The Palestine Pod

The Charade

This week Lara and Michael discuss the latest Israeli elections and the voter suppression that rules in the "fauxonly" democracy in the Middle East: 5 million Palestinians whose lives Israel controls in the occupied West Bank and Gaza cannot vote in these elections at all whereas Palestinians who live within the territory declared Israel in 1948 and are technically allowed to vote have been the target of racist campaign rhetoric by political candidates and are filmed as they vote to deter them from voting. Michael talks voter suppression in the US as well as his shocking experience working on both Bernie Sanders campaigns. Lara comments on the latest move by the US to give 15 million to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for COVID-19 and expresses frustration with the U.S. policy on Palestine under Democratic administrations. Lara shows how thus far Biden IS Trump on Palestine (not an exaggeration and she has the receipts to prove it). Michael explains to Lara what gefilte fish is. 

Akhaduha Mafroosheh with Comedian Amer Zahr

This week Amer Zahr joins the Palestine Pod and tells us how he uses comedy as a means of expression, advocacy for Palestinian rights, healing, and art. He shares with us some of his comedy icons and admits what he really thinks about white male comedians (sorry Michael). Commenting on the recent storming of the capitol and attempted coup of the US, Amer contemplates how “unbelievably awesome” whiteness is. Amer reflects on his viral video “Akhaduha Mafroosheh” (Arabic for "they took it fully furnished" referring to the Zionist takeover of Palestine as the theft of a fully furnished land, society, and culture) including scenes that did not make it into the final cut. Amer tells us what “Akhaduha Mafroosheh” meant to his family by describing the displacement of his mother’s family from Akka, Palestine: “Israel is a lot more than ethnic cleansing. It is ethnic replacement. They literally moved into our grandparents’ houses.” By relying on the findings of researchers Ronald Ranta and Yonatan Mendel, Lara dispels the common myth that dishes claimed by “Israeli cuisine” like hummus, falafel, and knafeh are the gifts of Mizrahi Jews coming to Israel from Yemen and Iraq. In fact, these foods were taken from the local indigenous Palestinians who were eating these foods on the land of Palestine for centuries upon centuries. As Amer says, “it’s not that hard. Go to a Israeli hummus place […] and then go to a Palestinian hummus place in Ramallah and […] they taste pretty much the same and guess what - the Ramallah guy has been there for 200 years and the Tel Aviv guy just got there. So you figure it out. They are copying our hummus […] the food of the land and of course they are.” Lara asks Amer to tell us some of his favorite Palestinian food memories from his “older than Israel” grandmother. A fierce bamya debate breaks out between Lara and Amer (thanks Michael).

 

All Our Liberation is Linked

In this episode, Lara and Michael cover the latest assertions of the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and the UN Gilad Erdan who, following a trip to the "American south," said he was touched by learning about segregation and the Jim Crow era calling it an "incredibly moving trip." The Times of Israel reports that the ambassador compared slave plantations in the US to concentration camps but said there was "no comparison" between Israel's treatment of Palestinians and struggles for racial justice in the US. Lara and Michael play a quick round of “Sounds like Jim Crow or Not” to test the ambassador’s unsupported assertions on the reality of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians which according to Michael “fold like a house of cards after Kevin Spacey got accused.” Lara and Michael reject the ambassador’s attempts to exploit the Black struggle in the US and erase a deep history of Black-Palestinian solidarity going back to the 1960s and existing until today. Citing the book Black Power and Palestine, Lara and Michael cover the positions of leading Black activists throughout the ages including Malcolm X, Kwame Ture, and Angela Davis, and describe the anti-imperial, anti-colonial, and anti-racist connections that undeniably form the foundation of the solidarity between Black liberation and Palestinian liberation activists. Lara and Michael coin the term “crocodile sympathy” to refer attempts by Pro-Israel apologists to posture themselves as compassionate supporters of equality in situations not involving Palestinian rights, meanwhile hypocritically participating in the system that deprives Palestinians of the very rights they purport to support elsewhere. Lara and Michael offer other examples of crocodile sympathy, including (i) IDF soldiers’ social media posts about donating their hair to cancer patients as they participate in the very institution that denies Palestinians access to health care by bombing hospitals in Gaza, denying permits to seek health care elsewhere, restricting importation of medicine and medical equipment, preventing pregnant Palestinian women from reaching hospitals at checkpoints, and (ii) Israel’s provision of COVID-19 vaccines to Honduras and the Czech Republic while blocking the entrance of COVID-19 vaccines to Gaza, denying 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza vaccines in violation of its international obligations as an international power, and the demolition of a COVID-19 testing site in the occupied West Bank earlier this year.

Welcome to the Palestine Pod

Lara and Michael welcome you to The Palestine Pod! Lara discusses her family’s history and origins from Yaffa and Gaza, Palestine including how her family became stateless refugees, the broader history of the Palestinian struggle including the expulsion of the majority of the Palestinian population in 1948 as a result of the establishment of the state of Israel on top of historic Palestine, Israel’s ongoing land theft of Palestinian land as well as its oppressive system of apartheid, occupation, and siege which continue until today. Lara reflects on her college activist years and the path that led to her pursuing a career as an international lawyer focusing on refugee rights. Michael focuses on his experience growing up in a pro-Israel Jewish household and his evolution to becoming an anti-Zionist including his realization that Israel was an apartheid state, involvement in campus activism, and absurd encounters with his former IDF frat brothers. Lara and Michael explain the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and the weaponization of the latter in order to suppress any discussion of the very harmful consequences of the implementation of the Zionist project in Palestine: the creation of the world’s largest refugee population (8 million Palestinian refugees today out of a global population of 13 million people), the majority of whom remain stateless and prevented from returning to their land by Israel as well as the daily deprivation of rights by Israel of the Palestinians who continue to live in historic Palestine (whether in Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza).