It Could Happen Here - The Attacks on Jenin & Media Bias

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

Shereen and James discuss recent IDF attacks on Jenin and why new resistance groups are appearing in Palestine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast,

Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app

or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards.

That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hello. Welcome to the podcast. It could happen here. It's me, James, and Shireen today. Hi, Shireen. Hi, James. Hi. Hi, Shireen. Hi, James. Hi.

It's Shireen. Yeah, it's lovely to have you. Thanks for introducing yourself. I was a little confused about who I was talking to. I've done podcasts for a long time, and I never actually know how to introduce myself. But I'm really happy to be doing this episode with you because you're a very good episode partner. Thank you, Shireen. I am also happy to be doing this episode with you. I think you're

an excellent episode partner. What are we talking about, Shireen? You don't have to say that just because I said it. No, I do. I like them. It's good. It's good. We help people learn things. Well, today you're going to learn some more things about Palestine. It's been a minute since we had an update and I mean surprise surprise things aren't good um so we're going to talk about some recent stuff that's been happening there's we mentioned some stuff that we've mentioned before in other episodes like the nekba or um just the ethnic cleansing that happened in 1948 um also some politics stuff

so if you are interested in getting more detail and you haven't listened to those i would recommend listening to those just for more context if you desire. But yeah. Yeah, I think you're diving in probably at the deep end if you start here, but we're going to dive in at the deep end. So earlier this month, Omar Katin, 27, a father of two children, who worked as an electrician for the local municipality, was killed when about 400 Israeli settlers marched

down Tormos Ayers main road, sending cars, homes, crops and trees ablaze as they went. It's not clear if he was shot by IDF troops or settlers, as both stormed the village carrying weapons. Under international law, Israeli settlements are illegal. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to build a thousand new housing units in the settlement of Eli in response to the deadly shooting of four Israelis by two Palestinian gunmen on Tuesday, the 20th of June. The suspected assailants were later killed. One of them was quote-unquote neutralized by a civilian, the other by the IDF, but it appears the plan is to punish the whole nation again. Our answer to terror is to strike it hard

and to build our country, Netanyahu said. His right-wing government is dominated by settler leaders and supporters, and his statements came just days after the government gave far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich sweeping powers to expedite the construction of illegal settlements, bypassing measures that have been in place for almost 27 years. The violence in Turmosaya, am I saying that right? I just looked it up.

Yeah, Turmosaya, it's a town in the West Bank, for context, people that don't know. So yeah, it's in the Ramallah and El Bire, governor in the West Bank. Yeah, and we're going to get a little bit more into it, why this is all happening. We just wanted to kind of paint the picture for you, first of all, of the big events that have happened, I guess.

So this violence against the people of this town and the shooting of four Israelis followed an incursion by the IDF and Israeli border forces into the Jenin refugee camp. It was an operational scale not seen for decades. Soldiers used tear gas, stun grenades, and an attack helicopter. Seven Palestinians were killed, nearly 100 were wounded. And I feel like this is not the first time, if you've been following any Palestinian news,

that you've heard of Jenin, the refugee camp, or that it's being attacked. It might sound familiar, I'll get into it more later. But Shireen Abu Akleh was actually killed while reporting there. So I want to get into just why exactly Israel keeps raiding the Janin refugee camp in particular. And I want to talk about the camp's history, why it's getting targeted, and why the latest raid was different than the ones before it. Janin is slowly becoming a symbol of Palestinian resistance. It was originally established in 1953 to house Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed during the Nakba of 1948, which forced some 750,000 people from their homes in order to make way for the establishment of Israel.

And again, we've talked about this in other episodes if you want to revisit those, for the establishment of Israel. And again, we've talked about this in other episodes if you want to revisit those, but essentially it was just a very horrific example of ethnic cleansing and massacres and genocide and displacement. So the camp has seen much unrest over the decades and it was nearly destroyed in 2002 when Israeli soldiers ambushed it during the Second Intifada. According to a Human Rights Watch investigation, at least 52 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed during this period of time in 2002 during the Second Intifada. There were also at least 23 Israeli soldiers killed and several others injured, that were reported. And since then, Janine has recently seen intensifying attacks by Israeli forces, especially since 2021,

and it has slowly, along with Gaza, become a major symbol of Palestinian resistance. At this point, Palestinians are really fed up with the inaction of the Palestinian Authority, the PA, which is the government entity meant to oversee and quote-unquote protect the Palestinians within its governance. The Palestinian Authority was formed in 1994 following the Gaza-Jericho agreement between the PLO and the government of Israel, and it was only intended to be a five-year interim body. Further negotiations were then meant to take place between the two parties regarding its final status. According to the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority was designated to have exclusive control over both security-related

and civilian issues in the Palestinian urban areas, which are referred to as Area A, and only Palestinian control over Palestinian rural areas, which is called Area B. The remainder of the territories, including Israeli settlement, the Jordan Valley region, and bypass roads between Palestinian communities, were to remain under Israeli control, aka Area C. East Jerusalem was excluded from the accords. Negotiations with several Israeli governments had resulted in the authority gaining further control in some areas, but that control was then lost in some areas when Israel retook several strategic positions during the Second Intifada. At this point, the Palestinian Authority is an authoritarian regime that has not held

elections in over 15 years, and it doesn't really stand in the way of the Israeli government and the crimes they commit. So what concerns Israel is that in Jenin and elsewhere, young Palestinians are increasingly taking up arms because they see no other way out of the pressure of occupation and they're very disillusioned with the ineffectiveness of the Palestinian Authority. Yeah, I think that's a really important way to, like when we talk about like especially palestinian people taking up arms right or especially these these new groups which have come in the last like couple of years right um there's that lion's den group i think they're

more from like noblest um janine brigades is another one uh it's in the context of like government failure or state failure uh like in i guess when we look at like the context of government failure or state failure. I guess when we look at the formation of states, it's called social contract theory, the idea that when we go and consent, which we don't do, we don't have a chance to consent to being in a state. Very obviously, if you're from Palestine, you're aware of this. We're supposed to give up some of our freedom and get some security. But then the Palestinian Authority has repeatedly failed to protect people in Jenin, right? And in lots of other places,

too. And so like, this response, like this, this response of taking up arms is in the context of state failure, right? Like people are trying to protect their own communities when there's been a complete failure by the people who are supposed to protect them, and that's both the PA and then the broader, the international community is kind of a pointless phrase. It doesn't really mean anything. But international law is also a pointless phrase. It doesn't really mean anything, which I,

um, I'm getting too far afield here, but like the amount of times people in my replies on Twitter will be like, this is against international law. And like, are you going to go and fucking enforce it then? Like, it's if that matters at that point,

it's just a good, it doesn't matter. Like we know it's bad. Like, I don't like, that's not what's up for debate. What's up for debate is what the fuck are you going to do about it? How are you going to stop it?

And these people have decided that the way they're going to stop it is by taking up arms. And like, evidently, Israel sees them as terrorists. Evidently, there are some groups inside Palestine who have killed civilians and done shit, which is, you know, which is not very nice. Also, the IDF kills civilians all the time. One of them is funded and armed by your taxes.

And so, yeah, it's an understandable response. an understandable response and and the response of the idf is to sort of to paint the whole of janine as harboring quote-unquote terrorists right um which which is and then to do these attacks which often cause civilian casualties which is not that distinct from suggesting that israel is a terrorist state right and then attacking israel like, but one of these things is more broadly condemned as terrorism and one is not as broadly condemned as terrorism. And they're not, to my eye, that morally different, I guess.

Yeah. Does that make sense? I agree. And I also think, no, it makes a lot of sense. I think remembering the imbalance that it starts at is so important because palestine has no army it's not backed by any rich ass nation it's not trained by anything and it's an extremely

unbalanced quote-unquote battle no one's deploying an apache helicopter when when the idf killers right like exactly and yeah like shereen abAkhli was a U.S. citizen. Not that it matters, but it should matter just in the idea of what the U.S. can do or, like, the outrage it can have. But it doesn't do anything. Yeah, as a journalist who goes to dangerous places and is a U.S. citizen now,

like, it's fucking infuriating. And obviously, like, like and i particularly think that like you know like daddy government is coming to save me i'm not like you know if you're laboring under that illusion you're probably a little bit naive but um it is just incredibly frustrating to see the value of some quote-unquote american lives like it's it did it's it's always wrong to shoot journalists of course but like it's just the u.s basically condoning that it is yeah as as again this isn't the first fucking uh like arab journalist that the u.s who is a u.s citizen who has been killed by an authoritarian regime that the U.S. has done fuck all about.

Yeah. No, I think it's just a slap in the face for her family and just the entire community of both Arabs and journalists and that crossover there. But I did want to mention just the terrorism acts on both sides are obviously terrible. on both sides are obviously terrible. I just think you have to remember where they started and the imbalance that is there, especially if the entity that is supposed to protect the Palestinians isn't doing shit.

And the only way Palestinians can fight back or defend themselves is with violence. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's just frustrating when people point out the violence on just the Palestinian side. And we'll get into the news version of what that means

and the biases of what that means in a little bit. But yeah, that's explaining exactly why these groups have risen, yeah. There's, just to be an absolute fucking dweeb for a second, the introduction to Wretched of the Earth that Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, it's a France Fanon book, is fantastic when talking about violence and violence in the decolonial process and how it's very nice that these colonial states,

apartheid states like Israel, speak in the language of rights, and they encourage the colonized people to make their claims in the language of rights. But every time they fucking do, they get met with violence, right? And it is entirely understandable that when the state speaks to you only in violence, you will reply using the same language that it has spoken to you with, right?

That is how decolonial struggles have been, right? From Algeria to Vietnam to Palestine. And this isn't a particularly under-theorized concept. It's there in Fanon in the 1960s. That's always something I like to suggest people read. I think it's a very good kind of distillation of what's occurring. Yeah. No, I like that you mentioned that because it does seem like the that this is like a palestinian problem that they have that they

are violent and that they hate the other side and it is just another good example of the effects of colonialism and like that's the the occupied people and their only choice of like retaliation anyway i don't want to get into that too much but i i do want to emphasize why exactly that they were disillusioned the palestinian youth especially during this time because the idf has been extremely violent and the pa still is really inactive and doesn't do anything. So that's kind of the reason why there. Yeah. Yeah. We have a little more on Shireen Abouakle if you want to. Oh, yeah. We have an episode about her, I believe. Yeah.

