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.

Recent articles written by our guest:

Analyst News

Mondowiess

Institute for Palestine Studies

The Electronic Intifada

107: Understanding the War in Sudan

On April 15th war broke out in Sudan. The fighting between the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group and the Sudanese army has devastated Khartoum, spread across the country, and an estimated 1,800 people have lost their lives, with hundreds of thousands displaced.

Dalia AbdelMoniem joins us from the UK, where she has been living since fleeing the war in April, after a missile struck her home. Dalia is a former journalist who moved back to Sudan in 2013 after living in Egypt for more than two decades. 

For more information about how you can help the people of Sudan, follow these organizations and individuals:

Nazim Sirag, for updates and information about how to help.

HomeTax Sudan (for donations)

Jia | Juwayria

Sudanese American Medical Association

Hadhreen | حاضرين

105: Abandoned in Afghanistan (1 of 2)

On August 30th 2021, the US and its coalition partners ended their nearly twenty-year occupation of Afghanistan. Two weeks before they left, the Taliban swept across the country taking major urban centers, including Kabul. As embassies were abandoned, and as Afghans government officials fled the country, those Afghan citizens who had worked with the occupying forces faced the very real prospect of execution by the Taliban as collaborators. Yet, just Afghan interpreters had been abandoned in years past, many were left behind when the last US flight left the country. Now they, and the millions of Afghans who never had any hope of being evacuated to begin with, were left to scramble for their survival.

Basir Bita last appeared on Latitude Adjustment Podcast just two weeks before the Taliban takeover of Kabul, and a month before US and international forces left the country. Though he and his family had been issued a visa for his work with the Canadian government, they were left behind. This episode is the first of a two-part series in which Basir recounts what happened next.

Also, be sure to listen to our last episode with Basir, before the fall of Kabul.

Our interview with Afghan photographer and interpreter Abdul Saboor, who escaped overland to France.

And our field reports and interviews with refugees in Greece.

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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!

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

Episode 3: Gaza & Politics in Palestine

Yousef Aljamal and I met in Gaza in 2013. In this long-format episode we discuss life in Gaza under 11 years of siege imposed by Israel and Egypt, his travels and his personal losses, the ongoing Great March of Return Protests, solidarity with indigenous communities and movements, and we take a critical look at internal Palestinian politics, the stigmatization of mental health treatment, the status of Jerusalem and the implications of the US embassy move, the role of Hamas and its politics, and pretty much everything you would want to know about the present situation in Gaza and the rest of Palestine that we could fit into two very long conversations.

I also provide a longer intro and closing thoughts to address the divisive nature of this subject in the US and the West, and my own travels in Palestine.

It would be impossible to produce a podcast on this subject that everyone will agree with, and that's not the aim of Latitude Adjustment on any subject. However, considerable effort was put into producing a show that will give you a detailed look at the present situation from a Palestinian perspective. Particular attention was given to topics that are often absent from the treatment of this conflict in mainstream and alternative media. This episode should be educational for just about anyone trying to get a better understanding of what is often characterized as the most intractable conflict in the world.

Please be sure to leave a review on iTunes or your preferred media platform, and please join the ongoing discussion in the Latitude Adjustment Conversation Group, on Facebook.

You can follow Yousef on Twitter.

The US has just cut all funding to UNRWA. Please donate today.

Since 1949 UNRWA has been the UN body responsible for providing medical clinics, education, and food aid to Palestinian refugees. There are currently 5.4 million Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA, and the US administration - the principle donor to this UN organization- has just elected to cut all financial support. Whatever your view of this conflict, Palestinians need food, medicine, and an education. Please contribute what you can. And if you are a US voter, please call your elected representatives and ask that they demand the reinstatement of US funding.

For more context please read this recent op ed in the Washington Post.

Below you will find the two videos mentioned in the show. Also check out Yousef's suggested reading list. and this article Yousef wrote about his experiences of traveling as a Palestinian. 

Yousef's Suggested Reading:

Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History, Dreaming of Freedom: Palestinian Child Prisoners Speak
The Last Earth: A Palestinian story

1. Again I did not produce this video tutorial on the history of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. It's not perfect, and there's stuff I personally would have framed differently, and other things I would have included that were left out. But of all of the stuff I came across it seemed to provide the best balance between breadth of content with the least amount of objectionable material and omissions. 

2. The second video is part of a collaborative film project produced by Open Roads Media, a small nonprofit I founded in 2015. The bi-national street-interview-format film collaboration was completed by youth in Gaza, Palestine, and The Netherlands in 2017. The late Yaser Murtaja was one of the lead producers on the Gaza team, and it's his drone footage that provided the aerial views of Gaza in this short film. 

This episode of Latitude Adjustment is dedicated to Yaser and to his family, and to his friend and co-founder at Ain Media Rushdi Sarraj and their team. Ain Media created this short video memorial to Yaser as well. 

3. The third video is a helpful explainer, answering some of the common criticisms of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) campaign.

It's the Latitude Adjustment Manifesto Teaser Intro Episode!

Welcome to Latitude Adjustment and to a journey around the world through conversation!

This will be an interview-format show, but for this initial teaser episode I'll be introducing myself and offering some reflections from my years of solo travel across the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Europe, and the US-Mexico borderlands. Also, thoughts on why it's our moral and civic duty to be curious, examining some of the formulas that are often used to manipulate populations into allowing and committing acts of violence, why we should give ourselves permission to be ignorant, and an invitation to participate in the conversation after each show. I'm just one guy figuring this out, so thanks for your patience and for tuning in! Join the conversation group on Facebook and swing by iTunes and leave a nice review... it will help the show get noticed. 

Latitude Adjustment is 100% listener supported. If you agree that we need more independent media that prioritizes curiosity and connections over fear and divisions then please support us with a monthly donation through our Patreon page. Thanks!