Friday, May 15, 2026 - This week marks the 78th year of the Palestinian Nakba. A story often told through the displacement of nearly 750,000 Palestinians; a story often told through the dispossession of Palestinian land and people. But, it is also a story told through the steadfast sumud of a people who for over 78 years have resisted by any and every means the condition of a settler colonial project– including journalism. This week, on Radio Intifada, we look at those who risk their lives to tell the stories of Palestine and Palestinians in the face of a settler project. What does it mean to be a journalist in Palestine when your life and livability are under constant threat? What does it mean to be a journalist from Gaza during an accelerated genocide?

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1. 🎵
2. Hello and welcome. This is Radio Enzafada coming to you from Los Angeles on KPFK,
3. a production of Swana Region Radio, a weekly review of politics and culture from Polkata to
4. Casablanca. I am Rana Sharif. Radio Enzafada will temporarily be moved to a KPFK podcast,
5. but we will soon return to KPFK's airwaves. Until then, be sure to check out our weekly
6. shows at kpfk.org. This week marks the 78th year of the Palestinian Necmeh, a story often told
7. through the displacement of nearly 750,000 Palestinians, a story often told through the
8. dispossession of Palestinian land and people, but it is also a story told through the steadfast
9. samud of a people who, for over 78 years, have resisted by any and every means the condition
10. of a settler colonial project, including journalism.
11. This week on Radio Antifada, we look at those who risk their lives
12. to tell the stories of Palestine and Palestinians
13. in the face of this settler colonial project.
14. What does it mean to be a journalist in Palestine
15. when your life and livability are under constant threat?
16. What does it mean to be a journalist from Gaza
17. during an accelerated genocide?
18. We speak with Robert Greenwald, award-winning filmmaker
19. and founder of Brave New Films,
20. But first, my co-host David Lloyd speaks with Sharif Abdul-Khudus, a journalist and editor for Dropside News.
21. Over to you, David.
22. Thank you, Rana.
23. So Radio Intifada has been offering its listeners independent commentary and analysis of the SWANA region for over 20 years here on KPFK.
24. Today, I'll be speaking with Palestinian journalist Sharif Abdul-Khudus about the declining state of press freedom in the United States.
25. I'm not Palestinian.
26. in oh so someone else put that one in there it's you're quite right you can just say journalist
27. i'm egyptian but you know i just usually just say journalist yeah i beg your pardon no problem no
28. problem we can start again yeah yeah so and if you could just say also i'm with dropside news
29. yes yeah i have that in the okay thank you main introduction of you
30. Thank you, Rana. Radio Intifada has been offering its listeners independent commentary and analysis of the SWANA region for over 20 years here on KPFK.
31. Today, I'll be speaking with journalist Sharif Abdel-Khudus about the declining state of press freedom in the United States and in Palestine and Lebanon,
32. and the complicity of the mainstream press here and the deteriorating situation for journalism globally.
33. May the 3rd marked World Press Freedom Day, intended to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom and honor journalists killed while carrying out their work.
34. This year, there was little reason to celebrate.
35. According to Reporters Without Borders and its annual World Press Freedom Index, in 25 years, the average score of all 180 countries and territories surveyed in the index has never been so low.
36. The right to information, even in democratic countries,
37. has been steadily eroding, and journalism is increasingly
38. criminalized worldwide Already this year at least 13 journalists have been killed and 471 detained Strikingly despite the famous First Amendment protections the U has now fallen to 64th place
39. out of 180 countries surveyed, while its closest ally, Israel, is at 116th place. That ranking does
40. not, however, include Palestine, to all intents and purposes, part of the Israeli regime. Since
41. October 2023, more than 220 journalists have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, including at
42. least 70 who were targeted in the course of carrying out their work. Today, we speak with
43. Sharif Abdel-Khudus about the state of press freedom and the deteriorating situation for
44. journalists here in the United States and in Palestine, and also in Lebanon, where recently
45. Israel murdered journalist Amal Khalil as she was reporting from southern Lebanon. Sharif Abdel-Khudus
46. is a journalist and editor for Dropsite News, based in New York and Cairo. He's reported from
47. across the Arab world, including Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain, and Algeria,
48. as well as from across the United States and internationally. He received a George Polk Award
49. for his investigation into the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akhla,
50. an Emmy Award for his coverage of the Trump administration's Muslim travel ban,
51. and an Izzy Award for his coverage of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
52. So welcome to the show, Sharif.
53. Thank you for having me.
54. Yeah, it's a pleasure.
55. So first, Sharif, just let me get your own overall assessment of the global situation
56. for journalists and press freedoms in light of that Reporters Without Borders report for
57. 2026.
58. How are you seeing the picture for journalism?
59. I think we're living through one of the worst moments in modern history for journalists. We've seen an unprecedented slaughter of journalists by Israel, mostly of Palestinian journalists, but actually, as Israel exports its tactics used in Gaza to Lebanon now, 2026, actually, Lebanon so far has been the deadliest place in the world for journalists.
60. I dispute some of the numbers put out by reporters about borders.
61. You know, there's lots of different counts.
62. By some counts, the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza so far is over 260 and over a dozen in Lebanon already.
63. And we're not only seeing this unprecedented level of killing, but because Israel has enjoyed complete impunity and there's been no accountability for the killings of journalists by Israel,
64. no accountability by its Western backers, or indeed the way that most Western media outlets
65. cover the killing of their colleagues, Palestinian and Lebanese journalists mostly,
66. Israel has become more brazen in the way it is killing journalists.
67. We can say that there's been a progression from first the killing of journalists,
68. where in the beginning they would either say that they weren't responsible,
69. Or say that there was collateral damage, that they didn't mean it.
70. We started then eventually to see them claiming that the journalists, after they killed them, they would say that they were militants.
