The Palestine Pod

This week Lara and Michael sit down with famed Palestinian human rights lawyer, scholar, and professor of law, Dr. Noura Erakat. We discuss how international law was shaped by colonial powers in order to facilitate imperial expansion and how international law in practice has favored the settler-colonial project far more than Palestinians. We chat about a time when Palestinians used "guerilla diplo...

This week Lara and Michael cover the heinous assassination by the Israeli occupation of the beloved Palestinian journalist for Al Jazeera, Shireen Abu Akleh. Lara and Michael discuss the audacity of murdering Shireen in broad daylight while still trying to gaslight people into believing something else happened. We note how Israel murdering journalists is actually par for the course, having murdere...

This week Lara and Michael discuss the decision of the Israeli Supreme Court to ethnically cleanse 2400 Palestinians from their homes in the south Hebron hills in the region of Masafer Yatta. The IOF designated land that Palestinians have lived on for many generations as a “firing zone,” as a means to confiscate the land and confiscate Palestinians from their homes. This move comes on the heels of...

This week Lara and Michael sit down with actor, musician, and strong Palestinian ally Michael Malarkey. We talk about how Michael Malarkey came to his understanding of the situation in Palestine, what motivated him to speak out in support of Palestinians, and we do a deep dive into Michael's family history where we learn his grandfather was born in Nazareth. Malarkey's research into Palestine sent...

This week Lara and Michael discuss the deja vu of watching Zionists desecrate portions of the Al Aqsa mosque during the holy month of Ramadan. The occupation also assaulted journalists, men, women, and children, locking people inside the mosque so that Israeli settlers could waltz around the Al Aqsa compound. We held space for the seemingly neverending list of Palestinians murdered by the occupati...

This week Lara and Michael sit down with Rabbi Brant Rosen of Tzedek Chicago. They made headlines by becoming the first (progressive) Jewish congregation in the United States to add anti-Zionism to their core values. We discuss why they changed from non-Zionist to anti-Zionist. Rabbi Rosen talks about uplifting Jewish life in the diaspora and how diasporic consciousness serves our understanding an...

This week Lara and Michael celebrate the 50th episode of The Palestine Pod. We do a quick recap of guests and share our appreciation for everyone who has enjoyed the project so far. We cover the various shootings that occurred over the past few weeks. Some at the hands of the occupation, and some at the hands of Palestinians resisting. We discuss the difference in reaction when Ukrainians resist u...

This week Lara and Michael sit down with Palestinian journalist, documentary filmmaker, and GQ heartthrob, Ahmed Eldin. Ahmed joins us to discuss his upcoming documentary (which is still under wraps) and how the terminology surrounding Israeli apartheid and occupation of Palestine is shifting in the public arena. We chat about overt and subtle media censorship from Instagram deprioritizing certain...

This week Lara and Michael sit down with the New York-based revolutionary activist and organizer Nerdeen Kiswani. Nerdeen is a 3L at the CUNY School of Law where she is the head of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). She's the chair of Within Our Lifetime a Palestinian-led community hub that organizes Palestinians in the diaspora whose goal is to revitalize the revolutionary spirit of the Pal...

This week Lara and Michael do a deep dive into the hypocrisy, double standards, and outright racism exhibited by media when covering Ukraine vs. Palestine. We muse about what makes someone civilized and why the media glorifies armed resistance in Ukraine but deems any such action by Palestinians as terrorism. We cover how both pictures of Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi and videos of bombs being...

This week Lara and Michael speak with Nisreen Salem, a photojournalist from Occupied East Jerusalem. She conducts the interview from inside a family’s house in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah where she documents protests that occur every night. We provide updates on the situation in Sheikh Jarrah with the Salem family and others. Nisreen breaks down the specifics of the Jerusalem court freezing...

This week Lara and Michael sit down with Diana Buttu, a fierce human rights lawyer, former PLO negotiator, Palestinian citizen of Israel and political analyst at the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU). Diana offers her views on the Amnesty International Report and on current events on the ground in the aftermath of the May 2021 uprising. She tells the Palestine Pod the story of how her...

This week Lara and Michael discuss how several Palestinian youth were murdered, execution-style, by the Apartheid State’s Yamam Brigade responsible for dressing up as and infiltrating Palestinian circles. Michael reminds us that zionists do not just murder people for armed resistance, but they also assassinate thinkers, people who can sway public opinion, foreign generals, and most recently scient...

