Gaza

113: An Audio Diary from Gaza

We have been wanting to bring you voices from inside Gaza since the very start of the current atrocities, but for what are obvious reasons this has proven to be extremely difficult, especially after Israel cut all communication lines and mobile phone networks in Gaza, in the prelude to their ground invasion. However, a student from our Palestine Podcast Academy, Shahd Safi, has managed to send me a series of daily audio diary entries detailing her experiences and her feelings in recent days. Shahd is from al Nuseirat Refugee camp in Central Gaza, a camp that has been subjected to repeated bombardments by Israel over the past few weeks. A Palestinian friend of mine, who invited me to his home in Nuseirat camp during my stay in Gaza, has lost nine family members to the airstrikes on the refugee camp in recent weeks. Shahd joins us from Rafah, in the South of Gaza, where she moved two years ago. However, the situation in Rafah is far from safe.

Shahd has been writing prolifically since the assault on Gaza began last month. You can find several links to her articles below, as well as links to charitable organizations working on the ground, and additional educational resources.

 
 
 
 
 
 

101: Apartheid in South Africa and Palestine

For this episode we cover a wide range of issues related to Palestinian human rights and political autonomy, including the recent Israeli elections, the current state of Palestinian resistance, parallels and distinctions between Apartheid in South Africa and Palestine, and the aims of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in Palestine.

Dr. Haidar Eid is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza's al-Aqsa University in Palestine, and completed his PhD in South Africa. In addition to being an author and a regular contributor to Al Jazeera, he is also on the advisory board of The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. He’s also an amateur singer; having released one album, Tyrants’ Fear of Songs, while currently working on his second collection.

 
 
 

96: Forgetting Gaza

The recent Israeli assault on Gaza lasted three days, from August 5 through August 7th. Before a ceasefire was concluded on the 7th of August, 49 Palestinians lay dead, including 17 children, with more than 360 injured. Israeli occupation raids in the West Bank, in particular in Jenin, coincided with the attacks.

And now, in an all too predictable pattern, we see that the Western media has once again failed to ask difficult questions in the aftermath of the attacks, and instead resuming its deafening silence on the questions of the Israeli occupation and on the 15-year siege on Gaza.

For this episode we speak with two young people in Gaza to gather their first-person perspectives. We deliberately chose to wait until several days after the attacks before releasing this episode, in order to highlight the role that the press plays in forgetting the ongoing violence towards Palestinians in Gaza.

 
 

89: Rabbis Discuss Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

This episode marks the second of a two-part series featuring interviews with rabbis on the subjects of Antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and the problems that arise when the two topics are conflated, either through misunderstanding or to serve political interests.


Rabbi Brant Rosen founded the congregation of Tzedek Chicago. Like Rabbi Lynn, Rabbi Brant is also a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. You can find more information about his book “Wrestling in the Daylight”, and his other works and writings, below.

 
 
 
 
 

88: Rabbis Discuss Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism (1 of 2)

This episode marks the first of a two-part series featuring interviews with rabbis on the subjects of Antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and the problems that arise when the two topics are conflated, either through misunderstanding or to serve political interests.

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb has the distinction of being one of the first female rabbis in the world, and her outspoken positions on Palestinian human rights have often placed her at odds with the political positions of the Israeli government and with its supporters. We’ll hear about her experiences as leader in a religious community overwhelmingly dominated by men, her first encounters with Israel as a very young woman (including her argument with David Ben-Gurion as a teenager), and how her Jewish identity informs her advocacy for human rights. She’s also a pretty amazing artist!

 
 
 
 

82: Palestinian Voices - East Jerusalem: Colonialism & Apartheid

For this second of two episodes about current events in Palestine we will be focusing specifically on the situation in East Jerusalem, and in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. East Jerusalem, which contains the old city, has been illegally occupied by Israel since the Israeli military captured it, along with the rest of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, in the “Six Day War” of 1967.

Since that time its Palestinian residents have been the targets of ongoing harassment, violence, and forced displacement by illegal Jewish settlers. The most recent instance of this ethnic cleansing campaign targeted residents of east Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. When Palestinians attempted to protest and resist, a brutal crackdown was waged by the Israeli authorities, a crackdown that is now reverberating across the West Bank, inside Israel, and in the form of yet another horrific Israeli bombing campaign on Gaza.