And I'm going to mention her a little bit here. The Jenin refugee camp, it houses armed fighters and they're from several factions. But this means Israelis, they consider it a hub for what they call terrorist activity rather than resistance. So the entire camp is then dubbed a terrorist site. But most of the people that the IDF has killed are not engaging in any sort of violent activity. And in some cases, they are clearly marked as press, wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet, like El Jazeera journalist Sharina Bouakli, for one.

She was shot dead by an Israeli sniper in May 2022. And in her case, the IDF said they were aiming at armed Palestinians who were shooting at them and responding with fire. And after, I don't know, a lot of inconclusive proof in the IDF sticking to that story, a ballistics analysis proved that that story wasn't true and there was no fire coming from the other side. But regardless, no one cares about that. And this happened all in Janine. So I think it's very clear why this camp has become a symbol of resistance, simply because the atrocities that have happened there are tremendous and they keep fighting back.

And I think it's an example of how exactly a Palestinian symbol comes to be, like Gaza, like this, whatever it is. I wanted to include a quote from the israeli military spokesman ran kachov um he told army radio which i guess is not exactly a kind of neutral arbiter here uh that she was filming and working for a media outlet amidst armed palestinians they were armed with cameras if you will permit me to say so which like no like we should not we should not fucking permit someone because like you know i'll go to all kinds of dangerous spots with the camera like i've never fucking shot someone with a camera because it's a fucking camera right like it doesn't it doesn't that's not what cameras do they take videos that is the most like i can't believe that's an actual quote

that someone said and got away with yeah what the fuck is wrong with like what and it's just incorrect operation of the human brain to use the fucking phrase arm with camera like what is wrong with you uh it's I know people get really people got really mad briefly when Russians were shooting journalists in Ukraine in in the start of the conflict uh and like the I guess they were kind of as mask off about this but like yeah it's a fucking camera if if your security is threatened by someone filming the shit that you do it's because you shouldn't be doing it and you know you shouldn't be doing it right like and again like i've experienced that like people people you know doing stuff they

don't want to be filmed they are getting mad that I'm filming it but like maybe if you're not prepared to defend what you're doing you shouldn't be doing it you don't you don't suggest that the camera is the camera is a neutral object here it's not the camera that shot a woman in the head

yeah I mean that sentence is infuriating the fact that literally it says they were amidst armed Palestinians. And then you could stop there and people can just like click out and read and like move on with their day thinking that they had fucking guns. And the next sentence is literally they're armed with cameras. Like, I don't know. That's just so infuriating to me that that's a real thing that was said and accepted.

It seems to be almost deliberately insulting. It's definitely an attack on, I don't know if you're a journalist and you don't see that as an attack on all of us, then maybe examine your biases, I guess. Yeah, and then the ballistics analysis that I mentioned earlier, it showed that where she was shot,

there were several targeted shots, one of that where she was shot there were several targeted shots one of which hit her head because there were shots in the tree that was behind her so she was clearly targeted

yeah because she was shot by a sniper out the back of one of their APCs right they have a little little

like murder hole and she was shot from 200 meters away which is not very far with a magnified sight and like yeah you don't just it wouldn't look like that, I guess, like three little holes behind where her head was suggested someone fired like single shots targeted, not just like spraying bullets around. Yeah.

I don't want to talk about it too much because it is, that's not the topic of this episode. is that's not the topic of this episode but i do want to just say that i think it's so ironic that the idf is supposed to be this most advanced military body this highly trained thing and then at the same the same breath their defenses sometimes they made a mistake oops you know what i mean like they made this grave mistake they thought she was carrying a gun or she was around people with guns i just think that's a very silly um i don't know yeah i'm being sure it's scary true i suppose and you can you can make mistakes but if you make mistakes you own them you could still be like oh yeah we we 100% fucked up and like we need to examine how we fucked up you know yeah that's just their defense so many times it gets really fucking old but okay before we continue and talk

about the recent attack in Jenin, let's take our first break and we'll be right back. And we're back. Let's go back to talk about the latest raid on the Jenin refugee camp. Let's go back to talk about the latest raid on the Janine refugee camp. The Israeli army launched its latest raid on the Janine refugee camp in the early hours of Monday, June 19th. Five people, including a 15-year-old, were dead by the time it withdrew its forces in the afternoon. Others died the following day because of their injuries.

Several journalists were shot at, and they were surrounded, and one was injured. This raid ironically took place near the location where Shireen Abu-Akhle was killed. Several ambulances were also fired upon with live ammunition, and at first they were denied access to the injured, which is nothing new to the IDF. They do this consistently, they block medical aid to reach the people that are injured. The Israeli army said the raid was to arrest two suspects, one of whom was a former Palestinian prisoner, Asim Abu al-Hajjah, who was the son of an imprisoned Hamas leader. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and refuge between the chapters.

