Pod Save the World - The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh

Episode Date: May 18, 2022

Ben and Tommy talk about the latest news from Ukraine, including the latest from Mariupol, Finland and Sweden’s application to join NATO, and Mitch McConnell’s visit to Kyiv. Then they explain why countries are threatening to boycott the Summit of the Americas, changes to Biden’s Cuba policy, news of a major covid outbreak in North Korea, the upcoming elections in Australia, Eurovision and rocking out at the Queen’s Jubilee. Then Tommy talks with Palestinian writer Jalal Abukhater about the killing of al Jazeera journalist  Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to POTSate the World on Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben. Two key updates. All right. One, sunburn, gone. Gone. Two, Boston Celtics are in the Eastern Conference. Yeah, yeah.

That was Jason Tatum, you know, announcing he's a top five NBA player with some degree of authority. The man. Yeah. Mark is smart. Awesome. Jalen Brown. Awesome. It's such a likable Celtics team, which is so rare for a Boston sports team.

I really like them. I mean, they're like hard to root against it. Not since, like, the 2004 Red Sox has there been such a likable team. Don't sleep on Al Horford. I know. I know. I like Al Horford. He single-handedly won one of those games, you guys, you know.

He played really well. It's exciting. But, like, for World Warwick, you know, like, that was insane. For those who don't watch basketball, I don't really watch the NBA. Luca Donchik had as many points in the first quarter as the opposing team. Yeah. I mean, Slovenian basketball has been around for a while. There you go.

Yeah. Well, great stuff. It's on in a couple days. I think the first game against the heat and the Celtics. I know this is about all the time we get for chit-chat. So I'll tell the folks we're going to hear today. Ukraine, the latest news from Mariupil, Finland and Sweden's application to join NATO and all the news on U.S. support. Then we're going to talk about why countries are threatening to boycott the upcoming some of the Americas. Talk a little bit about President Biden's Cuba policy. There's a major COVID outbreak in North Korea, which is very scary. Elections coming up in Australia. Eurovision, the Queen's Jubilee, Ben, some real royal correspondent stuff coming up here. Yeah. Then you're going to hear my interview with a Palestinian writer named Jalal Abu Qatir about the killing of a beloved Al Jazeera reporter named

Shireen, Abu Akla, and the West Bank and the subsequent protests that have come from that. So please stick around from that very important issue. You know, I think, honestly, Ben, like it was a year ago, I think. We were talking about the evictions in the protests and Sheikh Jara, East Jerusalem, and in the West Bank. And now it's scary. It feels like a lot of these tensions are boiling over again. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't remember seeing a situation where like it literally looked like the pallbearers were going to drop the casket because they're being attacked and beaten and assaulted by police who are from the government that may have had a role in killing her. It was really dark.

Really, really dark. Looking for hearing that. And frankly, you'll hear, I think, a lot of that darkness and sort of the hopelessness that comes from living in a situation like that, where this, you know, this journalist who, you know, she was the person that millions of Palestinians watched almost every day to get their news, which is beloved and was like, seems a kind person. She's a U.S. citizen as well, by the way, and was just gunned down. Which, yeah, which should factor more into the U.S. response, but yeah.

It absolutely should. Before we get to the news, Ben, one quick thing. The Cricket Marketing Team just wants me to tease something big that's coming up from Crooked Media. I'm not allowed to say what it is. It's a lot to say that we've been working on it for a year and that you guys will love it. So that's it. That's all I'm allowed to say. Well, I'm excited.

My attention is up. Do you feel sufficiently teased? The after the fall marketing team is going to remind you that next week, the paperbacks out. Next week, one more week, you know, get that paper rack. I have the copy. It's beautiful. new cover. New cover? Any new forward? Any new afterward? I mean, unfortunately, the world events are the new forward because a book about Victor Orban, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and the decline of American

democracy kind of does the work for you. But we got a nice little picture of Orban, Putin, Xi, and Trump on the cover. So, you know, a little less subtle and artistic about what the meaning of the book is. Yeah, bosom buzz and buddies over there. Okay, let's turn to some of the key updates from Ukraine. We'll do a little summary. Then we'll talk about some of the stuff. So late on Monday night, the Ukrainian authorities announced an end to their combat mission in Marialupil. That's the city in southeastern Ukraine that's been totally surrounded by Russian forces for weeks. The last pocket of Ukrainian resistance was hold up in the Azavstal steel plant, which is this massive industrial complex with miles of fortified underground tunnels. So it sounds like about 250 injured fighters are going to surrender and get taken to either a medical facility or an area under Russian control with the hope is that they'll then be returned to Ukraine as part of a prisoner swap with Russia.

It's the third tranche of people released from the Azosol plant. There could be hundreds, if not thousands, more in there. The scary thing, then, is that some lawmakers in the Russian Duma are saying there should be no prison swaps and are calling for the death penalty for these fighters. So, you know, I think we'll have to see how this plays out. Finland and Sweden confirmed on Tuesday that they will officially submit applications for NATO membership. Both countries have big professional militaries. And Finland shares an 800-plus-mile border with Russia.

So it's safe to say that this is not what Putin wanted. the Prime Minister of Sweden, the President of Finland are going to meet with Biden in Washington on Thursday. All existing NATO members would have to agree to admit them. It sounds like Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey has expressed some opposition so far, but we'll see if they get worked out. A couple more things. The British Defense Ministry says Russia has lost one third of the ground invasion force that sent it to Ukraine back in February. It's obviously a staggering number. There's some reports about this one specific disastrous attempt by Russian forces to cross a river in the Donbass.

these forces came under Ukrainian artillery fire. They lost dozens of tanks, other vehicles, nearly 500 troops. There's reports that Putin himself is not directing troop movements in Ukraine. He might want to consider leaving that to the experts because this doesn't end well. Yeah, well, this little vignette of the river crossing was so bad that, I mean, normally pro-Russian military bloggers in Russia are now criticizing the war effort. And then finally, Mitch McConnell made a surprise trip to Ukraine where he met with President Zelensky in Kiev. sure he was hoping to personally deliver the news that the Senate had passed this $40 million, sorry, $40 billion tranche of aid for Ukraine, but Rand Paul had other ideas. He's holding it up still.

So I don't know. Sorry, your caucus sucks. Yeah. Yeah, can't deliver your own caucus, Mitch. It's a strong leader. Yeah, good luck. Good luck wrangling those clowns. So Ben, a bit of a round up there. Let's start with this news about Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Did you see that Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said, he said, Finland and Sweden joining NATO. quote, makes no difference. It was like three weeks ago, I think, that Tometri Mededev was threatening to deploy nuclear weapons to the border if this happened. What do you think happened with this change? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that there's nothing they can do about it. And the reality is that comment, like, puts the lie to everything they said in the run up to the war about this

being just about NATO, you know, because the reality is if what they were complaining about was the encroachment of NATO on Russia's borders, and that being unacceptable, Finland, like, doubles the border between NATO and Russia. And Finland and Sweden managed to be neutral throughout the entirety of the Cold War. You know, Sweden managed to be neutral throughout World War II and World War I. So this is a seismic historical change in European security. Again, doubles the border. Add two very capable militaries to NATO. These are not, you know, We collaborated with Nordic militaries more than some NATO member states in the Obama years. They're very capable.

And, you know, the Erdogan thing is interesting to me because I don't take that seriously because in the past the pattern has been Erdogan expresses opposition to something, and NATO is a consensus organization, so everybody has to agree. I'm sure he's going to try to extract, and probably will, extract some transactional concession from the U.S. or NATO on some other issue he cares about. He's mad about the treatment of Kurdish fighters by Sweden. Yeah. So this is what he's up to.

It's not, I don't think this is like a game changer. I think that he's going to, you know, he's been very skillful over the years at using his role as someone whose vote is necessary within NATO to extract some form of concession or maybe to try to get the U.S. and other countries to look the other way at things that Erdogan is doing inside his borders or to get some harder line on some Kurdish issue. So I think that he'll make noise. He'll squeeze something, but it looks like for all intensive purposes, this is going forward. And if Russia's aims were in part to push back NATO from its borders and NATO enlargement, you know, they've failed spectacularly and revealed that their interest never really was that.

It was to try to take back Ukraine as part of some reconstitution of the Russian Empire. That's not working out as well either for them. New. And not to be done, on Monday, Putin gathered his little version of NATO, the collective security treaty organization, which includes Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Belarus, got them all together in Moscow, but only Belarus was vocally supportive of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and actually, I think, criticized some of the others who were there. That was, I'm not sure that went to plan either. Yeah, it didn't go well for him. I mean, those other guys who are already, like, grim-faced apparatchic type leaders, but they looked, they literally looked like I look before

I walk in for like major dental surgery. Like they did not look happy to be there. And if the message Putin was trying to send is like he has his own team, like these guys didn't exactly look like they were, you know, motivated to stand up to NATO. And the reality is what that reflects is, like the Central Asian countries, you know, they have a long history of Russian and Soviet They may be corrupt, but their own publics, and they themselves, I think, don't necessarily want to be in the same place at Georgia and Ukraine, and to some extent, Belarus have found themselves in, which is having Russia kind of carving up parts of their territory. So, you know, I guess he showed he's the strongest member of that, whatever that, you know,

organization pretends to be. but doesn't like what is the contribution of the stands, the Central Asian countries to the Ukrainian war effort? Zero. They're not doing anything to help Russia or support Russia. Not even helping them evade sanctions. Yeah, exactly. It's just Belarus that is in this, you know,

and that just shows you that Lukashenko is totally alacky for Putin, which he has been for a while. It's interesting. Like, you know, these sort of cracks in Putin's armor, I think have been visible to us since, you know, day three of the invasion. but they're becoming more and more visible to the Russian people. I mean, on Monday, this military analyst's retired colonel was on Russian state TV, and he basically dared to tell the truth and say the war was getting worse for Russia.

He said, we are in total geopolitical isolation and the whole world is against us, adding that Russia's resources are now limited by sanctions and that Ukraine could field a one million man army, if given enough weapons by the West. I mean, the failure is just like, even on Russian state TV, it seems to be breaking through. Yeah, and Putin feels like he's flailing. You know, it feels like he's trying different justifications on almost a daily basis. He's trying different photo ops militarily. You know, they're not making progress in the Donbos. You know, I think people had thought that they might be able to consolidate their control over the parts of Lehanska and Dignetsk that they held and then build out from that. They just haven't been able to do that. Again, to look at it from the other perspective, they have claimed more territory. is, I think, the most problematic piece of this for Ukraine and the West in that, you know, that that's both a very significant population center, a former population center, tragically. But it also, you know, it connects southern Ukraine up to the parts of eastern Ukraine that

Russia holds and it's on the sea. So that, to me, is going to be the thing to watch. Is there an effort by Ukraine to retake Moriople? Is there an effort by Ukraine to push Russia out of eastern Ukraine? Ukraine, or is there some kind of new status quo, which is actually, you know, again, is worse for Ukraine than it was before. Geopolitically, Ukraine is in a stronger position. They're on the fast track to membership in the European Union.

NATO is enlarged. They have all this international support. But territorially, they still have this issue in southern Ukraine. But everything else for Russia is moving in the wrong direction. And it's not evident what Lever Putin can pull to reverse that, which I think, you know, speaks to why he's kind of failing about to demonstrate that things are going better than they obviously are. Yeah, good flag on, you know, the importance of Marriople. I mean, I think the economic war on Ukraine gets less attention, but it is devastating. I mean, Russia is blowing up their factories. The farmers

can't plant wheat, like you mentioned earlier. I mean, Russia is basically blockading all of Ukraine's Black Sea ports. So they can't get anything in and out. They have to go by rail all the way to the West through Europe, that's going to destroy their GDP. And causing the food crisis. You know, you heard Raleigh at AMA last week saying that, like, one big piece of this is how much wheat just can't get out of those ports. And that's hurting people around the world. I think this is, I mean, I'm increasingly alarmed by this. I mean, low and middle income countries are in huge trouble. 14 million people are near starvation in the Horn of Africa. India, the second biggest wheat producer in the world just banned exports of wheat. I mean, I have no idea.

where people are going to get food. Yeah. No, and this problem of countries hoarding, you know, is the one that really has to be addressed because when there start to be food shortages, what you'd like to see is countries adding wheat to the global market, adding food stuff to the global market, but it tends to be the habit of countries to do the opposite. Yeah. And to say, like, if they're going to be shortages, we want to keep what we've got here.

And that's what produces famine. And that's what dries up food prices. And so there's going to be a major effort through. every international for a possible to try to reverse the instinct that countries have to hoard and to try to introduce more wheat and other agricultural material to the market. And thus far, it hasn't happened. Frankly, hard for the U.S. as a country to scold others when we've been hoarding vaccines for the last couple years. Yeah. Well, there's that. Yeah. Any other things about Ukraine, do you think we should talk about before we get to the summit? No, I mean, I think that

you know, the reality is like we're in this more protracted phase, right? Where it's just going to be grinded out in Dombas and just the kind of ongoing worry that does Putin lash out and do something dramatic, like use chemical weapons, something to try to reverse the momentum? He doesn't seem like he can reverse the momentum through conventional weapons. The only thing that jumped out to me, too, is that while there's this rightful narrative of Ukrainian military prowess, all the reports of what has happened in the parts of Ukraine where Russia, you know, Bucha obviously got a lot of attention outside Kiev, but these cities

in eastern Ukraine and Mariopo, like, the accounts of people being like deported into Russia, like what has happened to those people? You know, you're talking about tens and tens of thousands of people. You know, that to me, I think, unfortunately, it feels like the darker scenarios or what have been unfolding. And we don't have a lot of visibility into that, too. So that's something to watch. Yeah. I mean, God, Putin just like directing troops down at a brigade level, that doesn't sound good. It's also the pattern of like throughout history, that's when wars are going bad, you know, it gets worse when leaders start conducting, you know, he's General Putin over here with no experience doing that. That tends to go bad. It feels like,

even that military operation across the river, again, with all the caveats that we're not military experts here, but from all the analysis I read, it's the kind of thing that made no sense that you do, if you're so politically eager to just have some win, that you do something stupid like that. You're moving faster than you should. You're moving in a place that you shouldn't. Like, it feels like the Russian warfare is being driven by this desire to rack up some win, and that is really working against them and making their troops really vulnerable. You know, and you have all the examples from history, whether it's like LBJ, you know, directing bombing runs from the Whiteout, you know, like it just doesn't work.