We hope that what you hear in this show inspires you to share it and to take action.

Join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, and follow the Five things you can do to support Palestinian human rights, right now.

 
 

Recommended Resources:

 
 
 
 

81: Palestinian Voices: Gaza - Resilience & Mental Health

This episode is the first of a two part series we are doing on Palestine. This episode focuses on voices from Gaza, while the next episode highlights voices from east Jerusalem. You don’t need to listen to them in any particular order, but we strongly recommend that you listen to both in their entirety. 

You will hear a lot today about the psychological toll that repeated wars, devastation, poverty, deprivation, and abandonment by the international community have had on the 2 million residents of one of the most densely populated stretches of land on earth. 

We hope that what you hear inspires you to share this show with others and to take action.

Both of our guests also write for “We Are Not Numbers”.

Be sure to read this essay by guest Haneen AbdAlnabi about her experiences as a child in Gaza.

And read this piece by guest Anas Jnena about the past week of attacks on Gaza.

Join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, and follow the Five things you can do to support Palestinian human rights, right now.

 
 

Recommended resources:

 
 
 
 

Bonus: The Problem With "Peace Projects" In Palestine

For this bonus episode I’m going to be doing something I’ve rarely done on this show, I’m not going to interview anyone. This is me speaking with no notes or preparation, just off the cuff and from the heart about some issues that have weighed heavily on me for a long time, issues that I think a lot of people in my line of work are afraid to talk about, especially in the US. It deals with why we rarely see Western media and Western nonprofits representing the perspectives of Palestinian youth with any depth or nuance.

I first recorded the following remarks as a video on my phone. If you want to watch the video version you can find the link to the original Facebook post here.

 
 
 

Episode 61: Gaza and Coronavirus

We talk to Dr. Sadi Nkhala in Gaza about the implications of a coronavirus outbreak in the Gaza Strip. Gaza has presently been spared from the worst case scenario, but like many poor communities, and like many communities containing large numbers of refugees, it is uniquely vulnerable. Like the rest of Gaza’s 2 million inhabitants, Sadi has been living under the Israeli-imposed siege on the coastal territory since 2007.

Latitude Adjustment Podcast has no financial or commercial connection to UNRWA. We just suggest them as a place to focus your supports. Other suggestions welcome! Contact us through our Facebook page with any questions.

Dr. Sadi Nkhala

Dr. Sadi Nkhala

 
 
 
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Episode 46: Gaza Sky Geeks & Women in Palestine

Dalia Shurrab is the Communication and Social Media Coordinator at Gaza Sky Geeks. We talk about the challenges of running the first tech hub in the Gaza Strip and the status of women's rights in Palestine.

 
 
 
 
 

Episode 37: 95 Years Old & On Hunger Strike

Sally-Alice Thompson is a World War 2 veteran, a peace activist, a New Mexico resident, and at 95 years old she just started her first hunger strike to bring an end to US sanctions and to US support for sieges that are pushing children into starvation and depriving populations of their basic needs.

 
 
Learn More About Sally-Alice’s Hunger Strike, Sign the Petition, and Learn How You Can Join Her

Learn More About Sally-Alice’s Hunger Strike, Sign the Petition, and Learn How You Can Join Her

 

Get informed about some of the topics discussed in this week’s show but checking out our previous interviews with local people…

Episode 33: Bringing Palestine to the US

Faisel Saleh was born the 11th of 11 children in the West Bank town of El Bireh after his parents fled from their home in Salama (near Tel Aviv) during the 1948 war. Those events created the state of Israel and what 700,000 Palestinians and their millions of descendants refer to as “The Nakba”, or the catastrophe. Faisal came to the US in 1969 to pursue his education, later becoming a successful entrepreneur. Last year he founded the Palestine Museum US, in Woodbridge, Connecticut, the first museum of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

In addition to providing a space to share and preserve the culture for Palestinian Americans, Palestinians of the global diaspora, and for Palestinians in Palestine, it’s also a space for non-Palestinians who create art or commentary about the community and its history.


But to talk about the art, culture, and history of Palestine and its people opens the door to a much wider conversation about the current conditions of the community, and in particular the circumstances of Palestinian refugees, and of those who have been enduring more than a decade of life under siege in the Gaza Strip and 52 years of Israeli military occupation.