The People’s War Radio Show, Episode #60: Free, Free, Palestine

Black Power Talks

On this episode of The People's War Radio Show, we discuss the historic roots to what is being referred to as the 2021 Israel-Palestine conflict.

In early May 2021, Palestinians were protesting the continued illegal annexation of Palestinian controlled land by Israeli settlements. The Israeli supreme court was preparing to expel even more Palestinian families from East Jerusalem. This has been part of an increasingly aggressive and illegal Israeli settlement of Palestinian lands since 1967 but is part of more than 100 years of history.

This period is indeed only a recent moment in the Palestinian Arab struggle to keep their land against the onslaught of European settler colonialism.

We discuss the roots of the crisis in Occupied Palestine by reaching back in history and coming forward. In this episode we explore:

• Life in Palestine before British Occupation
• The political economic roots of the colonial project beginning with late-19th century Zionism, the British Mandate, and post-WWII European settlement.
• Nakba, the exile and forced removal of Palestinians between 1948 and 1967
• Israeli settlement in Palestinian land post-1967
• The correlation between European colonization of Africa and European Colonization of the Middle East
• African-Arab solidarity
• Covid-19 and reproductive politics in the Palestine and Israel

To discuss this with, we are joined by two scholar-activists, Bayan Abu-Sneineh and Dr. Maisam Alomar.

Bayan Abu-Sneineh is a doctoral candidate in ethnic studies at the University of California San Diego. Bayan is currently completing her doctoral research project on the intersections between racial and reproductive violence against Palestinian and African people in Israel and Palestine. Bayan’s family is from Hebron, Palestine.

Maisam is an assistant professor in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colorado. Her research is on the distribution of healthcare as part of the larger context of colonial violence. Maisam received her PhD in Ethnic Studies from the University of California San Diego. Maisam’s family is from TulKarem in the West Bank of Palestine. She also has some family in Ramallah.

The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Muambi Tangu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.