LBJ picking targets in Vietnam. I mean, that's not going to, not going to work. Okay, let's switch gears to the Summit of America's because the Summit of America's is happening in a few weeks. It's in our home turf here in Los Angeles. Come visit us if you're a listener. If we want maybe a head of state, I don't know, anybody. Who should we talk to? Well, if any heads of states show up.

Yeah, that'd be right. Well, so. Good. transition. There's been some consternation in the press about the planning participants, the agenda. It's all spilling out. New York Times said some of it this week, the LA Times as well. Some participants want clearer goals. Some are mad that the U.S. has refused to invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to the summit. The president of Mexico said he won't attend if those countries aren't invited. Leaders in Bolivia, Honduras, and the Caribbean are also considering boycotts.

So that's on the bad side of the ledger. There was some better news that I want to run by. You get a real gut check from you, Ben, this week when it comes to President Biden's Cuba policy, they announced that the U.S. will restore flights to Cuban cities beyond Havana. So as of right now, I believe you can only fly to Havana, which is really tough if you want to go anywhere else. They're working to reestablish some family unification programs, allow group travel for educational or professional exchanges, and lift the cap on remittances. What do you think of this softening of Biden's Cuba policy in these summit issues? So look, any step in a better direction is welcome.

I'm glad that they've taken these steps. The most important ones are kind of restaffing our embassy and getting that up and running. And the family reunification is going to allow Cubans who have been separated between the United States and Cuba to, you know, obviously be able to reconnect. That's important. Is that literally just like a matter of like having staff in the embassy to process visas? To process visas. Beyond that, I was really disappointed. And let me explain why.

The travel, this is group travel, right? Like, do you guys, like charter planes for license travel when you go places? No. What we did in the Obama administration is we made it possible for anybody individually to go to Cuba for, quote, people-to-people purposes. So there is still a legislative travel ban, but, like, if you visit someplace, it's a people-to-people purpose. So people could go to Cuba. And I met so many people who went to Cuba because of that. They did not do this.

And let's be very clear. But like, you see the headline, it's like, oh, authorizes travel. No, like, authorized like charter planes, right? It's not. So to me, this is like, like, not even really half measure, right? And I don't, you know, it strikes me that they're still afraid to just engage the question that, that opening up things to Cuba is a better way of improving lives of people. They also announced some steps to support Cuban entrepreneurs, right?

This is the nascent private sector. There are people in small businesses. Like access to cloud computing. That's great. But Trump imposed a sanction on the financial mechanism that people used, and again in the Obama years, to support entrepreneurs. And they kept that sanction in place. So look, it's a step forward.

I welcome that. But this is nowhere near. this is like going back to where we were kind of at the beginning of the Obama administration. It's not anywhere near going back to where we were at the end. And that means there's still less revenue getting into Cuba. There's still less capacity just for Americans to travel. I personally find it offensive, the idea that you can travel anywhere in the world as an American, but you can't go to Cuba, 90 miles from Florida because what?

Because Bob Menendez doesn't want you to go there? You see he criticized these minor changes. He criticized them, but like I think secretly probably thought, you know, this is about as good as he could hope for in terms of new announcements. Which leads me to the Some of the Americas. What it also didn't address is like inviting Cuba to some of the Americas. And look, we, the United States encouraged, welcomed, supported the participation in Cuba at the Some of the Americas in 2015. And that totally changed the dynamic of that summit. That summit was no longer about the ideological competition between the United States and Cuba. We could actually address a broad

agenda, everybody felt good about it in the hemisphere. Make no mistake, nobody in Latin America agrees without Cuba policy. And so by continuing to suggest that we're going to use our hosting of the summit as a way to exclude Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, even if you don't like those governments, that step only works if you're isolating them. We are isolating ourselves by taking that step because you've got Mexico, you've got Caribbean countries saying they're not going to come. And maybe maybe those. Caribbean companies. Which is only going to make Cuba look stronger than us, right? So again, people could listen and say, Ben, why are you defending this authoritarian government in Cuba? I'm saying

this is not hurting that government. It's actually highlighting their clout that all these countries are going to boycott this summit. And it's preventing the summit from being on the agenda it should be on, you know, whether that's on climate cooperation, migration cooperation, you know, actually trying to support democratic rights and human rights across the region. We're, we're, Because our Latin America policy is about South Florida and Bob Menendez and not about Latin America, how would you feel like if you're looking at this even from diaspora perspective, right? Like what message does this send to like Mexican Americans? It's like we care so much about like our South Florida politics that we're willing to have the president of Mexico boycott the summit so that we don't piss off some people in South Florida. Like it just doesn't make any sense.

And we've got to stop wrapping ourselves around this axle. It's a huge missed opportunity, Tommy. Like the Summit of the Americas only happens every three years. The U.S. only host of some of the Americas, I don't know, every 20 years. And this summit, thus far, unless something changes. And, you know, hopefully it does change in the next, what, three weeks is going to once again be dominated by this question of, like, American Cuban policy. And it's just a waste, especially when in the Obama administration, we, like, we rip this

band-aid off. Like, we lance this boil. Like, now here we are, right back in the soup. And also, like, business is great. grew around these changes that were made in the Obama administration. Like, I know I have a friend who was leading fishing charters in Cuba after the changes that Obama made. That got impossible during the Trump era and is now significantly harder because of these charters. I mean, Airbnb was doing a brisk business in Cuba.

U.S. airlines were flying. Like, I just, they're just limiting their ability to, like, build these ties. Yeah, I mean, and a couple things I just want to really underscore, like, democracy and human rights, which if you listen to this podcast, you know. know we care about that. The human rights circumstance has gotten much worse since Trump rolled back the Obama policy. Like that is an indisputable fact. Like the not very good human rights circumstance in Cuba, but I would argue was improving, has gotten much worse since we did this. So it's not like this hard line on Cuba works. We tried it out for 60 years and has it worked. And then also just this

basic thing of how do most Americans interact with this policy? Not letting people travel. I've talked to so many people that they loved going to Cuba. And yeah, they were starting businesses. They're making contacts with Cubans. They were bridging divides and saying to Americans, you're not allowed to travel unless you go on some like charter plane with some like licensed thing that the government can check while you're going. Like what that's freedom? Like that, look, I'd like to be free to travel where I want to travel. Speaking of hardline policies, let's talk about North Korea. So last week, North Korea announced that it had found its first ever COVID-19 case in the country. This was obviously a wild understatement because on Monday, the North Korean Central News Agency reported that more than 1.2 million people have gotten sick with a fever and 50 have died.

