The Electronic Intifada Podcast 19 September 2024
As my colleague Ali Abunimah explained, we were were unable to broadcast on YouTube last week due to political censorship by the Silicon Valley monopoly.
Viewers had to watch the stream on one of our other platforms – X (formerly Twitter), Twitch or Facebook. Due to the continued threat of censorship by YouTube (even the possible future deletion of our channel), we have added another video platform, Rumble.
As we discussed on the stream yesterday, it’s important that our viewers and listeners sign up to our email list so that we can stay in touch with you directly and warn about any future such takedowns and censorship by the corporate giants.
You can sign up to our email list by clicking here.
Our guests this week were Huda Ammori and Max Geller from Palestine Action.
Palestine Action spearheads a campaign of direct action against Elbit, the largest private Israeli arms manufacturer, smashing up and protesting against a network of factories and other facilities in the UK.
Elbit’s sites include factories that design and likely even make the engines for the deadly drones bombing Gaza right now – Elbit’s Hermes 450.
Huda co-founded Palestine Action in 2020. Since then, the campaign has successfully shut down three Elbit sites in the UK, as well as pressured five non-Elbit companies that provided services to them to sever all ties.
On repeated occasions, British juries have refused to convict Palestine Action members for damaging property, accepting the argument that such actions are legally justifiable because they aim to prevent far greater harm in the form of Israel’s war crimes.
No doubt due to their persistence and effectiveness, Palestine Action has been a primary target of the British government’s repression of the Palestine solidarity movement, with 16 of their activists currently held as political prisoners.
On the stream on Wednesday, Huda and Max talked about all that and about what supporters can do to get involved in Palestine Action’s campaign, including those who are unable to undertake the risks involved in direct action themselves.
Lebanon
In our discussion segment, we looked at the latest Israeli attack in Lebanon, which was still a breaking story as we were live on air.
Small explosions were set off all over Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, utilizing tiny bombs implanted into pagers and walkie talkies.
While all the details of exactly how the attack was carried out have yet to become clear, what is certain is that the attack was a very typically Israeli one – an indiscriminate attack targeting civilian areas.
While Israel hasn’t officially confirmed it was behind the attack, sources sympathetic to Israel in The New York Times did do so.
Speaking in the Times via Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, the “officials” said that the attack was targeting Hizballah – the Lebanese resistance organization and political party which forms part of the country’s government and its primary armed defense from Israeli invasion and occupation.
The bombings reportedly killed 32 and injured at least 3,250.
But the victims included at least two children and the bombings went off in civilian areas, including in neighboring Syria.
Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech to reassure his followers on Thursday. He said that while the attack was a heavy blow against the resistance, the organization’s command and control structure was still fully intact.He also vowed that Israelis would not return to their homes in the north without an end to the war in Gaza. Since 8 October last year, Hizballah has been attacking Israeli military sites in the north of occupied Palestine – present day Israel – and has said it won’t stop doing so until Israel ends its genocide in Gaza.
According to Israeli organizations, over 100,000 Israeli settlers previously living in frontier settlements next to Gaza and Lebanon are still internally displaced.
The Electronic Intifada’s Tamara Nassar produced and directed the program and Maureen Clare Murphy and Asa Winstanley contributed writing and production. Eli Gerzon contributed post-production assistance.
Past episodes of The Electronic Intifada livestream can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
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