From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore

queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

New episodes every Thursday. I just want a quick reminder, a refresh. I know I say this in most of the episodes about Palestine, especially the ones I've done in the beginning of this year. But in 2022, Israeli forces killed more than 170 Palestinians, including at least 30 children, in occupied East Jerusalem and in the West Bank. And this is described as the deadliest year for Palestinians and those living in those areas since 2006. Since the start of 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 160 Palestinians, including 26 children. And it's June. The death toll includes 36 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army during a four-day assault on the besieged Gaza Strip between May 9th and May 13th

of this year. I just want to put that into context because if 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians in the last 20 years, and we're essentially already there by six months into this new year. It's just, it's really disturbing, and it's really heartbreaking that it's truly, there's no slowing down, and this raid is a great example of them just like upping the ante. And what was different about this raid? Israeli offenses into Janine are nothing new, but it appeared that the raiding soldiers were caught off guard this time. Shortly after the raid began, videos showed an Israeli military Panther APC being hit with a roadside improvised explosive device. And there is a video of this. I haven't seen it because I just personally don't want to, but it's there if you choose to see it.

I just personally don't want to, but it's there if you choose to see it. Military helicopters then began shooting and launching rockets and flares while surveillance aircraft hovered above. It was the first time in 20 years that Israel deployed helicopter gunships in the West Bank. By the end of the raid, reports suggested that at least five Israeli military vehicles had been damaged by explosive devices and bullets deployed by armed Palestinians. This was the first time the IDF was met with this understandable degree of resistance and defense in Jenin, and their response was overwhelming in return. Hi everyone, it's James and Shireen again, and we're here today for a little update. It's the 3rd of July as we're're recording this just because there's been a significantly larger idf incursion into the genine refugee camp and because we know

this is coming out at the end of the week we wanted to make sure you had a little bit more update to date information uh so as best i can kind of piece it together what happened is that some israeli military vehicles were hit with an idED. It's a bomb, right? Roadside bomb, improvised explosive device. And Israel responded by going fully ham on a scale that we haven't really seen since the second Intifada. So there's air attacks, drones, helicopters, armored vehicles. I saw them using an anti-tank missile against a house saw videos of

uh armored bulldozers tearing up roads in the camp and matt like perhaps shereen you could kind of give a scale of what this has done not just to roads obviously but to the people who live there yeah like james was saying they're continuing to attack with drones and rockets. And the Janine refugee camp is very densely populated. It has about 20,000 people. And they are targeting infrastructure like homes and roads. And the mayor of Janine, Nidal Obaidie, he said the attack was a real massacre and an attempt to wipe out all aspects of life inside the city and the camp. Those being targeted now are not just the resistance fighters, but civilians are being killed and wounded as well. And water and electricity services have also been cut off from the camp since the attack has started. And the

Palestine Red Crescent said that at least 3,000 people were evacuated from the camp. 3,000 people were evacuated from the camp. Yeah. And then as far as like time of recording, which is Monday afternoon, eight people have been killed. One more person was killed in Ramallah. The two youngest victims were identified as Nurdin Hassam Yusuf Marshud,

who was 15, and 17-year-old Majidi Yonissaud Ararawi. So both of them under 18, but the oldest person was 23. So these are all very young people who sadly are dead now. And then they estimate that, Palestinian Red Crescent estimates that 3,000 people have left the camp, which I think paints a picture of like emptying or cleaning or whatever colonial sort of uh word you want to use to make it seem less brutal than it is but

like like emptying the space of human beings so that that it can be colonized or the other folks can move their rent yeah yeah uh in addition to some some places are saying eight have died. Some people, some places are saying nine. But regardless, there are over 100 people that are injured. And so I don't know, the fact that the oldest person was only 23 years old should really paint the picture of like, who exactly is being targeted and killed. Because there's no way their defense of targeting terrorists can play here, even though it probably does in the long run. But I just I think it's really fucked up and unfair. The White House, meanwhile, said the United States, quote, supports Israel's security and right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups. And they also highlighted the need to protect non-combatants, which hasn't happened. And none of those people are actually being targeted or there's nothing to defend at this point.

I really don't, I don't know. I'm at a loss. It's also weird that, I don't know, like it just seems such a knee-jerk response. So maybe this is just me being a dweeb or whatever, but like at least one of the IEDs was claimed by Janine Brigade, I think the one earlier last week, but to call out groups by name and then not call out the group who are claiming responsibility for at least one of these attacks, it just seems so like, okay, like press play on the tape.

Yeah, they're also naming things that people are probably more familiar with, almost to justify or entice fear of being like, oh my God, yeah, Hamas, attack Hamas, or whatever they think will happen with that response. And the international response, yeah, the international response

has also been dog shit, surprise, surprise. It. Because it's always just talk and nothing really happens. Turkey's foreign ministry voice is deep concern over the attack. They warned that it can trigger a new spiral of violence. It already has. And they called the Israeli incursion a heinous crime. crime. Qatar stressed that the need for international community to move urgently to protect the Palestinian people was very necessary. And then Jordan condemned the escalation as a violation of international humanitarian law, which Israel has been breaking for years. So nothing has happened. And then Egypt, on the other hand, it warned of serious repercussions and it called on other international people to intervene. And then the UN said the situation is very dangerous. Like all these things I think have already been said every time. That's why I just think it's so empty. And I don't know. If it's just words and no actions, how are we supposed to even take anything seriously, I guess? I don't know. If it's just words and no actions, how are we supposed to even take anything seriously, I guess? I don't know. Yeah, it's the thoughts and prayers of the international. The UN is always deeply concerned, but it never does. Fuck all, right?

