Palestine This Week

In this episode of Palestine This Week, we examine why Palestinian elections have been postponed again, plans for AI surveillance in Gaza’s classrooms and CNN’s findings linking a majority of hostage deaths in captivity to Israeli military actions. We also discuss the suppression of US diplomatic reports critical of Israel, the backlash against Navi Pillay, US sanctions on the ICC and a leading rabbi’s challenge to Zionism, alongside divisions within the Palestine solidarity movement and the Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia.

On the third anniversary of 7 October, we look back on three years of the Gaza genocide. We ask what the genocide has revealed about Israel, about the Western powers that have backed it, and about the international system that has failed to stop it. We also ask what these three years mean for Palestinians and their struggle against apartheid.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The CIA red-team report warning that Israel is heading towards civil war — Drop Site News: https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/cia-report-israel-civil-war-collapse
• Muhammad Shehada’s thread debunking Israel’s list of 170 Gaza journalists it claims were Hamas operatives: https://x.com/muhammadshehad2/status/2106703816792133658
• The foiled plot by a Bar-Ilan University lecturer to carry out simultaneous attacks on Palestinian towns — The Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/crime-in-israel/article-910629

This week’s MEMO review examines claims about Netanyahu’s advance knowledge of 7 October, his provocative UN speech and Israel’s sweeping West Bank closure. We discuss calls to free Marwan Barghouti, moves to bar Arab-led parties from Israeli elections, Trump’s rejection of Iran’s proposal and allegations of election interference involving Israeli firms.

 In this week’s Palestine This Week, Nasim Ahmed and Muhammad Shehada discuss allegations that Israel is destroying evidence of war crimes in Gaza, the growing use of AI to select targets and the disturbing revelations in the documentary NAZA. They also examine genocidal rhetoric and Israeli exceptionalism, plans for Gaza’s reconstruction, state-backed settler violence in the occupied West Bank, the controversy surrounding Ed Sheeran and the political weaponisation of Iran’s protest death toll. 

In this episode we speak to Muhammed Shehada about his clash with the Board of Peace and his concern that it is burying evidence of genocide in Gaza. We unpack revelations in the Haaretz that Benjamin Netanyahu was warned in advance of the 7 October attack. Marking twenty-five years since 9/11, we look at how the War on Terror emboldened Israel, and at the rise in Islamophobia since — fuelled by Israel-linked groups working in alliance with the far right. We close on Britain’s sanctions against Israeli settlement products, the ferocity of the backlash, and how easily measures like this can be circumvented.

Chapters:
00:00:00 Introduction & Overview
00:01:29 The Board of Peace and the burying of genocide evidence
00:10:43 The warning Netanyahu buried: what the UAE told him before 7 October
00:20:50 When Hamas offered all the hostages — and Washington refused
00:34:14 Twenty-five years on: how the War on Terror emboldened Israel
00:40:44 Inside the Middle East Forum's Muslim surveillance database
00:46:09 Israel, the far right, and the manufacture of Islamophobia
00:56:30 Britain's settlement sanctions: symbolism or substance?
01:04:17 How Jewish institutions were absorbed into the Greater Israel project

In this episode of Palestine This Week, we look at Israel’s election campaign and how politicians are competing to run the most hateful campaign in an effort to win support from an increasingly radicalised Israeli public. We also discuss the push to expel Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Israel’s efforts to win US backing for its plans, allegations of apartheid against Palestinian students in Israeli universities, Britain’s proposed sanctions on illegal settlements, Nicaragua’s case against Germany at the ICJ and concerns over the future of UNRWA.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction & Overview

01:40 Israel’s Election and the Politics of ‘Vice Signalling’

08:05 Israel’s Annexation Camp Versus the Control Camp

18:24 Israel Seeks Trump’s Support to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza

23:31 Blair Asked the PA to Remove Palestine from Textbooks

28:05 Apartheid in Israeli Academia After 7 October

29:57 Labour’s Sanctions on Israeli Settlements

39:46 Britain Owes Palestine

46:47 Why Nicaragua Is Taking Germany to the ICJ Over Gaza

50:47 The Future of UNRWA and the Race for UN Secretary-General

56:20 Is X Shadow-Banning Pro-Palestine Accounts?

