The Palestine Pod

This week Lara and Michael sit down with Grammy-award winning producer, DJ, and artist Farid Karam Nassar also known as Fred Wreck. He takes us through some of his earliest memories growing up in Michigan surrounded by generations of his Palestinian family. Farid relives some of his experiences visiting Palestine and interacting with the occupation. Lara takes Farid through some of his most outspoken tweets critiquing US policy and describing the nature of Israeli apartheid and settler colonialism. Farid describes why it is so important for him to speak up and makes a clear case for supporting Palestinian resistance. Lara asks Farid about his favorite record of all time and his favorite album he has produced. Farid names his favorite Palestinian food and weighs in on the infamous bamya-gate. Farid shares with us what on earth his mom and Snoop talk about on facetime. 

This week Lara and Michael cover an "Israeli diplomat" being ejected from the African Summit in Ethiopia. We also cover other BDS wins like Barcelona cutting ties with the occupation after 100 groups and over 4,000 residents urged their government to divest from the apartheid state. We cover the occupation plan to strip Palestinians living in 48' of citizenship and forcibly transfer people to the West Bank in violation of international law. Michael covers Israeli meddling in 33 elections worldwide, 27 of which were successful according to the person who engineered the elections.  

Lara and Michael break down the media coverage surrounding the massacres in Jenin vs the Palestinian resistance response. Unsurprisingly Israelis are humanized, and Palestinians are dehumanized. People received buzzing notification alerts from various news agencies the second a zionist is injured but Palestinians are murdered and maimed every day and nobody gets a notification. Michael clarifies where exactly the shooting took place because the media lied about the location. Lara breaks down the latest polling surrounding normalization with the occupation and Algeria and Mauritania come in strong at 99% opposed to normalization. We cover the life of Khalil Sakakini, one of Palestine's early intellectuals who kept a vibrant journal that tells us about the good times in his life like building and securing his house, to the bad times when the zionist militias stole his house and the apartheid state gifted it to a so-called feminist organization. Finally, we talk about a Holocaust survivor who has resigned from the Labour party after threats of expulsion for talking about his life experience of zionists collaborating with Nazis resulting in the death of the majority of the Jewish Hungarian population. 

This week Lara and Michael cover the bloody massacre by zionist forces in occupied Jenin. Zionist forces injured 16 and murdered 9 Palestinians in Jenin including an elderly woman. They then stormed the pediatric unit and fired tear gas at babies. They spent the next 24 hours dropping bombs on Gaza, and they shot at an ambulance responding to the massacres, hence, war crimes bingo. Israeli terrorism was encouraged by their elected officials who tweeted in support of the massacre. We also connect the brutal murders in the United States by police forces who are trained by zionist occupation thugs. Memphis police department is one such department, we cover the murder of Tyre Nichols. In Atlanta, the environmental activist Tortuguita was murdered by police attempting to disrupt the development of a massive police training compound known as "cop city." Also, the NYPD has at least 16 offices globally including one in Palestine. Decolonization means police abolition. 

This week (technically last week) Lara and Michael cover the martyrs of Palestine. Some were murdered defending their land from foreign occupation forces, and others were murdered for simply existing as Palestinians in Palestine. It's becoming so common for children in Palestine to be murdered by zionists that many people are walking around with notes in their pockets. We read two such testimonies left by victims of colonial violence. We cover the UN resolution which continues to add to the already well-established paper trail at the international level. We discuss the decision to reverse course by Harvard Kennedy School. We also cover the vandalizing of the Armenian Covenant in Jerusalem by the people who purport to be taking care of the land. Finally, we cover some of the most chronically online zionists, and the absolute fairy tale they live in. 

This week Lara and Michael cover the martyrs murdered by the occupation in the first week of January. We discuss the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Masafer Yatta, as well as the irony of the settlers in 48' protesting this new government as if it's actually different from previous governments (it's literally Bibi, again). We cover the phenomena of zionists online endorsing BDS and talk about Netanyahu's fascist decree about an unquestionable, and exclusive right to settlement. Finally, we cover the story of the former Executive Director, Ken Roth at Human Rights Watch who had his fellowship rescinded by the Dean of Harvard Kennedy School. 

This week Lara and Michael sit down with Nida and Zaira Abu Baker, daughters of Shukri Abu Baker one of the Holy Land Foundation 5. Shukri is a political prisoner prosecuted in a wave of unjust rulings following post-9/11 hysteria. The ACLU said the prosecution was part of a pattern of the US government targeting faith-based charities "on the basis of unsubstantiated evidence and without even basic due process protections". We discuss the resurgence of the campaign to Free Shukri Abu Baker and the other two members of the HLF5 who remain unjustly imprisoned. We talk about the absolute delusion of the largest exporter of terrorism in the world (the US government) convicting a Muslim family and community man on preposterous charges related to terrorism. In doing so they destroyed the lives of all 5 families and a charity that helped to improve the conditions for impoverished people across the world. 

This week on the Palestine Pod, Lara and Michael cover the significance of the shows of Palestinian solidarity at the World Cup in Qatar by players and fans. The Pod then covers the murder of a 16-year-old Palestinian girl Jana Zakarneh by Israeli snipers who shot her 4 times as she stood on the roof of her home in occupied Jenin during a recent occupation raid on the Palestinian city as well as the reckless reporting by Western outlets such as the BBC, CNN, and the NYT that followed, acting as cover for Zionist crimes by failing to publish who killed her in their headline, and worse, acting as an arm for the Zionist propaganda machine by swiftly publishing the official Zionist response (that they “unintentionally” sniped her) without the slightest bit of scrutiny. Lara explores the chronic state of hypocrisy that is the Zionist ideology, oscillating between lies like the land was empty, the Palestinians don’t exist, they left freely and occasional spurts of truth like the recent bombshell admissions portrayed in the documentary Tantura by Israeli filmmaker Alon Schwarz who interviewed elderly Zionist terrorists giddy to describe the murder, ethnic cleansing and rape they committed of Palestinians on camera. Michael continues to remind us that none of these people have any right to represent Judaism which is categorically opposed to this evil that they spread. Lara and Michael finish by commenting on the recent interview of Israeli MP Zvika Fogel where he explained that Zionists were too merciful to Palestinians leading Michael to conclude that this just means they want to do even more murder.

This week Lara and Michael sit down with heavy hearts to commemorate the passing of Lara's sido. We talk about how zionist gaslighting impacts the grieving process and the pressure Palestinians feel to publicly share information about their family and lineage because of ridiculous zionist claims about Palestinian existence. Lara shares that her grandfather died stateless, without a passport, and he's one of the millions of Palestinians for whom that is a daily reality. We also commemorate the passing of The People's Bubbie, longtime antizionist Jew, feminist, and abolitionist, Shatzi Weisberger. We end by briefly covering the zionist dust-up surrounding the new Netflix movie, Farha. 

This week Lara and Michael sit down with our favorite Pallestalion filmmaker, Vin Arfuso to talk about his upcoming documentary Walled Off. The documentary centers around the Walled Off Hotel in Occupied Bethlehem, Palestine as a means for show asking the brutality of Israeli occupation and apartheid. The hotel has the largest collection of Banksy artwork in one place. The film employs quick cuts and archival footage to dispute zionist propaganda, entertaining the audience with its humor and fast pace. It provides a historic overview of the major players in the story of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, where we are, and how we got here. Stay tuned for more information about the release of Vin's documentary, Walled Off!