So, yeah, I guess to wrap up, we should talk about what this means for Junine as a place or as a community. Yeah, we mentioned this in our previous recording last week, but Israel's attacks on Janine are part of an effort to crush resistance with the young Palestinians that are increasingly taking up arms because they're disillusioned with the PA. And according to analysts, Israel's hard-right government is likely to continue its heavy-handed approach toward Palestinians in the West Bank. Palestinian lawyer and analyst Deanna Batu said, Israel wants to do whatever it can to crush Janine and any other form of resistance. Israel has made it clear that there are three options

available for Palestinians. Option one is to leave. Option two is to remain as residents, but not as citizens of any state. And option three is if you resist, we are going to crush you. This is what they are implementing. Yeah, yeah, I think that's well said. Yeah. Hassan Ayyub, who is a Palestinian political science professor at NNJ National University in Nablus. He agreed with the lawyer's statement and he said, the end game is to make Palestinians give up any hope of achieving self-determination or being recognized as a people. Janine has a long history of resistance. It is a model for the masses that Israel wants to eliminate. But for Palestinians, the question is a matter of principle and their end game is to end this occupation. And essentially, Israel intends

to crush what Ayyub referred to as, quote, the Janine phenomenon or any form of Palestinian resistance. Yeah, the Israeli aggression, it raised fears of an escalation that continues to happen in areas such as the Gaza Strip, because that's another symbolic place of resistance for Palestinians. And yeah, that's where we are now. That's pretty much it. I reached out to some people I know, but people generally don't like to be on their phones when this stuff is happening.

So maybe we'll update you with some more information yeah hopefully i mean updates like this are always kind of like uh unfortunate because i don't think we want to update that more shitty things are happening but especially with stuff like this uh it doesn't seem like israel is going to back down anytime soon um so yeah that's that's the update okay yeah so i wanted to talk about um some of the people who were killed one of the people who was killed was amjad aref aljas uh he was 48 his son age 22 was killed in the janine massacre that occurred in January this year. I should kind of give you a sense of like the risk that I guess one incurs unwillingly by existing in what is a fucking refugee camp.

His son wasn't the only young person killed. Another person who was killed was Sadil Najha Nahia. She was 15. And a few days later, her classmates attended her funeral all in their school uniforms. It's pretty sad. There are obviously images of it

if you want to go look them up, but you can see lots of little school girls burying their friend in a town which is covered in burned detritus. No one should have to bury their kids. It's horrible. Kids shouldn't have to deal with this shit. But there are plenty of pictures of little school girls

standing by her grave. It's awful. So horrible. Yeah. The other victims were identified as Ahmed Saka, Ahmed Darachma, Khaled Dawish, Qasem Faisal Abu Siria.

They were 15, 19, 21, 19, and 29, respectively. The day after this occurred, the aforementioned attack on settlers in Eli took place. Two gunmen shot into a gas station or restaurant. One was killed on the scene, and one was killed later. It was a response to the massive attack on Tumas Ayah that occurred a few days before. Two gunmen shot into a gas station or restaurant. One was killed on the scene and one was killed later. It was a response to the massive attack on Tumasaya that occurred a few days before. And I want to highlight how the NYT covered this because I think it's important to dissect

how Palestine is covered by the US, right? Because obviously the US is one of the biggest state supporters of Israel and specifically one of the biggest state supporters of Israel and specifically one of the people who continues to equip the IDF to do this stuff right so I'm quoting here directly last week two Palestinians killed four Israelis and injured four others near the Eli settlement escalating month-long violence between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank. The next day, some 400 settlers descended on several Palestinian villages, including Tul Masaya, a prosperous town near Ramallah,

where reportedly they torched cars and homes. I want to stop right there because it is not reportedly, right? We do not have to qualify this with like maybe or like we've just seen this on twitter.com like you could probably see this shit on google maps right like they torched a town there's there's massive damage done even the new york times itself didn't qualify it as a reported incident in in its own reporting uh and this isn't we don't hear the same thing with the the two palestinian gunmen right i'll just read the first opening sentence again last week two palestinian terrorists killed four israelis it's just stated as a fact right and and these just within those couple of sentences you can see so much much of the bias in the way this is reported, so much of the different perspectives through which state violence...

I would encourage people not to use terrorism. I would encourage them to see things, especially in this context, in terms of political violence, right? There is political violence done by both sides. One of those sides is a state actor. The other side is a non-state actor. But qualifying one and then making it distinct from the other, I think, is shoddy journalism. And I don't think it really helps us understand this situation.