They don't, it doesn't seem like North Korea as much in terms of testing. So they're calling it a fever, but it's almost certainly COVID-19. Kim Jong-un has since been spotted wearing a mask in public. Over half a million North Koreans are in quarantine. Most of the country, if not all of it, is in lockdown. Kim reportedly berated his top health officials and mobilized the military to the United States. with the virus, but like a couple weeks ago, North Korea had a 20,000 person military parade in Pyongyang, so not exactly showing leadership from the top big guy. So far, North Korea has refused

vaccine doses from the UN. They won't take help from South Korea. So then this is just like this is the worst case. Dark scenario. Yeah, I mean, unvaccinated population rampant spread. So too late for vaccination, they need antivirals at this point. Weaked, non-existent medical infrastructure, a country that suffers from dangerous food shortages and now you're locking people down. By the way, no small part because of Western sanctions. And then a government that's just like we will suppress anyone. You know, I mean, this feels like just an absolute nightmare. It does because, I mean, the point people tend to be high rates of malnourished people in North Korea, right? So that presumably makes people more vulnerable to the virus, but also like

it makes lockdowns much more untenable. Like people, you know, it's not like people, it's not like people have stockpiles of food in their homes. No. Right? So like how are you going to do that without raising, you know, real chilling risks of, of starvation? It's, yeah. And Kim Jong-un seems like he's not the healthiest guy either.

I mean, talk about someone who's. For sure. I mean, I wonder if that's what freaked him out. Yeah. Yeah, no, because he's, you know, he's got to be in the at-risk population here too. So, yeah, this is something to watch. I mean, you know, we've seen these countries that were isolated from COVID. like really get hit hard when it when it comes you know uh and and they have the most acute

vulnerabilities to it i mean the one thing i don't think we've seen anywhere is like a mass uprising because of a failed covid response am i wrong about that no you're not i mean i think well the u.s you saw the uprising but we've seen them in both directions right we've seen uh any vax we've seen any vax uprising. I think in when Delta hit India, you saw some, I think,

pockets of public discontent. In Shanghai, right, you saw some people shouting at the windows. It is interesting, like whether there's

anything that can break the kind of iron grip that the North Korean regime has on its people, you know, the, thus far there hasn't been.

It would be very interesting to see if lockdowns, you know, precipitate that because, you know, this is not,

a place that can weather that. But we don't have a lot of insight. We, you know, Pyongyang a little bit, but we don't really see what happens out in the North Green countryside either. I also think the U.S. shut down pretty hard, any suggestion that we might loosen sanctions to allow humanitarian relief, which is, I think, disappointing and amissed opportunity. Yeah, we should be doing that. Now, they might not take it anyway, but again, test the proposition. I mean, South Korea, again, I think has offered it. I mean, there's no reason not to offer them food assistance, medical assistance. Again, I think they tend to resist that. But here, I mean, we don't have any interest in ordinary North Koreans dying of starvation or COVID. No, not at all.

Australia is going to the polls on May 21st. So we've got Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, from the liberal National Coalition. It's very confusing with these foreign parties. These are not our liberals, yeah. Not our liberals. By the way, he allegedly got drunk and pooped his pants in McDonald's in 1997. Yes. Just for the record. Never forget. The other major candidate is Anthony Albanese, who's the former deputy prime minister and

infrastructure minister from the labor party. Small handful of smaller parties, some independent reps. The third biggest party is the Green Party. Here's some of the issues at play, Ben. We got massive income inequality. They are dealing with, you know, the post-pandemic debt and economic challenges. There's sexism and misogyny that's rampant throughout government and business there. and Australia's relationship with China is looming large.

President Xi Jinping is apparently his face is in a bunch of attack ads now on buses and things. So it's very interesting. One reason that Americans should really, really, really care about this election is climate change. Yes. 2021, Australia had the highest greenhouse gas emissions from coal in the world on a per capita basis. Scott Morrison's party has blocked all efforts to do something about climate change, basically, because they want to protect the mining industry. Labor hasn't been perfect on mining,

especially in regions where there are a lot of coal mines, but it would be a huge improvement. But there's been a series of just horrific floods and fires that have drastically increased awareness and concern about climate change and opinion polls. So fingers crossed. Voting is compulsory if you're over 18. So that's cool.

We should try that out. And the party that wins needs 76 seats in the 151 member lower house to form a government. Anything you're watching for in this one, besides, you know, potential I just went Scott Morrison. Yeah, I just went Scott Morrison to lose. I mean, this is a guy who like,

not only does he do shit about climate change, like, he literally went like vacationing in Maui when like the country is burning. And it's been, you know, almost, I think, around a decade that you've had the right-wing party in there. I mean, they just need it, need to change. Just, I mean, for a lot of reasons, but for climate alone,

there's a global interest here in Scott Morrison's. defeat and making things better here. So, you know, we got some Australian world those out there, like, come on, guys, like, bring this one across the finish line. A couple recent elections where we thought labor was getting close and ended up being a depressing result. Like, like, we're counting on you to do your part for the planet here, never mind obviously yourselves, because, you know, this would be, it would be much better, even if labor is not perfect on climate, it would be in a much better position than what we got with Morrison. Yeah, I mean, they were dragged kicking and screaming to meet even basic emissions.

To just make a target, just to make, even put out a target, yeah. Ben, I was watching 60 Minutes Australia piece on Anthony Albanese, the opposition leader. This is from the description. There'd be little argument for most fair-minded Australians. Opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, is a nice enough bloke. Where the discussion might heat up is over whether he has the ticker to take on the top job. And the first like, I love Australia. Seven minutes of it or about how he had a glow up and he lost a ton of way and he looks amazing these days.

I love Australia. And Park is like my kids watch this Australian show, Bluey in an endless loop. It's like the greatest kids show on television. But yeah, like the China stuff is another interesting angle. And the fact that we're now at a place where they're demagoguing China in much the same way that America does. It does just show you that I think that is a pretty big shift because, you know, if you're looking 10, 15, 20 years ago, I think the prism through which countries like Australia and New Zealand looked at China was very much like, hey, a lot of money to be made. You know, this is a huge market. Like the share of trade between Australia and China is like, you know, very significant. But you've had these kind of political influence scandals, these efforts by China to really throw its weight around. Then you've had the Oka Steel, right? The sub deal that. And so it's interesting to watch the China issue kind of flip in those countries to like,

you know, from a place of, hey, this is a place to make money to like, hey, this is a place to demagogue. You know, demagoguery is not good, but it does show you that publics in certain countries, not a lot, are beginning to see China through a prism of fear more than profit. And that is a notable shift. Yeah, we'll see which way this one cuts because I think there's basically no rules against truth and advertising in Australian political ads. So everyone is just being linked with China. Yeah, exactly. But, I mean, if I recall correctly, I think the Australians called for an investigation at the origins of COVID-19.

The Chinese beat the shit out of them in response. I think maybe cut imports of Australian coal, actually. And, yeah, it would be great to see that Biden administration have a big opening to cooperate with Australia on green energy rather than nuclear subs. Well, because actually, like, in that region, you know, like one of the areas of cooperation that we pursued, particularly in the second. Obama administration was with ASEAN, the Southeast Asian countries in Australia. Like, you could, there's serious work to be done on kind of regional clean energy initiatives, development of renewable resources, deforestation initiatives. You know, Australia, like, has pretty tight relations with Indonesia and those ASEAN countries.

