The Palestine Pod

You can hear the crickets

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.

A Spiritual Calling with Janaya Future Khan

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. 

Father, the Son, & the Stun Grenade

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. 

Jawad, Thafer & the Palestinian Dream of Freedom with Ru’a Rimawi

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. 

Cut the Cord with Ronnie Barkan

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. 

The Cracks are Showing

This week Lara and Michael discussed the various BDS victories which include boycotts on Netanyahu and other government officials, Saudi Arabia's refusal to grant travel documents to Israeli officials, and the former head of Mossad saying the apartheid state is "on the verge of collapse." Fingers crossed. We discuss Ahmad Manasra and the absurdity of protesting to save a judicial system that has stolen his childhood and tortured him and countless other children. 

Campus to Congress with Amal Thabateh of Pal_Legal

This week Lara and Michael sit down with the Michael Ratner Justice Fellow at Palestine Legal, Amal Thabateh. We talk about the growing support for Palestine on college campuses that intersects with other anti-racist struggles. We cover how this support is increasingly being censored and chilled by lobbyists, think tanks, and apartheid apologist groups in a way that harkens back to McCarthyism in the 1950s. We chat about the environment at CUNY that is producing some of the best Palestinian legal minds in the country, and finally, Amal assures us that most of the people who get involved with this work come out whole despite the difficult odds we face. 

Olive Branch & The Gun with Fred Wreck

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. 

You Were Not Invited

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.  

A Tale of two shootings

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.