The Electronic Intifada Podcast 7 November 2023
A writer and contributor to The Electronic Intifada, Al-Sammak recently left Gaza to study in Dublin, Ireland. He told us that he is barely able to sleep or function as he is so far away from his community in Gaza and doesn’t know from one minute to the next whether his family is safe.
“It’s been unspeakable, actually unbearable,” he said.
He talked about the refusal of Western leaders to force Israel to end its genocidal attacks.
“We are sick of all [of] this. They have been calling for a humanitarian pause, not a ceasefire – at least a ceasefire can put an end to this bloodshed, or this massive killing, at least for a few years. No, they want just a humanitarian pause. They want to feed Gazans, they want to give them some hours of electricity, a little bit of water … but then they want to start killing them again.”
“Is this the democracy, is this the human rights they have been claiming they advocate for? I don’t know, it’s insane,” he added.
Our executive director Ali Abunimah recounted some of the recent ways in which US, Canadian and European leaders have claimed that they cannot restrain Israel.
“The hapless Biden administration, we’re expected to believe, is powerless over Israel, a country which is completely dependent on the United States for political and military support.”
Ultimately, Ali adds, “the responsibility lies with those who have the power to turn off the supply of weapons with the stroke of a pen. And that is, first and foremost, Joe Biden. This is his genocide, his holocaust, and will be his only memorable legacy. But he’s not alone.”
We were also joined by Louis Allday, a writer, editor and historian based in London.
He recently wrote a piece for The Electronic Intifada about Israel’s propaganda campaign attempting to equate Hamas with ISIS.
He explained that the US claims that it wants to restrain Israel but it is helpless to do so “obviously [is] transparently absurd, but it’s also them wanting to limit, or attempt to mitigate … the global PR disaster. And it’s not going to be forgotten.”
Allday also encouraged viewers not to give into defeatism and grief.
“It’s really important for us to not give in to despair from the privileged outside position that we have. Because the Palestinians certainly aren’t, and the Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere certainly aren’t. So it’s incumbent on us not to,” Allday said.
Whatever happens now, he added, “it’s going to be a long struggle, and a multifaceted, long struggle that will primarily be fought on the ground, but people outside certainly have a role to play within that.”
The Electronic Intifada’s contributing editor Jon Elmer analyzed the tenor of the Palestinian resistance’s actions against Israel’s week-long ground war.“On any given day, there’s between 30 and 50 described actions that range from the constant rocket fire that’s been happening on Israeli cities and towns as well as the mortars,” he said.
“The Israelis are looking to move into the territory, and they’re doing it in large numbers. And so they have been seen in clusters in a way that I think … shows the lack of on the ground, actual warfighting experience that the Israelis have.”
He explained that the ground war that Israel promised in order to “re-establish the image of the Israeli army after it was humiliated in front of the entire world” on 7 October has not turned into any face-to-face fighting.
“The only fighting they’ve done is this continual massacring of civilians – as if bombing civilians is going to lessen support for the resistance when everybody knows it does the opposite of that.”
Watch the entire broadcast above, or listen via Soundcloud below.