So there is, like, an affirmative agenda to pursue, you know, collectively across the Asia Pacific on things like climate that are, like, lot easier done than when you've got Scott Morrison there. And yeah, you're right. Like, we should be defining our cooperation in that region and, you know, to some extent the contrast we draw with China's development policy, which is Belt Road Initiative, which is debt traps and Chinese infrastructure projects. We should be about renewable energy and, you know, like the types of things that promote more sustainable models of development. And it's harder to do that when one of your key partners is Scott Morrison. Yeah, that guy sucks. One more Ukraine

things. So Ukraine's Kaluche Orchestra won the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest, which is this big international songwriting competition. The men in the group are some of the only adult men who have been allowed to leave Ukraine since the war started. And their victory was this, you know, huge morale boost for the country and the war effort. They got a special video shout out from President Zelensky. The band's lead singer made a special appeal for help for Maripal and the folks in the as-of-stole steel complex during the competition. They are now planning to tour Europe to raise money for the Ukrainian army. Ben, have you ever watched Eurovision?

I like knew nothing about this. I know this is a global phenomenon. Are you a fan? Yeah, I mean, you know, as much as I can be. I mean, I don't want to claim I'm sitting there like hanging on the competition. I'm not voting. I'm checking out the YouTube videos. And I like watching the like the rabid patriotism.

Like, because European patriotism is like different than American. and kind of comes out more in like, and I think it is in a healthy way and like soccer in Eurovision contest, you know. But this was like a nice thing. And actually the other funny thing is that Russia used to be really in Eurovision. They were like very dismissive of this, you know, this. They kind of had the trash the competition itself. That's bullshit.

Like they used to be all in on this like everybody else, you know. And then Moriope focus, the degree to which, you know, the people in the steel plant have become these kind of symbols of resistance is. interesting. I mean, that that's clearly something that Ukrainians are rallying around. And I mean, one thing we didn't cover in the military update, but like, you know, them holding out, it did make it much more difficult for Russia to take Mariupil. And now you see, you know, not just phyllis in Dombas, but we didn't mention Kharkiv, which is the second biggest city in Ukraine in eastern Ukraine, like overwhelming, not the second biggest city in Ukraine, a large majority of Russian speakers,

and now Russia is pulling back from there, right? So you see the degree of difficulty, even when Russia has been able to make a gain, has been part of what the Ukrainians have rallied around. Yeah, I mean, to me, the Eurovision win. I mean, it's cool, right? It's a fun competition, but it's also an example of the way the Ukrainians have used every single opportunity they have found to build support, whether it's like speeches by Zelensky to parliament, to videos, to competitions like this. And also, I mean, back to your point about the Azostol fighters, I mean, Zelensky has, I think smartly, and probably accurately, built them up as like global heroes, like men and women who, who saved the war effort single-handedly by tying the Russians

down in Marielpool. And I think he has this sort of like innate understanding that like, you know, you remember the ghost of Kiev that like, like, Yeah. Not at all true story about the fighter. We shot down like 40 Russian jets. Yeah. But you need little heroes like that. You need stories.

Well, and you make a really good point. Like they have the spectrum that they've mobilized. It's not just military. Like the pop culture. I mean, again, this has become a cliche, but it is true. Like when you have a president who was working in television. Yeah. And by the way, like his staff, like some of them were like producers on the television show.

Like they know spectacle, right? And they know what, what reaches people culturally. And what reaches people culturally is not. politicians giving press conferences, it's Eurovision competitions, or the dude giving a concert, like literally sitting in Chernobyl, right? There's Ukrainian rock star doing that. Like, every image is viral, like the social media dynamic. Tommy, I was talking to, like, a really awesome member of Congress, Jason Crow from Colorado the other day, who's like, yeah, like, they're, like, Ukrainian government officials, like, in my district, like, making the case for

Ukrainian aid, like, they know what they're doing in ways that, I think. think we can all learn from in political campaigns. They do not restrict political campaigns, in this case a campaign for for assistance to politicians. They enlist the kind of whole society and culture in it. You know, we in U.S. politics spend way too much time fighting it out on cable news networks or politico into your point. I mean, these guys are everywhere. Tweets and stuff. Like they're they're in sports, they're in culture, they're in music. It's something we can learn from. Well, Ben, I'm sad to tell you that former national security advisor Michael Flynn is telling people not to listen to the media when it comes to the war in Ukraine because he knows the real truth, which is that, quote, we are behind a fascist corrupt country in an ungodly war. Dude was national security advisor.

Yeah. You know. Had a defense intelligence as well. Like, totally. Until we got, until I got canned, you know. I think he said that, too, by the way, on the stone zone. No, it's Lindel. No, the Stone Zone on Lindel.

TV. Yeah, yeah. So if I may make a recommendation for the next red pill of Tommy Vitor, the stone zone seems like something you might need to explore. I don't even know what that is. I assume it's a Roger Stone thing. Like I, like, if Mike Lindell sponsors it, the pillow guy, like, it's some ecosystem there. A little Q&N adjacent. We're not not adjacent.

Like a little Q&N direct on target, I imagine. Maybe he is cute. What do we know? Final thing for my Royal Correspondent friend. So we get some great news for all you monarchy heads out there. Queen Elizabeth II attended the final night of an equestrian extravaganza to celebrate her platinum jubilee. Some of you might be wondering, what the fuck is a platinum jubilee? Don't worry, I googled it. It's basically a celebration of the 70th anniversary of her accession to the throne. So if you live in the UK, you get a four-day weekend, that's sweet.

There's a parade, there's a party, there's a pageit, lots of p-words. So there's a horse show that included 500 horses, 1,000 performers. For some reason, Tom Cruise was there. And according to the BBC, quote, the Trinidad and Tobago Defense Forces Steel Drum Troop performed a rhythmic version of Abba's dancing queen, which the queen appeared to enjoy. All right, that's the best. But look, we just like to see her out there.

I mean, there was some serious concern there when Charles showed up to give the queen's speech. So, like, good that she's still doing it. that's a big jubilee. I mean, you know, she's had a bunch of jubilees. That's like a, I mean, she's in territory with like, you know, longest reigning moniker,

like Queen Victoria, you know, no more, I think, right? Yeah, she's 96, right? Yeah, but I, what's Tom Cruise, like, was he promoting? How do you feel about Top Gun Maverick? I mean, are you like, Oh, I'll see it.

Yeah, you'll see it. I'll definitely see that. Who are we kidding here? Yeah. I mean, I just think it's going to be a good movie. Airplanes are cool. Fighter jets are cool as hell. Yeah.

No, I mean, like I've no doubt it's good. I wonder, I wonder if they're still in like the same F, was it 14? I think it was like F-14 Tomcat or something. I was like a total Top Gun stand back in the day. I mean, I'm dating myself. Great video game thing. Yeah, like I was all in on Top Gun. I don't know how many times I saw that.

