The Palestine Pod

This week Lara and Michael discuss the occupation’s failed invasion of Jenin including making thousands of individuals new refugees for the second time in their family’s history (most inhabitants of Jenin were refugees from Haifa in 1948 during the Nakba). We also cover the occupation’s killing of 12 Palestinians and wounding over one hundred. The media ran with zionist propaganda that dehumanizes Palestinians and promotes the false notion that the invasion of occupied Jenin was Israeli “self-defense” but spoiler alert Israel, as an occupying power, has no right to invade Palestinian cities nor does it have a right to “self-defense” from the people it occupies but Palestinians have the right to defend themselves against illegal and permanent occupation. We also cover the story of French police reaching out to Zionist occupation forces for tips on how to better oppress after riots have shaken many French cities in the wake of the police murder of 17-year-old French-Algerian boy, Nael.

This week Lara and Michael sit down to talk about the recent zionist pogroms in Turumusaya, a town in the occupied West Bank. We share accounts of some of the victims of the pogrom, some of them Palestinian-Americans visiting home for the first time in twenty years. Lara recaps her family reunion and gives a fiery speech. Finally, Lara and Michael cover the recent Haaretz article “Zionist Militia’s Efforts to Recruit Nazis in Fight Against the British Are Revealed” further to release to the public of documents last month by the Israeli State Archives proving the coordination between Zionists and Nazi Germany. Michael reads excerpts from a book called, The Secret Contacts, which elaborates on this sinister relationship.

Lara and Michael cover the upsetting pattern whereby Palestinians on the ground document in real time their lived experiences as victims of Israeli apartheid and colonialism but are dismissed. On the other hand, time and again mainstream media investigations confirm the veracity of Israeli crimes months after the fact and validate what Palestinians have been saying all along. The latest example are the settler attacks on occupied Huwara which were thoroughly documented by the Palestinians who lived them only to have CNN now carry out an investigation confirming what we already know. Lara and Michael continue with an update on Israeli impunity and critique the occupation’s habit of exonerating itself from its crimes. This week, the IOF declared that nobody would be reprimanded in the killings of 2 year old Muhammed Tamimi who was shot in the head sitting in his car with his father in their driveway by an Israeli sniper and the elderly Palestinian American man, Omar Assad, who was murdered by the occupation after being left bound and gagged on the ground in a street in his village last year. Meanwhile, a Ryan Air pilot was reprimanded for saying “Welcome to Palestine”.

This week Lara and Michael covered the child martyr Mohammed Tamimi murdered by the occupation. We also discuss the case of CUNY Law graduate Fatima Mohammed who gave a commencement speech in support of Palestinian liberation and was viciously attacked with racist slurs by media and local politicians. Finally, we discuss Lara's trip to the EU to advocate in the halls of government with Adnan Barq and other Palestinians from on the ground.   

This week Lara and Michael sit down to talk about the zionists' recent calls for genocide in an op-ed, the New York-based charities that are getting tax write-offs for supporting war crimes while members of the Holy Land 5 Foundation are still imprisoned for charity, and the story of the IOF officer who was reprimanded for visiting the firing range naked + much more!     

This week The Palestine Pod covered the colonial entity’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, we spoke about the ongoing Nakba, settlers celebrating 75 years of murder and forced expulsion, and the damn near total silence from the world when entire families are massacred in Palestine.

This week Lara and Michael sit down with Janaya Future Khan, a Black liberation trans activist, model, and comedian to talk about the long-standing connection between Black and Palestinian liberation, BLM's decision to adopt a resolution supporting Palestine, and how Future uses comedy as a tool to influence culture. We discuss Future's trip to Palestine, and the importance of seeing where the conversation will be, not just where it is now. 

This week Lara and Michael reflect on the rise in hate crimes perpetrated by zionist settlers against Palestinian Christians, and Muslims at their places of worship. Whether it's a church or a mosque, zionist settlers are determined to make life a living hell for Palestinians living on their land trying to celebrate their holy holidays. We cover Israeli top officials lamenting the bad PR image of beating worshippers during Ramadan and another zionist commander's admission that there's no difference between the army and the settlements. 

This week (technically last week) Lara and Michael sit down with Ru'a Rimawi, a doctor in Palestine and sister of two Palestinian martyrs, Jawad and Thafer Rimawi. Both brothers were murdered by the Israeli occupation on the same day in November 2022. We sit down with Ru'a and talk about Jawad and Thafer's lives, their hopes, their dreams, the impact they had on their community, and the gaping hole left after their martyrdom. We discuss Ru'a's campaign to seek justice and the plight of so many Palestinians who have had family members stolen from them by the illegally occupying zionist entity. 

This week Lara and Michael sit down with anti-zionist Israeli dissident, Ronnie Barkan who is currently facing trial in Bristol for smashing up an Elbit weapons factory. The factory was supplying weapons to the occupation to be used to murder innocent Palestinians. Ronnie talks about how Zionism is a cult, and we relive his journey to antizionism, how Israeli society is heavily brainwashed, fascist, and militarized society conditioned to accept and be complicit in committing crimes against humanity, with the exception of a handful of dissidents. We talk about how these waves of protests are not real allyship, and how zionists can only sense the vibes are off when the occupation starts to impact their daily life.