So what happened, right? Like 15 homes were burned, 60 vehicles were burned. And the writers sort of quote unquote sort of saying this is reportedly it's not it's true it's a thing that really happened another kind of phrasing that i've found really objectionable in this instance is is clashes right like often you'll see clashes in janine uh and like that casts a a lens of parity or like he looks at these things for a lens of parity which i don't think is is real on the ground like it's not a clash when a helicopter is firing uh rockets even if it is firing rockets at people with kalashnikovs right like that there's

not it's not a clash this is not really a parity there right like and it it's it also kind of downplays the violence of what's happening right it's an attack it's an assault i think the constant use of clashes right it's nearly always you don't really see it used anywhere else of if you if you do it's for it's for much less severe violence like like clashes between rival football fans not that that can't be very violent it can but you don't really see this word used to characterize like state violence on this scale anywhere else and and so i would really encourage people when they're reading especially coverage of this right which is an issue that the u.s cannot get its head out of its ass about uh to look for this biased language and if you're reading coverage or anything else right if you're if you're reading

coverage something and you start to notice that like i would perhaps question where you're getting your coverage from and i know you had some shit to say about the new york times shireen i mean yeah i i one really like what you said about referring to it as state violence versus terrorism, because I think that's a huge point that I also want to adopt, because I didn't even really transfer that over until just now when you said it. And I think it's a really important distinction. So thank you for that. But yeah, the New York Times, as well as many, if not most news organizations, they're incredibly biased when it comes to Palestine-Israel reporting, and the New York Times in particular has been absolute dogshit in their coverage of Palestine for quite a while now. There has been a persistent pattern of bias when it comes to Israel and

Palestine. I'm going to go in chronological order, and then James will jump back in with the recent article about the New York Times and this terrible thing that it has within it that I'm not going to give away right now. But let's go back in time to February 2011 when the New York Times published a piece on JVP activism in the Bay Area. JVP stands for Jewish Voices for Peace. And this article said, the activists say they are not working against Israel, but against the Israeli government policies they believe are discriminatory, which is, yes, correct. But in the editor's note, the Times later wrote that one of the article's two authors was a pro-Palestinian advocate and that he should not have written the article and should not have been allowed to write it. So it initially seems like good reporting because it's true. You're protesting

against the Israeli government, but then to say that a Palestinian advocate can't write it is ridiculous. So fuck you, New York Times. And then in 2015, a study was done analyzing the New York Times publications during the period of September 10th and October 14th in 2015. At the time of the study in 2015, 2,000 Palestinians had been injured while 83 Israelis were injured, just for context of what the reporting was about. And the study analyzed 36 articles. In these articles, the New York Times talked about Palestinian quote-unquote violence 36 times and Israeli violence two times. The word attack was used to describe Palestinian actions 110 times and Israeli actions 17 times. They used the word terrorist 42 times to refer to Palestinian violence and one time, one time, to refer to Israeli violence. More than half

of the New York Times headlines during that whole year depicted Palestinians as the instigators of violence. Zero headlines depicted Israelis as aggressors. None. And nothing has changed. Welcome. I'm Danny Threl. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature.

I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works

while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app

or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. That's from a period in 2015, but that's basically consistent, if not more so prevalent now. It just seems like the New York Times editorial board refuses to incorporate Palestinian perspective into its editorials,

even though there have been many calls to do so. And this leads it to fundamentally misread the reality on the ground in Palestine, and it clearly shows the newspaper's bias when it comes to what it chooses to include about Palestine and from whom. Of the 2,490 opinion pieces about Palestinians that the New York Times published between 1970 and 2019, only 46 were written by actual Palestinians, which is an average of less than 2%. With the lack of Palestinian and Arab columnists that are even employed by the New York Times, a kind of groupthink has inevitably emerged there. And this groupthink consistently places Israel, Israeli framings, and Israeli perspectives above those of Palestinians. A keyword search of the Times

editorials that discuss Palestinians is like this. Between 1970 and 2019, the word peace appeared 1,112 times, but justice only appeared 86 times. Terror was mentioned 649 times, but occupation was only mentioned 219 times. 219 times. I want to also remind you, this is from starting from 1970. Israel's security, quote unquote, was written 90 times, but Palestinian freedom was mentioned just three times. While keyboard searches alone do not tell the whole story, they do help us get a sense of the overall tenor of the Times coverage. And over the last five decades, Israel has been unquestioningly presented by Times editors as a close ally, whileinians have been consistently framed as a problem so i want to talk about this there was an excellent piece that came out in study hall and i believe it's based on

some reporting in a canadian outlet called passage and study hall is a freelance journalist like group localists serve but they also do some editorial work. But it's talking about this Israeli nonprofit, or it's really funded nonprofits based in the US and also in Israel, called Honest Reporting. What it is, is a 501c3. And essentially what they've done is what Shireen describes, right, where they've found not, I believe, mostly Palestinian reporters, perhaps also non-Palestinian reporters who are reporting from this, I guess from what I would describe as a facts-based approach to this, which is describing what's happening as an apartheid.

