Day 131 roundtable

On day 131 of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, professor David Miller joined us to talk about being cleared of “anti-Semitism” accusations by two thorough investigations ordered by his employer, Bristol University.

In October 2021, the British university fired him following sustained pressure from an Israel lobby smear campaign. But the vocal supporter of Palestinian rights fought back.

This month Miller was vindicated when an employment tribunal reversed his dismissal and declared that his anti-Zionist views qualified as a protected philosophical belief under UK anti-discrimination law.

David discussed the implications of this landmark victory for free speech and the movement for Palestinian rights.

Jump to David Miller’s segment here.

Sinn Féin has long been vocal in its support for the Palestinian people. But during this genocide, Palestinian and Irish activists have expressed growing dismay at how the political party has dragged its feet: First Sinn Féin resisted calls to expel the Israeli ambassador from Dublin and now it is refusing to heed demands that party leaders boycott St. Patrick’s Day festivities with President Joe Biden.

Farrah Koutteineh has been a leading Palestinian voice in Ireland pressing Sinn Féin and other politicians to stay away from the White House next month.

She was recently thrown out of a Sinn Féin meeting in Belfast after she interrupted a speech by the Palestinian Authority representative in Ireland and called for the party to heed the boycott calls. Farrah is the founder of KEY48, a voluntary collective calling for the immediate right of return of over 7.4 million Palestinian refugees.

She joined us to talk about the debate in Ireland, along with The Electronic Intifada’s associate editor David Cronin, one of whose recent articles is titled “Ireland must disown Genocide Joe.”

Jump to Farrah Koutteineh and David Cronin’s segment here.

Last week, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headlined an event at Columbia University in New York to spread Israel’s discredited “mass rapes” atrocity propaganda.

One of the speakers was Jeffrey Gettleman, lead writer of the fraudulent New York Times “investigation” lending credence to Israel’s evidence-starved claims.

But the propaganda event did not go as planned – thanks to student protesters. Ali Abunimah talked about what happened, and we looked at some of the videos from the event.

Jump to Ali Abunimah’s segment here.

As Israel escalates its attacks on Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, Jon Elmer took us through some of the latest developments on the ground. We also talked about the prospects for a ceasefire and other political developments.

Jump to Jon Elmer’s segment here.

And I gave a brief news update from Gaza, highlighting stories on the attacks on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis and airstrikes on Rafah reported by Maureen Clare Murphy; my story on Israel’s engineered starvation across the Gaza Strip; and a feature on Gaza’s toxic air by Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman and Salma Yaseen.

Jump to the news update here.

These are just some of the many topics we cover on The Electronic Intifada livestream. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

With Ali Abunimah, Nora Barrows-Friedman, Jon Elmer, Tamara Nassar and Asa Winstanley