Palestine is Still the Issue

I was a guest this week on Radio Free Amanda, an excellent socialist podcast. We discussed Operation Gladio, NATO’s secret Nazi armies during the Cold War.

Sign up as a paid subscriber for early access to this episode. Here’s the Gladio series I wrote for my Substack, which only paid subscribers can access:

* “NATO's secret Nazi armies”

* “How the CIA and Italy's secret state manipulated the right and infiltrated the left”

* “How the CIA oversaw Belgium's secret Nazi army”

Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman invited me on their radio show By Any Means Necessary to discuss Al Jazeera’s series The Labour Files and what it teaches us.

You can listen to my segment in the clip above or the whole two-hour show on their website (as long as you’re outside the UK or have access to a VPN). Radio Sputnik is censored in the UK and the rest of Europe, but this link seems to work if you want to hear the whole show.

Palestine is Still the Issue is a reader-supported publication. To access the entire archive and support my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman invited me on their radio show By Any Means Necessary to discuss my recent article on Mohammed El Halabi, the Palestinian aid worker from Gaza jailed by Israel’s kangaroo courts. We talk about how Israeli courts are an integral part of the occupation.

You can listen to my segment in the clip above or the whole two-hour show on their website. Radio Sputnik is censored in the UK and the rest of Europe, but this link seems to work if you want to hear the whole show.

Palestine is Still the Issue is a reader-supported publication. To access the full archive and support my work, please sign up as a paid subscriber.

I spoke to Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman on their By Any Means Necessary radio show on Tuesday about the latest Israeli attack on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

Since we recorded this interview Monday afternoon, not long after the ceasefire went into effect, the death toll from the weekend assault rose to 45, including 16 children.

* For more details and reporting of the assault, read “Children bear brunt of Israel’s savagery in Gaza,” by my EI colleague Tamara Nassar.

* The Haaretz article from May I referenced in the interview is “Israeli Intelligence: Gaza Target Bank ‘Very Problematic’.”

You can listen to my segment in the clip above or the whole two-hour show on their website. Radio Sputnik is censored in the UK and the rest of Europe, but this link seems to work if you want to hear the whole show.

Palestine is Still the Issue is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

I spoke to Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman on their excellent By Any Means Necessary radio show about the Forde Report, its flaws, its serious findings and how it portrays a party in terminal decline. I said that Labour’s long term decline is part of a wider pattern of the crumbling of the Western social-democratic parties after their embrace of neoliberalism.

You can listen to my segment in the clip above or the whole two-hour show on their website. Radio Sputnik is censored in the UK and the rest of Europe, but this link seems to work if you want to hear the whole show.

Since we recored this segment last week, I have now published my own more detailed analysis of the Forde Report and its findings with The Electronic Intifada. Do have a read and share it online.

Palestine is Still the Issue is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Last month marked 74 years since the foundation of the state of Israel on the rubble of Palestine. This is known to the Palestinians as Al Nakba, The Catastrophe. Some 800,000 Palestinians were driven out of Palestine by Zionist militias at the barrel of a gun.

Yet Palestine lives on — in the everyday reality of 11 million Palestinians the world over, both inside the homeland and in the diaspora. Some 5.6 million Palestinian refugees are officially registered with the UN.

On the occasion of the Nakba, I spoke to By Any Means Necessary and explained why the Nakba has never ended. It should be understood as an ongoing process, as well as a historic event.

For further background reading on the subject, I recommend this brilliant 2018 essay by Professor Joseph Massad: The Future of the Nakba.

Radio Sputnik, which hosts Sean and Jacquie’s show, is banned and blocked in the UK. But this link should hopefully work if you want to listen to the full two-hour show. Or listen to my segment in the audio player above.

Palestine is Still the Issue is a reader-supported publication. To receive every new post, access the full archive and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

I spoke on the By Any Means Necessary radio show recently to talk about how Israel is still helping to arm the Azov Battalion (a Ukrainian Nazi group currently fighting Russia) with sophisticated anti-tank missiles.

I talk to Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman about the complex relations between the Israeli government and both sides in the current war in Ukraine, as well as the ideological justification for why Israel — the Jewish state — would arm anti-Semitic fascists.

Here’s the two articles I wrote for The Electronic Intifada on the subject, as mentioned in the interview:

* “Israel is still arming Ukrainian Nazis”

* “Mercenaries in Ukraine thank Israeli government”

We also discussed the historical precedent for the US and its clients backing Nazi and neo-fascist groups in Europe: Operation Gladio. Here’s my article on it which Sean mentions:

Radio Sputnik, which hosts Sean and Jacquie’s show, is banned and blocked in the UK. But this link should hopefully work if you want to listen to the full two-hour show. Or listen to my segment in the audio player above.

Palestine is Still the Issue is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I was once again a guest on the excellent By Any Means Necessary radio show a couple of weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine to talk about the parallels between Ukraine and Syria.

What the US and European countries have been doing is both countries is quite similar — arming the most reactionary forces as a way to fuel indefinite wars and help bleed two countries with independent foreign policies (Syria and Russia).

Radio Sputnik (even its website) is being censored by the governments of the EU and UK, but it seems you can listen to the full two hour show using this link.

Or listen to my segment in the clip above.

Palestine is Still the Issue is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

When Amnesty International finally recognised the reality that Israel is an apartheid state back in February, I was invited on the excellent radio show By Any Means Necessary to talk about it.

You can listen to my segment in the clip above, or hear the whole two-hour show on Radio Sputnik’s website (which is being censored and blocked in the UK — although this alternative link seems to work for now).

Hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman also asked me to discuss my coverage of how Israel is arming Nazis in Ukraine (the interview took place before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February).

Palestine is Still the Issue is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I am a regular guest on By Any Means Necessary, an excellent leftist radio programme that broadcasts in Washington DC and across the world via the internet. The co-hosts are Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman; Eugene Puryear is an alumnus.

But recently, the UK government has used the fog of war in Ukraine to impose draconian bans on almost anything and everything Russian. By Any Means Necessary is hosted by Radio Sputnik, a Russian state broadcaster.

* On 28 February, the British government blocked Russian government websites at the ISP level.

* On 4 March, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta announced they would be blocking the accounts of Sputnik and Russian TV network RT from users in the UK. This came after a UK government request.

* On 31 March, Britain announced further sanctions targeting RT and Sputnik.

Somewhere along the line, British ISPs started blocking access to Sputnik’s website altogether. This meant it would no longer be much use to most of my British audience to embed Sputnik’s media player like I used to do.

So I am going to start re-uploading the episodes of By Any Means Necessary which I take part in and posting them to Substack. I’m starting with this clip, from January, about the Palestinian prisoners movement and the victorious hunger strike of Hisham Abu Hawwash.

If you have access to a VPN service, you can also listen to the whole two hour episode over at Sputnik’s website. If you don’t have a VPN, this direct link seems to work (for now).

Palestine is Still the Issue is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.