The Palestine Pod

This week Lara and Michael react to the introduction of a zionist character into the Marvel universe, named after the massacre of Palestinians. We cover the immediate and inevitable backlash that comes from any time zionists try to colonize popular culture. We give an update on the Shenstone location Palestine Action encampment and provide ways to get involved. Lara covers the increase in violent raids and assassinations in the West Bank of Palestinian resistance fighters. We chat about one of the many murderers turned Israeli celebrities, Elor Azaria. We provide an update on the ongoing litigation between Foodbenders and the JDL in Canada. Finally, we cover the disgusting escape room that lets zionist settlers cosplay as the 6 Palestinian prisoners who broke out of Gilboa prison. 

This week Mikey went into the field to interview the activists involved in the campaign to #ShutElbitDown. Mikey covers the ongoing encampment outside the Shenstone factory and speaks to a variety of people involved in the action. We discuss the reasons for this action (to stop drones from being made and delivered to murder Palestinians). We chat about the response from the community in Shenstone, the brutality of the private security guards hired by Elbit, and their coordination with local police forces. The activists explain the various skills and tactics being utilized, and the community being built by the brave group of people putting their life and liberty at risk to stand on the right side of history. 

This week Lara and Michael discuss the case of Khalil Awawdeh who has been on hunger strike for upwards of 180 days, and the disgusting psychology of the zionists smiling as they return the body of Palestinian martyr Mai Afaneh over a year after murdering her. We cover police brutality against Palestinian-Americans in Chicago, and across the United States. We confront the failure to find any evidence to support the claim that Palestinian NGOs are a front for terrorism, and we discuss some of the aspects of normalization that appear in the new Netflix tv show, Mo. 

This week Lara and Michael sit down with Palestinian-American journalist and advocate Hebh Jamal. Hebh is based between Berlin and New York. We discuss her recent trip to Gaza and she describes the harrowing journey and traumatizing experiences with the Egyptian military and how they are profiting off the oppression of Palestinians. She tells us about the beauty within Gaza and how she still found people with hope despite the occupation's attempts to crush people's spirits. We speak about her journalism in Germany surrounding anti-Palestinian racism and how Germany thinks their problem with antisemitism is imported vs. homegrown. She talks about the time she casually did a TED Talk, and we honor the fallen martyr of Palestine, Ibrahim Nabulsi. 

This week Lara and Michael sit down with student, activist, and burgeoning journalist 22 year old Yara Eid who comes to us from Gaza, Palestine. She takes us through the events of the latest Israeli assault of August 6-8, 2022 when Israeli shelling and bombardement mercilessly killed over 45 Palestinians including 16 children. She describes the impact of this assault on people and animals in Palestine, sharing with us several horrific scenes her and her news team witnessed, including Israeli attacks on a watermelon horse cart driven by a man bringing groceries and cake back to his family, a cemetery, and Jabaliya refugee camp. Yara shares with us her disappointment and frustration after being subject to racist interviewing by an RT reporter who both sides-ed her as the Apartheid state shelled her neighborhood. We cover the assassination of resistance leader Ibrahim Nabulsi earlier this week. Lara remarks that resistance fighters like Nabulsi are the real leaders of the Palestinian struggle. Michael jokes about the IOF and veganism.

This week Lara and Michael cover the zionist occupation’s genocide against the Palestinian people via their renewed assaults against the people of Gaza. We talk about the growing resistance in Nablus and AIPAC bragging about purchasing US congresspeople. Michael points out the deafening silence from everyone with a Ukrainian flag in their bio. 

This week Lara and Michael sit down to talk about how every day we wake up to the news of another Palestinian being martyred, another child snatched from their home in the middle of the night by the occupation forces. Every day another house or village is demolished, and more childhoods, adulthoods, and entire lives are stolen inside the occupation's concentration camps. We discuss specifically the cases of the Burnat brothers, Ahmed Manasra, and other political prisoners. We talk about the aftermath of Biden's visit, as well as the phenomena of Zionist settlers trying to sneak into mecca. The zionists set up another illegal outpost, and families and teens are encouraged to attend! 

This week Lara and Michael sit down with our second return guest to The Palestine Pod. It's Max from Palestine Action. He's back to celebrate the closing of 2 of Elbit's weapons systems in the UK and kicking the company out of London entirely with the direct action network, Palestine Action. We discuss the various tactics the group employed to drive up the cost of doing business for the war profiteers in the business of bloodshed. We talk about the importance of getting involved in whatever capacity you can to help be a part of the liberation of Palestine. We only feel like we have no power when we choose not to exercise our own. We conclude with a discussion about respectability vs. effectiveness. Lara makes the point that in the heat of the moment, most people never get the respect they deserve but if they are effective, history will respect them forever. 

This week Lara and Michael discuss the egregious case of the Lapid's occupying a stolen Palestinian house and announcing it as a "new beginning" on Instagram. We cover a couple of instances of Germany silencing both Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish activists. Lara talks about the so-called "Doomsday settlements" and how over 7 decades of occupation is already a Doomsday scenario: We discuss the anniversary of Algerian independence, talk about the deep bond between Palestinians and Algerians, and recall how Algerian resistance to colonialism lasted for over 100 years. We cover the latest news in the phenomena of Arab Zionists (an Arab Zionist NATO?). We conclude with an update about the Ben & Jerry's fiasco - the company sued its parent company Unilever for circumventing their decision to refrain from selling their products in the occupied West Bank. Michael stays unimpressed with the PR tactics of the company. The duo query the meaning of the word “anomaly.”

This week Lara and Michael are back to break down the latest in Palestine-related news. We start by covering the latest decision of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled (after some funny business) that BDS is not a protected form of free speech. This decision runs counter to the bevy of other judges across the nation who have found the opposite. The ACLU is poised to take this case to the Supreme Court and let those old gargoyles of jurisprudence weigh in on the matter. We also cover the recent decision by the European Union to resume funding to Palestinian human rights organizations the occupation baselessly accused of terrorism. The EU stated that there was no evidence to support the claim, but that didn't stop them from freezing funds for over a year! Lara covers a motif that appears in various news outlets wherein a story of an Israeli being "lightly wounded" takes the front page over the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israelis. We take time to cover the story of Ahmad Manasra, a child who has been tortured by the occupation in their jails since he was 13.  We ridicule Pelosi’s reading a settler-colonial poem in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the PA’s decision to turn over the bullet used to murder Shireen Abu Akleh to the Americans for some reason. Israel is keeping the US out of the loop on covert attacks in Iran and Ukraine takes the occupation to task for failing to provide medical supplies (likely because they are too busy disfiguring Palestinians).