israel’s belligerent occupation of the West Bank and 15-year siege of Gaza, and upheld “the right of Palestinians to return to their homes” - the right of Palestinians to return to the homes they were expelled from by Zionist militias and later Israel since 1948 that is enshrined in international law but increasingly ignored by western states. Lara applauds the passage of this motion by a prominent political party in the UK and hopes that it can serve as an example for US counterparts. Michael reminds us that AOC did cry though after switching her vote to “present” during the vote on funding the Apartheid State’s Iron Dome. Lara and Michael also discuss the Israeli occupation army’s killing of 5 young Palestinians in Occupied Jenin and Jerusalem this week as well as the anniversary of the Second Intifada and what it meant to Palestinians in exile. Lara breaks down some of the news from the UN General Assembly including Mahmoud Abbas’ curious ultimatum giving Israel one more entire year (they have already had 54) to withdraw from the occupied territories failing which the PA would revoke its recognition of Israel. Michael reminds us that attacking 3 year old children and maiming a farmer’s goats on his land are - despite what the Zionists suggest - not part of Judaism. 

This week we talk to the brilliant Palestinian-American author Rifk Ebeid whose children’s book “Baba What Does My Name Mean?” was recently censored by the “Free” Library of Philadelphia (yes it's really called that) in online anti-racist blog posts created by a librarian for the library’s social media connecting the Palestinian struggle to the struggle for Black liberation in the US. Lara goes line by line to deconstruct and rebut the painfully anti-Palestinian, contradictory and incoherent statement issued by the so-called "Free" Library to support its decision to censor this and other Palestinian content on its social media platforms. Michael shows us how the Free Library statement supporting censorship, in equating support for the Zionist Organization of America as a rejection of anti-semitism, is actually a statement of anti-Semitism itself. Rifk recalls other instances of censorship she has faced for producing Palestinian content at the hands of allegedly liberal organizations. On a related note, the Palestine Pod also discusses the York, Pennsylvania diversity book ban which has recently been reversed due to outcry from black and brown communities following the taping of this episode. Lara and Michael recall the importance of unlearning the mainstream white supremacist narrative that many young Americans are indoctrinated with in middle and high schools across the country.

This week Lara and Michael discuss all things related to the Great Escape, the real-life prison break of Mahmoud Abdullah al-Ardah, 46, Yaqoub Mahmoud Qadri, 49, Zakaria Zubeidi, 46, Mohammad al-Ardah, 39, Ayham Nayef Kamanji, 35, and Munadel Infaat, 26 from the high-security Israeli dungeon known as Gilboa prison. On September 6, 2021, the 6 Palestinian political prisoners dug their escape tunnel with a rusty spoon while the colonial guard in the watchtower directly above them had fallen asleep. The photo that shocked and humiliated the Apartheid State seen around the world shows a colonial officer standing above the tunnel on the other side of the prison bewildered. Lara and Michael provide the context for the arrest and imprisonment of these political prisoners by the Apartheid State, insisting that their participation in resistance against the occupation is their recognized right under international law making the Apartheid State’s deprivation of their freedom a grave human rights violation. Lara goes through the history of Palestinian prison breaks and Michael addresses the broader story of Israel’s imprisonment of Palestinians as part of its settler-colonial regime. Lara summarizes reactions to the Great Escape and Michael describes Apartheid Israel’s ballistic retaliation and revenge against family members of the escaped political prisoners as well as against other illegally detained Palestinian political prisoners across its different prisons. Michael shares a recent video posted by Subhi Taha on Instagram recalling the history of Palestinian ingenuity and the development of a coded language often used by female family members of political prisoners to describe escape routes. Though four of the six escaped prisoners have since been recaptured and tortured by the Apartheid Regime, Lara emphasizes that this courageous move is a testament to the human will to be free and in line with over 100 years of Palestinian resistance to colonialism, reaffirming that freedom is non-negotiable and on the horizon. Lara provides an update on the Ben & Jerry’s saga and Michael talks zionist spyware.

This week we sit down with the vibrant 21-year old Palestinian female artist, painter, and activist Malak Mattar coming to us straight from Gaza, Palestine. Malak takes us through her experience growing up in Gaza under Israeli siege and surviving four Israeli military assaults from early childhood to adulthood. She tells us about her path to painting, the inspiration behind the subjects in her art, her favorite Palestinian painters, and how the Israeli siege on Gaza has affected her ability to travel as an artist and sell her art (she operates an Etsy store based in Turkey to avoid censorship by the Apartheid State which would have to approve the packages she sends out of Gaza). She describes the current situation in Gaza since the latest assaults in May including heightened restrictions on the entry of goods due to Apartheid Israel's blocking of chocolate, wedding dresses, and certain acrylic colors (like white and black paint colors). Malak evokes the meaning of living as a free Gazan woman against the backdrop of the brutal siege and occupation. She critically reminds us that "Peace is no longer a priority; Freedom is" and takes us through her dreams for the future. The Palestine Pod queries whether there are breakfast burritos in Gaza.

Lara and Michael are back to the Palestine Pod after a few weeks off (shout-out self-care) and start the episode with a survey of stories from the last few weeks on the ground in Palestine. The Israeli settler colony and its Apartheid regime are up to business as usual, expelling Palestinians from their homes, using the colonial courts to entrench ethnic cleansing, and shooting and killing Palestinians who dare protest against living under Israeli siege. Lara and Michael discuss one of the biggest stories of this summer: the decision by Ben & Jerry’s to stop selling their infamous ice cream on settlements built on stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and the Israeli government’s ensuing global public meltdown and disproportionate response. Lara points out that Apartheid Israel’s reaction is an indication of its recognition that it is losing legitimacy (despite its frantic efforts to control its image) and fear that other high-profile companies will follow suit calling into question its ever-expanding settlement enterprise and colonial project more generally. Lara and Michael cover a new twist in the Ben & Jerry’s saga that is so absurd it could only be satire (but it’s real-life). Lara covers Palestine Legal’s new infographic laying out the services and support it provides to activists who are being targeted, surveilled, or censored encouraging all activists in making themselves aware of the support available for carrying out the work of the liberation struggle. Lara and Michael comment on the sinister nature of Naftali Bennett’s visit to the US to meet with President Biden on the heels of his latest declaration that he would be expanding the illegal settlement enterprise.

This week on the Palestine Pod, we sit down with Hadar Cohen, a Mizrahi feminist multi-media artist, healer and educator originally from Jerusalem with lineage from all over the Middle East including Iran, Iraq, Syria and and Palestine. Hadar is a Jewish mystic with Sephardic roots who works to build decolonial frameworks for worshiping God. Her artistic mediums include performance, movement, writing, weaving, sound and ritual. During the global intifada of unity, Hadar came out as a strong anti-Zionist Jewish voice from on the ground. She speaks to us about her family's presence in Palestine harkening to a time long before Zionism, the power of memory as a liberation tool, and the meaning and importance of decolonizing the mind. Lara quotes Hadar's fierce rebuke of Zionism while imagining a life in Palestine post Zionism. Hadar insists on reclaiming the Arab Jewish identity as something separate and unique from European notions of Judaism in response to Arab Jewish trauma that resulted from the Zionist movement. Michael and Hadar dive deeper into the Zionist weaponization of anti-semitism and Michael reminds us that "nobody does anti-semitism like Zionists do."