And they've dived into these people's background, their previous tweets, their previous writing, their other work to describe them as biased and get their articles taken down. And they've done this to some very, like, this has happened to the Times. And this is at a time, like, I know Shireen mentioned something that happened in 2011. But I know that in 2010, the Jerusalem Bureau chief of the Times had a child serving in the IDF. Right. So like, you know, if I had a, you know, if I was a journalist and I said, yeah, you know, I actually have a son who's in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade,

like they're not going to commission my piece. But they've, for instance, Hossam Salem. Have you seen Hossam's work? I don't know. My brain doesn't work anymore. I worked with Hossam before. He's a friend of mine. He's an incredibly gifted photojournalist.

People should follow him on places where they see photographs. He's blacklisted by the Times based on an honest reporting probe into his quote-unquote bias um which his photos of gaza are some of the most emotive photographs of gaza like i've ever seen and i work with him on a piece that will one day become a podcast uh about parkour in in the gaza strip but yeah hosam is a fantastic photojournalist and absolutely, like, it's utterly ridiculous to have, like, have him blacklisted

by a major news organisation, which, like, whether we like it or not, that is where a lot of Americans get their news. In one instance, this organisation managed to get

the Toronto Star to scrub all uses of Palestine from their stories. So, like, to include shit like, yeah, like they were profiling a DJ who was Palestinian. Wow. Which I think is like incredibly illustrative, right? That like this organization presents itself as fighting anti-Israeli bias,

which I'm sure that is a thing that exists it fucking does not exist in the u.s media like i i'm not a palestinian person my speak as a person who has pitched articles about conflict in various parts of the world and i can tell you that that is not a bias that i have come across having worked with almost every big outlet that it is possible to work for in the US. It's not doing that. It's trying to erase Palestine and Palestinian people, not only their perspectives, but their whole existence. This is something that I harp on a lot, but I think we should do more conflict reporting that's about people, unless it is about numbers and battles and such. That's why I want to write about uh little girls who surf in gaza and and young men who do parkour because like when israel bombs gaza it it doesn't just bomb people who are part of uh fatah or hamas or whatever they want to

say they're targeting right like the uh lions den or jenim brigades whatever they're say they're targeting, right? Like the lion's den or the jenim brigades, whatever. When they're bombing these places, they're also bombing children. They're also bombing places where little kids want to go and play football. They're bombing towns where little boys want to- I mean, they bomb hospitals and schools. Yeah. This is where people just like you live it's not like a it there's a very clear desire to kind of erase Palestinian civilians I guess from our narrative and it's really important that we as journalists and as people don't allow that to happen I guess you can we'll link to this in our

sources uh at the end of the month but I think it's an excellent piece it's worth reading thank you for mentioning that um before we continue continue with some really excellent new things, let's take our second break and we'll be right back. Yes. We're back. And I want to talk a little bit more about the Israeli political context behind the increased aggression towards Jenin and Palestine in general. So of the 165 Palestinian deaths, about 86 were in the north and west bank,

mostly in the areas of Jenin and Nablus, which cannot coincidentally are the areas where we're seeing new armed groups emerging despite this israel is readying to massively step up settlement in the west bank earlier in june prime minister benjamin netanyahu ratified a policy allowing pro-settler finance minister there's a leal smotrich to bypass the six-stage process for building settlements effectively giving him the ability to make settlement decisions on his own. In recent years, Israeli politicians and settlers have become more and more open about their goals of annexing most, if not all, of the West Bank. So in March of this year, Smotrich claimed that Palestinian people were an invention of the last century. It's probably worth taking a moment to point out that all national identities are inherently constructed,

It's probably worth taking a moment to point out that all national identities are inherently constructed. Humanity did not come to Earth with flags. Those are things that came to exist in the 19th and 20th century. So is Israel, right? Yeah, exactly. We can kind of put a date on that one. That's like literally projecting. An invention of the last century is literally Israel, whatever.

Yeah. The state of Israel. Yeah, nations calling other nations constructed is kind of the pot calling the kettle black. Yeah. But in so much as if we're going to do that, I think Israel is throwing stones from a glass house. Yeah, exactly.

It doesn't really fucking matter either, right? It doesn't matter how long either right like it doesn't matter how long the one group of people has had one flag you still shouldn't fucking kill children which applies to anyone involved in the killing of children so what trich said that there was no such thing as a palestinian because there is no such thing as the palestinian people in a speech in paris at a memorial for jaq kufa an activist israel's right-wing lakud party do you know who are the palestinians he said i'm a palestinian going on to describe his late grandfather who he said was a 13th generation

jerusalemite as a true palestinian um which is somewhat look these people are supposed to be contradictory like it's not really worth fucking pointing this out but like you can't simultaneously say there are no palestinians palestine doesn't exist also i'm a palestinian uh like right it is again not not the point i guess he was a resident he is a resident one of the settlements himself he's an advocate for theocratic law, the segregation of maternity wards. So he doesn't want Arab and Israeli women to give birth in the same room. So ridiculous.

Yeah, his justification for it is like even worse, but I won't bother with that. He's also openly homophobic and he supports the conspiracy theory that Yitzhak Rabin was killed by Israel's security agencies. All-around top guy. Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu's party, likes to use names for the West Bank that you might find in the Bible, and has made accelerating illegal settlement there a priority.