And actually I did the Meathead College thing where you like sing you've lost that loving feeling a bar to some girl. That was more of a high school move. Yeah. Where I grew up. Freshman. Freshman. freshman college. It happens. Mistakes were made. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. And then you'll hear

my interview with Jalal Abu Qatr about the killing of an Al Jazeera reporter named Shirein Abu Akla and the West Bank and the subsequent violence at her funeral procession and what it means for the future of the Palestinian people. So stick around for that. I am very excited to welcome to the show. Jalal Abu Qatr, he's a Palestinian writer and civil servant based in Jerusalem. Jalal, great to see you. you. Thanks for doing this. Thank you for having me, Tommy. So last week, a veteran journalist named Shireen Aba Akla was killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank. Al Jazeera has said, her employer has said that the Israeli military deliberately targeted and killed her. The Israeli military initially tried to argue that Shireen had been shot by Palestinian

militants, but they backtracked on that claim when it seems like essentially everyone who was there, including a lot of journalists, said that was not even physically possible. Can we just start by describing who Shereen is and how much she meant to so many Palestinians? Of course, the news is still, we're still processing the shocking news a few days later, actually. Just earlier, I saw her nephew, her niece, actually, she was at the location where Shereen was shot. and I just saw it on a story and I thought I was over the grief period but no it's still there

a lot of people don't understand that Shrine she meant a lot to everyone and the reason is because she was probably the first and the best for so many years

and as a person she was I don't want to She was pure. She was a good soul. She was a happy person. She's a very positive spirit in many ways. And everyone who knew her,

either from her work professionally, her colleagues or family or friends, everyone loved her. This was very obvious. So now it comes to every person. How did Shadine come into their life? And myself, for example, I can tell my own personal story.

I was probably seven or eight. years old in 2002 when there was a massive scale incursion by the Israeli military into the West Bank during the second Intifada. As a young child I saw checkpoints coming up, I saw the roads being blocked, I saw tanks rolling on the streets and there was curfew so many like much of the time. I could watch from my window like helicopters or like F-16 jets firing and shooting. All of this was happening outside.

I was still a young child and I was still like getting a grasp of what's going on. I was very interested in the shape of the tank and the troop carriers and guns and bullets. Like that was very interesting for me. But I had no idea what's actually going on outside. Like every single other Palestinian child at the time, all over the West Bank and Jerusalem, probably more so in the West Bank. They didn't have an idea of what's going on outside. and we'd cashed with that's west when we go to the TV

and there was nothing but Al Jazeera Arabic was a very brand new channel and it was there was no one but Shirin Aba Aqle and her colleague and boss Wadi al-Ommari they were the faces in every household they were bringing us the news of what's going outside they were the window to what's going on in the West Bank it was a lot of violence and horror people kept hearing stories

but there was no one bringing us the news except Shereen at the time she was just there by the tanks and the soldiers and it looked scary like I would be wondering like how is she not scared of being out there in the mid of this like really violent war it looked like a really violent war from what I saw on TV so we grew up with Shireen as that figure on the TV that brave courageous journalist who was doing all those stories and bringing us what was going on 20 years ago it was the Battle of Janine or Janine Massacre.

It was a large campaign in Janine and there was no one there covering it but Shereen. So to many people, that's when we first knew her. That's when she rose to become a star and icon in our psyche, our Palestinian psyche. And she inspired many of us in many ways as well. You know, on top of her, you know, her being brutally shot and killed, I mean, a lot of people, myself included, were then further shocked and horrified by the images of mourners being beaten by Israeli police at her funeral procession, including pallbearers carrying casket. I know you were there that day. Can you sort of describe what happened and what that was like?

I am like I was very, like I knew the day Friday for the funeral. It was going to be a tough day. Like I've been in Jerusalem. I've lived my whole life born and raised More recently I'm more experienced in how the Israeli state Suppresses everything Palestinian and the violence that they could They could take like do and commit in order to suppress any sign of Palestinian identity or existence in occupied Jerusalem They want to portray Jerusalem as a not occupied but actually capital of Israel

They want to show this unified one Jerusalem But the reality on the ground, it's very much under occupation where half the city is occupied and half the population of the city are not citizens of Israel. They are not able to vote. They are not participating in the state that governs every part and aspect of their life.

They are occupied people, myself included. So I know that this occupier state, Israel, is willing to go to extremes to prevent any site of this Palestinian identity and unfortunately we saw how how far they would go during the funeral procession of Shereen Abu Ackley in Jerusalem I still cannot get over the images the footage like they wanted so like they attacked the the procession in such a brutal way that I just felt why would anyone commit such violence at a funeral why would

they beat the pole bearers which were obviously holding the caskets and like they were wanting to go on this procession, the attack they received was so brutal and meaningless. I still don't understand how this violence could take place. I thought, I had an idea, like I thought I should probably go to the church where the funeral prayers would take place, and the hospital was about five kilometers away, or perhaps less, actually, perhaps like three kilometers away. So my dad, my sister, my brother, half my friends were at the hospital. They wanted to start the procession from there.

So many Palestinians were at the hospital inside, saying last goodbye to Shereen and wanting to carry her coffin to the old city. Through Palestinian areas, by the way, all of Palestinian areas, from Sheikh Jarach to the old city, it's just one street. And no one thought that the Israeli's occupied. state would go this far to prevent them from carrying the casket and going to the city. The violence we saw from inside the hospital and from the courtyards, the videos are still coming out. It's meaningless.

It's brutal violence. And it just shows you that this reality under occupation is so brutal in every aspect. But they're doing it for one reason because they know there won't be accountability. They've done it in the past. They will do it again, probably. they know that they want to maintain this occupation at any cost, any means possible. And no one is looking at Israel and saying, oh, no to Israel, you should be punished, you should be sanctioned, you should be facing some sort of consequence for your actions. So as long as Israel is acting in impunity, this sort of violence, the extreme versions of it, is still going to continue in Jerusalem.

I mean, listen, this is an ignorant question. I've never been to Sheikh Dara. I've never been to the West Bank. I've never been to these places. You know, I know the sort of the Israeli police said that they were responding to rock throwing, but I also saw soldiers just ripping down Palestinian flags. I mean, was the latter, you know, the issue of just, you know, this rule against raising a Palestinian flag, sort of what set off some of these attacks on mourners?

There's a few things to know. this funeral at the courtiers of the hospital the claim that throcks were thrown is false whatever a crowd of mourners would do when they're attacked when they're first being besieged and attacked the Israeli police released videos of water bottles being thrown that does not justify the brutal violence we saw but the violence was beginning even before the bottles were thrown

the presence of an occupation force in huge numbers and they are, by this whole procession, they are the ones who perpetrated this act. This act is attributed to the state of Israel, which those troopers are the face of the Israeli occupation in East Jerusalem. So their presence there was provocative because they do not want to allow any nationalist, what's it called, like any nationalist,

chants or slogans or Palestinian flags being raised. But then she is a Palestinian icon, and she is respected by every Palestinian, and Palestinians in East Jerusalem are living under occupation, and it's within their right to mourn their icon in the most respectful way they deem possible. The flag was such a huge issue. Every day before the funeral procession took place, they were interrogating Shirin's brother. They brought him to the Shabak to interrogate him and tell him. We do not want the sight of flags.

