The Electronic Intifada Podcast 31 January 2025
“ It’s going to start with international students. But it’s not going to stop there,” Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), told The Electronic Intifada Livestream this week.
In a week that witnessed the triumphant return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to north Gaza, the program also included fascinating new footage of resistance operations in the previous 16 months.
We also discussed whether the Trump administration is likely to hold Israel to the ceasefire deal through all its phases – potentially leading to the lifting of Israel’s nearly two-decade siege on Gaza.
You can watch the whole program in the video above.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration issued an executive order setting the stage to deport foreign students engaged in Palestine activism – under the guise of combating anti-Semitism and cracking down on supporters of Hamas, which the US government deems a “terrorist” organization.
This followed an order Trump signed on 20 January which could deny US visas to those deemed to have the wrong ideology.
The latest order portends a broad, politically motivated crackdown. According to the White House, Trump’s order empowers the Department of Justice to “quell pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation and investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.”
ADC is calling the measure “a serious and unconstitutional threat to the civil liberties of all Americans.”
Universities align with Trump
The attack is not just coming from the government, but also from universities buckling under pressure from Israel lobby groups, according to Ayoub.
Harvard University has just agreed to implement the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, a document concocted and promoted by Israel and its lobby that conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish bigotry.
It has become a primary tool for suppressing and punishing Palestine solidarity activism under the pretext of fighting anti-Semitism.
Harvard recently settled two lawsuits on behalf of Zionist students who claimed that campus Palestine solidarity protests during Israel’s genocide in Gaza were a source of so-called anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Know and protect your rights
Israel supporters are constantly looking for new ways to suppress supporters of Palestinian rights.
But these Trump executive orders will “add a criminal component,” Ayoub warned. The Trump administration will now try to use low-level offenses, such as trespassing or graffiti, as an excuse to deport international students essentially because of their political views and activism.
Ayoub shared practical advice for those now under more threat than before.
If the police or FBI come to your door, do not talk to them, Ayoub advised. Instead you can just ask them for their card and tell them you may be in touch through a lawyer.
”Don’t fall into the trap of thinking these guys are your friends,” Ayoub said.
ADC runs a 24-hour legal advice hotline that provides individuals with guidance on a broad range of issues including immigration changes, workplace discrimination and school-based harassment.
Individuals can also call it if they are approached by authorities and ADC will work to connect them with lawyers on call in their area.
Ayoub provided other practical advice in the interview, especially when entering the United States.
But Ayoub says students and others on visas should not necessarily withdraw from engagement.
For example, students on visas should avoid acts of civil disobedience that could get them arrested, such as blocking highways, but might continue to advocate for human rights in other ways.
“Be vigilant, not alarmist,” he said.
Palestinians return home as aid flows into Gaza
Since the start of the ceasefire, much more vital aid is reaching people in Gaza, Nora Barrows-Friedman reported in her news brief.
The World Food Program says it delivered more food in the first four days of the ceasefire than it did in an average month previously since the start of the Israeli attack.
Amid joyous scenes and celebrations, half a million forcibly displaced Palestinians returned to their homes in the north after Israeli forces withdrew from much of the so-called Netzarim Corridor – a strip of land dividing the north of Gaza from the south – according to the Gaza government media office.
In some areas the devastation is so extreme that landmarks have been destroyed and people cannot even find where their homes used to be.
In southern Lebanon, people are also returning home despite Israel not withdrawing from the area on Sunday as it agreed to under the ceasefire agreement with the Lebanese government and Hizballah.
Naim Qassim, the Lebanese resistance group’s secretary general, said that Israel has violated the ceasefire in Lebanon 1,350 times – while Hizballah has upheld it.
Meanwhile, Israel is increasing its aggression against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank on the pretext of pursuing resistance fighters there.
A leader on the front lines
In his report this week, contributing editor Jon Elmer covered the second prisoner exchange mandated by the ceasefire deal, which took place on 25 January.
Nearly 200 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for four Israeli female soldiers who were handed over to Red Cross officials in Palestine Square, a symbolic location in the heart of Gaza City.
Videos of the exchange showed fighters with the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, carrying weapons captured from Israeli soldiers and other “symbols of [Israeli] defeat,” as Elmer explained. Elmer also discussed the huge significance of the dismantling of the Netzarim Corridor, a large area of Gaza where Israel had appeared to be preparing for an indefinite military occupation.Elmer analyzed footage from the last operations by resistance fighters before the ceasefire, as well as clips from a new Al Jazeera documentary featuring never-before-seen footage of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on the front lines with Qassam fighters, until he was killed in October 2024.
As this week’s program was going out, breaking news came that Hamas had announced that Muhammad Deif, its legendary military commander in Gaza, long a target of Israel, had been killed during the genocide.
Elmer shared the story of the Gilboa Prison escape.
In 2021, six Palestinians managed to dig their way out of the prison using spoons.
They successfully traveled to Jenin but were eventually recaptured. One of the leaders of the escape, Zakaria Zubeidi, was just released as part of the prisoner exchange.
The Livestream hosts discussed the latest mixed messages from the Trump administration, and how long it will take to rebuild Gaza.
Ali Abunimah and associate editor Asa Winstanley highlighted indications that Washington is going to hold Israel to the ceasefire deal even while sending extremely pro-Israel public messaging.
The complex three-phase ceasefire deal gives Hamas maximum leverage, according to Elmer, making it difficult for Israel to only take what it wants while reneging on the elements most important to Palestinians.
“The way that Hamas has negotiated, the [Israeli] soldiers should not be returned if there is going to be a blockade,” on Gaza, Elmer observed.
You can watch the program on YouTube, Rumble or Twitter/X, or you can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform.
Tamara Nassar produced and directed the program. Michael F. Brown contributed pre-production assistance and this writer contributed post-production assistance.
Past episodes of The Electronic Intifada Livestream can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
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