The Electronic Intifada

On Episode 24 of The Electronic Intifada Podcast, we speak with boycott activists who are taking on major corporations complicit in Israeli settlements and weapons manufacturing industries.

Guests: Huda Ammori, Palestine Action; Dalit Baum and Noam Perry of American Friends Service Committee.

Photo: Palestine Action

On episode 23 of The Electronic Intifada Podcast, author and activist Susan Abulhawa discusses her new novel Against the Loveless World.

Abulhawa’s Palestinian protagonist and narrator, Nahr, tells the story of her life from solitary confinement inside an Israeli prison cell called “the cube.”

Read more here: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/podcast-ep-23-against-loveless-world

On episode 22 of The Electronic Intifada Podcast, we ask how powerful the Israeli army really is.

Author Shir Hever has researched in depth the economic factors behind Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as the Israeli arms and surveillance technology industries.

Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/podcast-ep-22-why-israel-isnt-powerful-it-wants-us-think

On Episode 21, we are joined by Lubnah Shomali, advocacy manager with Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights to talk about the detrimental effects that international aid agencies place onto Palestinian civil society.

Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/podcast-ep-21-how-eu-polices-palestinian-rights-groups

Photo: Lubnah Shomali, Badil (Eyewitness Palestine)

Professor Joseph Massad joins us to discuss Israel's theft of Palestinian land and the current Trump-Netanyahu annexation plan.

Added to previous annexations, Massad argues that the plan could mean about 70 percent of the West Bank is declared as under Israeli "sovereignty" -- far higher than the 30 percent usually discussed by the media.

Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/podcast-ep-20-joseph-massad-annexation

Photo: Palestinians in Gaza City demonstrate against Israel's annexation plans, 1 July 2020. (Ashraf Amra/APA Images)

Ajamu Baraka of Black Alliance for Peace and Kristian Davis Bailey of Black for Palestine discuss the revolutionary moment in the US as people rise up against police violence and strengthen solidarity with Palestinians.

Photo: Palestinians in Bethlehem hold a vigil for George Floyd and Iyad Hallaq, 2 June. (Abedalrahman Hassan/APA Images)

Filmmaker and activist Iara Lee was a passenger on the Mavi Marmara, part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla that was intercepted and raided by Israeli commandos on 31 May, 2010. Israeli forces killed 9 people aboard the ship. She tells us about her experience and how she's still pursuing justice ten years later.

We also feature an interview with Mohammad Samara, a nurse and activist in Nablus, about the COVID-19 pandemic in the occupied West Bank.

Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/podcast-ep-18-israels-mavi-marmara-massacre-10-years

Photo: The Mavi Marmara, part of the 2010 Freedom Flotilla hijacked by Israel. The subsequent backlash in global public opinion led Israeli spies to begin monitoring Palestine solidarity groups. (Wikipedia)

"The coronavirus has exacerbated, in fact highlighted, the racist system that exists in the country," says lawyer Diana Buttu.

Israel initially only provided COVID-19 testing to cities and towns where most of the inhabitants are Jewish. Towns inside Israel with a large Palestinian population have been ignored, Buttu explains.

Now, she says, “the numbers of cases of Palestinians who have tested positive is on the rise, mostly because there has been such a push by Palestinians to have testing in these areas.”

Nora and Asa also discuss how they are coping on coronavirus lockdown in the US and UK, and Asa gets into a recent leaked British Labour Party report.

Image: Palestinians distribute cleaning supplies amid fears of the spread of COVID-19, near Hebron. Mosab Shawer/APA Images

Dr. Mona El-Farra is the Health Chair of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society of the Gaza Strip and a member of the Union of Health Work Committees. Dr. Mona is also the director of Gaza Projects for the Middle East Children's Alliance (mecaforpeace.org)

Photo: Ashraf Amra / APA Images

Dealing with a problem like the COVID-19 pandemic consists of three major pillars: diagnosis and identification of infected patients, protection of healthcare workers, and treatment, Dr. Tarek Loubani tells The Electronic Intifada Podcast. "In Gaza, those three pillars of a response to an infectious pandemic like this, not one of them is intact."

Guests: Dr. Tarek Loubani, Reidun Garapick

Photo: Palestinian youths disinfect people as a preventive measure amid fears of the spread of the coronavirus, Gaza City, 23 March, 2020. (Mahmoud Ajjour/APA Images)