We do not want her coffin to be covered with the flag. When Shrine's coffin first arrived from Ramallah to Jerusalem on Thursday after the ceremony in Ramallah, the coffin was taken out at her house in Bette Hanina, and it was attacked the day before the procession by Israeli police who stopped the ambulance and they wanted to take off the flag from the coffin itself. They were faced with some resistance on the street when they stopped the ambulance and they let it go. But everyone knew that next day, the fact that there's a flag on the coffin or that people carry the Palestinian flag in this funeral procession is going to be a huge trigger to the Israeli forces who are around us. Maybe I can also tell you what I witnessed was different from what happened at the hospital. Because I chose to be in the old city in the church two hours early.

just to make sure that we don't get cut off or the roads into the city don't get blocked. Because we saw, like, the early morning, there were preparations to block the access to the old city. So I went there early, and I was at the church when the coffin arrived from the hospital. I had only seen on my phone and heard from my family about the violence there. I was in shock, of course, I was seeing, but at the church, it was still calm. when the coffin arrived the grief was strong and people were just either crying or just chanting

out loud or just like speaking their mind and that was happening in the old city the Jerusalem old city the Roman Catholic Church is close to the Jaffa Gate area it's in an alleyway and it was super crowded

it was so crowded we went to the church it took an hour for the funeral prayers to take place and then as we went out with the coffin I saw numbers of people I could not even imagine

I saw so many people in every corner of the whole courtyard of Jaffa, a massive area I saw so many people Palestinians walk in the funeral procession and as far as the eyesight could go towards the cemetery

on Mount Zion which is about 200 meters away from the church the whole path to the cemetery was filled with people and I could see Palestinian flags scattered around. I felt like this confidence, like, wow, this is a significant

moment. I've never been, I've never seen such a sight. So many people, thousands upon thousands, so many of them carrying the flags. So I knew that Israelis were suppressing every occasion, at every occasion, the raising of the Palestinian flag. There were, throughout the day,

there were people undercover agents who would put on a cap at one moment that says police and they would take off all the flags they can and then would get out from the crowd. They were trying to take away all the flags, but I still saw so many in this funeral procession. And that's when I took a flag that I had on myself as well.

I took it up and I was like, this is a huge moment. I'm inside Jaffa Gate, courtyard and we're walking in this procession. I was very happy to hold the flag. 30, 40 seconds, it was just snatched. I was looking around me and it was like a two meters tall, Israeli officer just grabbed it and walked away. This kept happening throughout the procession. I kept seeing officers walking in the crowd and taking flags from kids, from old ladies,

and pushing and assaulting some people as well. There was a lot of anger from the mourners because people were genuinely angry about what happened to Shereen. They were genuinely angry and they were just yelling at the Israeli officers who were within the crowd, just snatching flags from everyone. It was a very tense situation because they have not let us grieve for this one moment. They did not respect that so many people have come out for Shereen. They've all come out for Shereen and they wanted to send her away in the best way they could imagine. And that's what we were denied in Jerusalem.

And that's the reality under occupation. God, I'm so sorry. I mean, so, you know, what is the next step in terms of an investigation into her killing in efforts to hold, you know, the people responsible accountable? I know there's been this back and forth. between Palestinian-Israeli authorities about demands by the Israelis that Palestinians turn over the bullet that killed her. I'm not sure if it's still stuck there, but what's the latest? And in many ways, it's weird when the party who is accused of committing the crime wants to have a part, to take part in this crime. There are a few things I can say. I'll start

with the fact that Chirin is not the first journalist who was killed by Israel. She is the 46, according to data that I've collected and published in my piece in The Guardian. She's the 46th journalist who's been killed since the year 2000 by Israeli fire. Most of the journalists are Palestinian, but some of them are foreign. There is a British. There's American journalist as well who were killed in Gaza. at one occasion during a war on Gaza in 2014, over a dozen journalists were killed in like a 20-day period in bombing at Gaza.

It's not the first time that Israel wants to open an investigation and even the Israeli human rights organization, Bait Salem, they've issued a statement perhaps more than seven years ago. After a lot of years in their work, they said we're going to stop petitioning the Israeli courts to investigate the crimes that we're documenting because they said that whenever we document abuses, war crimes, or any sort of crime and we asked the Israelis to investigate it, an investigation leads to nothing

and no one from the police or the military or the government is held accountable for a certain action. So even Israeli human rights group does not believe that the Israeli courts or Israeli side would be an honest broker in such an investigation. That's one thing. The second is the circumstances around Shereen's killing. First, during the first day, of course, we had witness statements from the journalists, her colleagues who were around her, who all said the same thing about the location of the Israeli forces at the camp,

about the fact they've chosen that spot for visibility and safety far away from any clashes that could erupt between Palestinians and Israelis. They were in the line of sight of the Israelis and beyond them were the documented spots of Palestinian militants. So the Palestinians were even beyond the Israelis. So first day we had the witness statements from the Palestinian journalists who were there and whoever was there. They all corroborated the same story.

that the fire came from the Israelis at the Israeli site and it was very targeted the autopsy showed the same thing that the shooting was very targeted and it was meant to kill it was a very quick bullet that killed Shereen in a very exposed area even though she was wearing full gear

protective gear all over her body the shooting continued whenever people tried to approach her but it's kept coming from what the journalist described as a sniper so that was the first day we had researchers from Beid Salem, the Israeli human rights group, go down to the field the same day.

The first thing they did was completely debunk the Israeli version of the events. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with high-up government officials, shared a video at 8 a.m. when the news first broke to muddy the water. They shared a video of a Palestinian fighter or militant shooting in an alleyway. And they said, died in Palestinian fire. It turned out three, four hours later that the video

shared by the Israelis and the location where Sharia was killed had nothing to do with each other. The researchers went to the field and photographed the entire area of the camp. They photographed did a video throughout the whole area to prove that the Israelis information

was meant to mislead. The Israelis first backtracked from that single video. They insisted they wanted the bullet. I think Bellingat, it's American-based investigative journalism group. Bellingat, they did an audio forensic analysis of the sound of the bullets that were hitting

the journalist and the guy who tried to rescue Shereen, tried to pull her after she was shot. The analysis they did concluded what the Israelis had already said that the bullets came from a distance and direction of her the Israelis were positioned. in the camp, the same exact distance through the audio forensic analysis, showed like 170, 180 meters away. The Israeli position was proven to be by Palestinians and Israeli military themselves.

It was about 190 to 250 meters away. That's how far the bullet traveled that killed Shereen. And any presence or sighting of any Palestinian in that area from that morning was shown to be beyond the Israeli military. So there's plenty of evidence already out there, all pointing to the same thing. Even the Israelis are saying they're backtracking now and they're saying, it's very likely that one of them had done this shot. They interrogated one soldier who said he had bad eyesight. He had shot and he was getting shot at.

But that's all we've heard of this interrogation of a soldier. They haven't claimed responsibility, of course, but they said it's very likely that it could have been an Israeli bullet. They're still asking for the bullet. don't really know what. There should be a talk about accountability. There should be talk about how to protect journalists working on the field in Palestine or end violent Israeli raids that always leave to someone being killed,

or perhaps just end the occupation, just pressure Israel to end the occupation. There's a lot that could be done beyond just insisting that this bullet has to prove anything because the Americans are going to be involved. The Qataris, I think the PA has said, and Qatis are invited to be involved in the investigation, but they wouldn't hand this evidence to the Israeli side for them to analyze it. That wouldn't happen. No, that wouldn't make a lot of sense. You mentioned this sort of international response. I know the U.S., the White House has condemned the killing. They've called on an investigation. I think, you know, the U.S. is in

a unique role here because Shireen was a U.S. citizen. The U.S. ambassador, Israel, Tom Nides, condemned the killing, called an investigation. Is that sufficient? I mean, what else would you like to see the U.S. and the international community actually do here? There is a lot. On an official diplomatic level, there could be support and not objection for the Palestinians seeking to go to the international criminal court to raise a case, cases, multiple cases against Israel. So far, the effort of the Palestinians is being blocked in every way possible. Political pressure is put on the Palestinians by the Americans, especially by the Americans.

to not go to the ICC and to not seek international justice against Israel in a way to protect Israel because it's a very easy case at the ICC. And there's been political pressure put on the PA to avoid doing that. At the very simplest base level, I would call on all governments, especially the UK and the US, not to act against the PA when they go to the ICC. actually support going to international justice. What's wrong with going to the ICC?