Since it took office, Netanyahu's coalition has approved 7,000 new housing units, many in the occupied West Bank. The government also amended law to clear the way for settlers to return to four settlements that have previously been evacuated within a week of having the power to make these decisions smotrich approved 5 000 new units um we this is a great time to draw attention to one of the most fucking uh it's infuriating paragraphs that has ever been written uh which i found in a new york times article that suggested yeah i can't believe this is real james said that to me before this and it is yeah crazy i like to censoring stuff i know

will make her angry uh of course not all west bank settlers are ultra nationalists who believe that living in the land of the Bible is a religious edict most settlers in fact including hundreds of thousands of ultra-orthodox Jews move there seeking affordable housing I am fucking like I cannot with this shit

when I got to affordable housing I checked out mentally I catapulted myself into outer space I don't want to be here anymore that is ridiculous I have decided to curl up into a ball and no longer exist uh like this is from the newspaper as well that like went so fucking ham on people in 2020 like uh taking milk from a target you know like like uh when you like seeking affordable dairy products i guess could have been an alternative framing of that they didn't they didn't It's just fucking unbelievable. The shit that Freakonomics has done to people's brains

is really next level. But more people listen to our podcast than their podcast because we're winning in the marketplace of ideas. So all in, 750,000 people live in these settlements. But being illegal under international law doesn't really mean anything unless that law is enforced, and it really is. We spoke about this before, right? Just like the US, which frequently violates domestic and international law on its own border, Israel is simply not held to account for its crimes. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francisco Albanese, told Al Jazeera that international

law has a quote-unquote problem of enforcement. There is a problem of double standards, because clearly, when it comes to Palestine, there is a cognitive dissonance, especially among Western countries, and reticence in applying these coercive measures and all the prohibitions international law affords, Albanese said. Yeah, we already mentioned how just even the phrase international law, it's just make-believe. Like, you always hear about Israel even committing crimes against humanity. None of that even seems to matter when it comes to Israel because there's never a repercussion. Yeah, it doesn't matter anywhere that there's no direct interest to capital to enforcing that law right it doesn't matter when young women in myanmar get raped by soldiers it doesn't matter when villages

get burned down there it doesn't matter in tigray and in ethiopia and eritrea because there's no interest to finance capital of solving that problem it's not just a pal thing. It's a thing all over the world. Laws are fundamentally backed up by violence. In America, if you get a parking ticket and you don't pay your parking ticket and you have to go to court and you don't go to court, eventually someone with a gun will come and kick down your door. All laws are based in violence. There ain't no one kicking down israel's door right and no one

will and so it doesn't matter international law doesn't matter it's not it's nice that it's there we can point to it and say look we've all agreed this is bad but we all know it's bad like we don't really need a bunch of like old men in suits to tell us it's bad we knew it was bad what we need is to fucking make it stop and and that's not happening yeah i think it's also interesting to mention that internationally even when you get better quote unquote reporting about palestine it still is not enough because it's usually about peace and both sides or a conflict or whatever so i just think i mean that also goes back to news and how it's reported. But this stubborn insistence on blaming both sides is reflective of a deeply flawed, quote-unquote, peace framework. And it has dominated the international understanding of the Israel-Palestine, quote-unquote, conflict for decades.

The framework of peace centers on identity politics and ignores the structural violence that the state perpetuates against oppressed groups. It instead focuses on acts of spectacular violence committed by those groups in response to the oppression they face, and it also blames them for escalating conflict and then uses it to justify their oppressive violence by the more powerful forces. violence by the more powerful forces. To go back to the New York Times briefly, many of the Times editorials over the last 30 years since the advent of the Oslo Accords have been steeped in the peace framework. They treat Israelis and Palestinians as having equal power when they clearly don't. They praise Israel for minor adjustments to its daily structural violence against Palestinians, but in the same breath, they scold Palestinian leaders and society

for acts of violence done in turn. And the word conflict is also problematic in and of itself, because Palestine isn't some conflict or problem for Israel to sort out. It's a cause for everyone to fight for. Since 1948, the Israeli state has prevented Palestinians from living in their homeland with freedom and dignity, whether it's by banning refugees from returning to their homes, or discriminating against Palestinian citizens inside Israel, or keeping millions of Palestinians under military occupation. If there is a problem to be solved, that problem is the regime itself. But this fact of bias and shitty reporting and the fact that the truth is not out there,

that fact seems to have eluded the Times editorial board. Because rather than recognize the systemic violence, discrimination, and colonization perpetuated by Israel against Palestinians, the board blames quote-unquote both sides for a vastly asymmetric situation. This both-sides-ism may give the appearance of balance, but it does not reflect the reality in which Israel holds almost total political, economic, and military power over the lives of every Palestinian in a system that growing numbers of scholars, human rights groups, and legal experts are defining as apartheid. But I do hope some of this was at least helpful.

And I mean, we'll probably be back to do the same kind of thing soon because Israel is relentless and stupid and I hate it. So until then, fuck the IDF and have a nice day. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow.

Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app

or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from.