In this episode of Palestine This Week, we examine allegations that evidence of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is being removed by Trump's "Board of Peace", South Africa’s latest submission to the ICJ over Israel’s non-compliance with provisional measures and growing scrutiny of illegal settlements and settler violence in the occupied West Bank. We also look at Britain’s economic ties to companies linked to settlements, Israel’s vast arms export industry, US punishing Kurds over the Iran war and the suppression of pro-Palestine voices on X, including MEMO.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction & Overview

01:24 Board of Peace accused of destroying evidence of Israel’s genocide in Gaza

05:13 UN Security Council hears damning testimony on the Board of Peace and Gaza aid

10:24 Has Israel returned to its pre-7 October policy of containing Hamas in Gaza?

16:27 South Africa documents Israel’s non-compliance with ICJ provisional measures

23:23 UK public contracts raise questions over economic ties to illegal Israeli settlements

32:31 Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis attacks UK measures targeting illegal Israeli settlements

40:58 US Congress moves to penalise universities that boycott Israeli institutions

46:58 Israel exports six times more weapons per capita than the US

51:38 US military aid to Kurds reportedly at risk over refusal to join plans against Iran

54:39 X accused of suppressing pro-Palestine voices as MEMO becomes latest target

In this episode of Palestine This Week, we begin with Jared Kushner’s meetings with Hamas political leader Khalil Al-Hayya and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking what the talks mean for the future of the Gaza ceasefire.
We revisit the long-debunked claim that Palestine was sparsely populated before early Jewish settlement and ask why this version of history continues to resurface. We also look at changes to Saudi school textbooks, including the removal of the phrase “Muslims will never give up Jerusalem”.
The episode also looks at settler violence in the occupied West Bank and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s decision to describe Israeli settlers as “terrorists” after American citizens were besieged by Israeli settlers.
Finally, we discuss a false quotation attributed to an Iranian commander that travelled from social media into Israeli media, Benjamin Netanyahu’s rhetoric and ultimately political debate in Washington. What does the episode tell us about the use of manufactured intelligence to build the case against Iran? And as Israel becomes increasingly isolated in parts of Europe and the US, why is Netanyahu’s government building closer ties with far-right governments and movements across Latin America and elsewhere?

01:33 Kushner’s Gaza talks with Hamas and Netanyahu
12:41 Revisiting claims about early Jewish settlement in Palestine
21:50 Saudi Arabia removes Jerusalem pledge from school textbooks
30:24 Huckabee calls Israeli settlers “terrorists”
33:52 Israel accused of laundering false intelligence on Iran
39:36 Iran MOU expires as US regional goals fall short
44:08 Israel deepens ties with the global far right

In this episode of Palestine This Week, we begin with Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of Trump’s Gaza plan and the growing power of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. We also discuss the emerging Saudi-Turkiye-Pakistan security alignment, shifting Gulf politics and Israel’s efforts to manufacture evidence against Iran with the aim of inciting US bombing of the Islamic Republic. The conversation then turns to how Washington’s longstanding alliance with Israel continues to shape US policy in the Middle East, the role of Islamophobia in sustaining that relationship.

1:15 Netanyahu rejects Trump’s Gaza plan: Is Hamas a politically useful bogeyman?
08:11 Why is Trump allowing Netanyahu to defy and undermine him?
13:55 Has Israel lost control of its settlers in the occupied West Bank?
20:09 Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye: Is a new Muslim strategic bloc emerging?
22:46 Has Saudi Arabia accepted the limits of US power after the Iran war?
27:15 Are new fault lines emerging between Saudi Arabia and the Abraham Accords states?32:25 How Israel manufactured evidence of an Iranian nuclear threat
37:44 Robert Kagan, US Islamophobia and the blowback from America’s support for Israel