A more ambitious expectation would be recognition for the Palestinians. The official stance is a state on the 1967 borders. That's what the Americans have adopted. The Europeans support it as well. But neither the European EU or the Americans are willing to go the extra step and recognize the Palestinian state, for example. So they're not really doing the bare minimum that is expected at this point. Financial support, weapons trade with Israel, any form of sanctions, any sort of thing that could show Israel that, okay, maybe what they're doing is not good.

Like maybe stop committing all those abuses and there will be consequence. But no one is putting any consequences against Israel for the actions they've kept committing, actually. Yeah. So you're just looking for any incremental step towards accountability. Any step that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, recently there have been a number of terrorist attacks on Israelis, I believe 19 have been killed. Those attacks were often followed by raids by Israeli security forces. You know, some people have suggested that those raids feel more like retribution at times than efforts to actually find individuals who committed these acts. Again, like at the risk of sounding naive. Like when I, the areas you're talking about, listeners might have heard about before like shake Jarrah when there were evictions that led to protests that led to a full scale war. When I hear about someone like Shereen being killed and then when I see images of a funeral procession being attacked, it's just hard for me to think of something that would do more to

humiliate, infuriate, incite a group of people. and I worry about the prospect of this escalating into a full-scale conflict like we saw last year. How concerned are people about that kind of thing happening? It's a very hard thing for the Palestinians. I don't know how we do it. There is such lack of hope on the horizon. There is so much pessimism among Palestinians. under occupation.

Everyone feels this has gone for far too long and every other year we're faced with the same exact news and stories. Every year we're hearing about mass expulsions somewhere or raids elsewhere, a war on Gaza, a siege on Gaza that's been ongoing for 15 years. There's so much that Palestinians are facing daily. Every right to work, every aspect of our lives in the West Bank and Jerusalem is controlled by Israel

not only the physical checkpoints aspect or the fact that we can't build homes and naturally live in our territories, in our lands. We're so restricted in every way of life. There are so many things that I can't even list in this that are happening that Palestinians are not feeling there's any hope

that something better will come out in the future. They feel like we've been going to, saying this for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, and it keeps getting worse for us. It keeps getting worse. It's very sad that no one is willing to give Palestinians hope. For example, any kind of political support on a major level could make Palestinians feel like, oh, maybe something good can come out. Maybe there will be something good in the future.

Like you can't take away hope from such people who are living under occupation, and, you know, amnesty came out, human rights watch came out, and others have said, this is apartheid, apartheid between the river and the sea. The reports were damning, the evidence was there, apartheid is happening, yet we feel no one is willing to even address that. We feel like maybe Ukraine deserves all the support

by all those who are against occupation, and I am one of them. I support Ukraine's right to resolve. such an invasion by the Russians, but we don't feel like we are getting any, any equal support, for example. We feel like all we talk about is pessimism in a way, like, look, they're double standards. Look how they're describing the same act done in Ukraine and how they describe what we do in Palestine. Look how they are willing to call it war crimes within a week in Ukraine and have, even the ICC, like they've struggled to describe things as war crimes.

there is so much hesitation when it comes to Palestine and Israel. There's so much unwillingness to act by major governments in the UK, in the US. Some European governments are even being weird in how they address it. In Germany, there are some laws that are associating anti-Semitism directly with anti-Israel rhetoric, for example. They are banning protests that are coming out against Israeli policies, against Israeli apartheid. Even Amnesty, their chapter in Germany did not release the report. They put a notice out that if anyone wants to see the report, they can go on the American other websites, in different languages.

But Amnesty in Germany will refrain from releasing it in fear of stoking anti-Semitic strife in Germany. It's weird when we feel like no one is willing to even address what goes on in Palestine just because of this historic guilt that the Germans do have. And I don't know about others in the Europe. The UK is responsible in a way for what the situation is today because they were the ones to hand over the country to Israel. They were the ones responsible in their mandate, the colonial period before 1948

there is a historic responsibility towards the Palestinian people that we feel no one is willing to undertake and they are able to. Of course they're able to. We've seen how they act with Ukraine but they're just seemingly and very obviously not willing to act for Palestine, not willing to speak out against Israeli policies,

not willing to stand up against apartheid in 21st century. Well, Chal, I really appreciate you being willing to speak out and come on the show and help us understand this better. If people want to follow you, find your work, sort of read some of the articles, you references, where should they go? You can find everything linked on Twitter on my Twitter, Jalal, AK underscore J.O.J.O.J.Jalal, I'll retweet that so folks can find it easily. Jalal Abukhattar, thank you so much for joining the show today. I really appreciate your time

and hope to talk soon. Inshallah, hopefully. Thank you. Thanks again to Jalal Abukhattar for joining the show. Thanks to, I don't know, Tom Cruise and all Jubilee fans. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, thanks to the Trinidad Tobago, like marching band or whatever, like the steel drum band doing a lot.

I love that too. I will say to people like, you know, feeling a little pissed off by that interview as you should, we're currently in an environment where like A-PAC is dumping tons of money in the primaries. Oh, I meant to bring this up. So I just want to put in a plug for Congressman N-Eleven, who's basically been on the receiving end of more APAC attack money than anybody else for just having fairly mainstream pro two-state solution positions. So let's talk about this more in the next episode, but might as well wing it again here. So is this DMFI money, the Democratic majority for Israel?

This is straight up, some of it's DMFI, but APAC created the super PAC. And it, you know, like it feels like the main function of the super PAC is to get into Democratic primaries. Yeah. And, you know, look, Andy got redistricted in with Haley Stevens, another Democratic member. This is less about her and just more about, like, the attacks he's been under just feel like a bunch of bullshit, particularly given the circumstances. You know, he's been someone out there and trying to hold Israeli government accountable for things like this,

not taking, like, wild positions or anything. And they're coming down on him like a ton of bricks. Yeah. Yeah, and so there's DMFI, which is the Democratic majority for Israel, which is a, you know, they call themselves a liberal super PAC, but they're funded by a bunch of Republican billionaires, mostly. And they've been attacking a bunch of progressives in Pennsylvania. I think they went after Jamal Bowman back in the day. Yeah, they attacked Bernie Sanders, Nina Turner, Jennifer Cisneros, Stem, Texas. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it's pretty ugly. Yeah, it's not about Israel, pro-Israel issues in a lot of instances. Yeah. And in the Michigan case, it's, It's very much about Israel. Like, and this isn't even about, like, this is just like, this is not what these primaries should be about, you know.

Like, like, if they're left center primary fights, like, that's fine and healthy for the Democratic Party. Like, I don't know that this is how they should be so. No, no, agreed. Okay, well, that's all we got for this week, but we will talk to you next week. See ya. Pazzi of the World is a crooked media production. Executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seiglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Saul Rubin for production support and to our digital team Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth who upload our episodes as videos at YouTube.com slash crooked media.