This week Lara and Michael hash out the good and the bad from Amnesty International’s recent report documenting Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians and dissect the Zionist response (i.e loose cannon false accusations of antisemitism and/or terrorism). Lara queries how many more reports we need before we will believe Palestinians and demand an end to the Apartheid regime? The Palestine Pod some...

On this episode of The Palestine Pod, Lara and Michael do a deep dive into firsthand accounts/primary sources of the massacre at Tantura. We cover it both from the testimonies of the perpetrators and the few people who survived. Lara reads a survivor's account included in The Palestinian Right of Return Under International Law, a book by Professor Francis Boyle. Michael dissects footage from an up...

This week Lara and Michael sit down with the talented and outspoken Palestinian rapper, Tamer Nafar. We speak to Tamer about his music, the recent uprising in May, his family history and what it's like being a Palestinian living inside the occupation. Lara contemplates what it would mean for her to return to Palestine, and Tamer talks about the inspiration for his songs, including a song about ref...

This week we recap episodes 16-38 and rediscover some of the highlights with guests including Farah Nabulsi, Laila El-Haddad, Qaher Harhash, Lyla June, Hadar Cohen, Malak Mattar, Rifk Ebeid, Jon Elmer, Joe Gaza, Joudie Kalla, Max from Palestine Action, Noam Shuster, Noor Elkhaldi, and Samer Fidy. It's an episode that catches you up to the present with some of the best of from 2021. We'll be back n...

This week we take a stroll down memory lane and relive the best moments from the first 15 episodes of The Palestine Pod. From its inception in March 2021, we hear the most influential moments from guests including Amer Zahr, Nora Barrows-Friedman, Miko Peled, Dr. Steve Salaita, Massoud Hayoun, Adnan Barq who reported live from the ground in East Jerusalem during the assault on Sheikh Jarrah and Ga...

This week Lara and Michael sit down with the founder and CEO of Palestinian Hustle, Samer Fidy. Samer shares the journey that led him to start the Palestinian-owned small business that donates a portion of every sale to charities in the United States fighting food insecurity, and NGOs on the ground in Gaza providing clean water. Samer speaks of his desire to teach his children about responsibility...

This week Lara and Michael sit down with Noor Elkhaldi, Palestinian-American fashion model/influencer, and host of the popular podcast Arab-American Psycho, discussing the success of her podcast, its origins, and the meaningful conversations she has had on it with Palestinians like her mother, Hawaiian activists, and other people impacted by colonialism. Lara and Michael do a deep dive into Noor's...

This week Lara and Michael discuss RIFQA, Mohammed El-Kurd's newly released book of poetry, pondering some of the book's messages like "anger is a luxury we cannot afford." Indeed, Palestinians are expected to be calm and composed while being ethnically cleansed. Lara and Michael talk mental health and the toll Palestinian liberation takes on the lives of those who engage in the work. Lara conside...

This week Lara and Michael sit down with Israeli comedian and activist, Noam Shuster Eliassi. We talk about Noam's family history, her mother is an Iranian Jew and her father was born in Jerusalem to Romanian parents who survived the Holocaust. We chat about Noam's desire to preserve the traditions and return even just to visit the birthplace of her mother and honor her Iranian lineage which spans...

This week Lara leads us on a deep dive into the legal frameworks that came into place in the aftermath of the Nakba, including the absentee property law, the law of return, and the nationality law. All these legal devices helped codify the actions of ethnic cleansing and land theft by the rogue Zionist militias into the "legal" actions of a state. We also cover the various ways Zionists stopped Pa...

This week Lara and Michael talk to one of Lara's dear friends Max from Palestine Action. Palestine Action is an activist collective engaging in direct action in the UK to shut down the factories of weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, one of the largest suppliers of weapons to Apartheid Israel. Max guides us through recent actions including one where he chained himself to the gates of the Elbit Sys...

This week Lara and Michael discuss the bombshell Washington Post article exposing a vast dragnet surveillance system used by the IOF against Palestinian society. Programs Blue Wolf and Wolfpack use state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to track and identify all movements by Palestinians, and has been called "a secret Facebook for Palestinians" according to an IOF soldier. Palestinians are...