71. And then we got to a point where basically journalists were being put on hit lists.
72. And they would name journalists and say these are militants and then go out and assassinate them.
73. So we reached an incredibly low level where journalists are just being openly hunted by the Israeli military and killed and they face no consequences for it And this poses a threat to not just Palestinian journalists or Lebanese journalists or Arab journalists This is a fundamental threat to journalists everywhere around the world
74. and will have far-reaching implications for many years.
75. Yeah, clearly it's part of the impunity that Israel has been given for war crimes of all kinds
76. and furnishing, therefore, a model for the complete collapse of that international humanitarian law order.
77. But you've been covering Israel's genocide in Gaza right since the start,
78. and you've paid special attention on Al Jazeera and on Dropsite News and elsewhere to Israel's obviously deliberate and relentless targeting of journalists.
79. I recall that Amal Khalil had received texts from Mossad telling her that she would be beheaded by them.
80. I mean, it's quite extraordinary, as you say.
81. and we're now facing, as you say, journalists being killed in Lebanon, but that's been going
82. on for quite a while. I mean, you say 260 journalists have been killed and those would
83. include Anas al-Sharif, Hassan al-Slyah, Ismail al-Ghul in Gaza, and not only Amal Khalil,
84. but also Ali Shuaib, Fatima Fetouni and her brother Mohammed in southern Lebanon,
85. even before the current extension of Israel's war on Lebanon.
86. And then, of course, very recently, Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza,
87. Mohamed Wisha, killed by the targeting of a civilian car by Israel.
88. You actually said the blue press vest has been turned from a protection to a bullseye,
89. which I thought was a wonderful formulation.
90. What exactly is going on here?
91. I mean, yes, it's deliberate.
92. Yes, it's targeted.
93. Yes, it's brazen.
94. But what is Israel hoping to achieve by this, since everybody with a phone can now be an amateur journalist, right?
95. That's true. I mean, Palestinians have very bravely documented and live-streamed their own genocide for the world to see.
96. But journalists in any conflict, you know, under international law, I mean, we can speak about all the problems with international law
97. on how it ultimately is set up and served the powerful over many decades.
98. But it did place people like journalists, aid workers,
99. and others under special protection,
100. because aid workers obviously are providing a very,
101. and doctors are providing a very important service during times of conflict,
102. but so are journalists, because they're witnesses.
103. And they have a skill set that is particular.
104. You know, yes, everyone can kind of film different things,
105. But journalists know how to document things in a different way.
106. They know how to follow up on stories.
107. They have technical skills.
108. And Israel is trying to kill the messenger and to silence.
109. This is the ultimate act of censorship, right?
110. We speak about how there's censorship here in the United States and the violations of
111. the First Amendment and free speech, particularly around Palestine.
112. I don't think there's another subject which is so censored.
113. A scholar recently said that this was worse than the McCarthyist era, McCarthy era.
114. But the ultimate form of censorship is murder.
115. And that's what Israel has been engaged in on this unprecedented level.
116. And it's unprecedented in the way that, you know, that comment about a press fest.
117. this is Israeli military's language.
118. You know, they, after they killed my colleague,
119. Hossein Shabet, who was a journalist
120. with Al Jazeera Mubashir and was also writing for Dropsite News he was killed in March of last year And after they assassinated him he was getting multiple threats
121. He was saying he was getting these threats.
122. They assassinated him.
123. A drone strike on his car as he was driving in Bethlehem.
124. And the next day they said, don't let the press vest fool you.
125. so you know I speak to journalists on a regular basis in Gaza at some point during the genocide
126. they spoke to me about how people would be afraid when they moved in next to them you know people
127. are constantly moving and being displaced multiple times and if a journalist came to live next to
128. them either in a tent or in an apartment they would ask them to move because they they they
129. understood that journalists are targets. That's how low this has fallen. And, you know, we're
130. speaking on May 12th. I just want to remind everyone that yesterday was the fourth anniversary
131. of the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. And I think really it's a very important case because I think
132. this laid the groundwork for this unprecedented slaughter that we're seeing. Shireen Abu Akleh,
133. you know she joined jazeera in 1997 um not long after the channel was founded and she was one of
134. their first field correspondents and she had this incredible career that spanned you know a quarter
135. of a century and she became one of the most prominent journalists of her generation uh she
136. was a familiar face trusted by so many viewers across the region and the world and she was very
137. dedicated uh in covering uh the israeli occupation and israeli apartheid and she was killed on may
138. 11th of 2022, as she was walking in Jenin in broad daylight, wearing a helmet and flak jacket,
139. emblazoned with the word press on it. There was no crossfire in the area, and the entire thing
140. was captured on video, and her colleagues were all there to witness it. Shirina Ba'akle, it
141. shouldn't matter that she had U.S. citizenship, but it does make the U.S. responsible to press
142. for accountability and justice in her case.
143. You know, the U.S. is obviously Israel's principal and strongest ally.
144. It could not exist as a settler colonial power without this massive military, economic and
145. diplomatic support from the U.S.
146. And yet the U.S. basically adopted the Israeli narrative in this case.
147. And the Israeli narrative was that initially they said a Palestinian gunman killed her,
148. a very easily debunked claim.
149. Then, you know, after more reporting, they said the evidence is inconclusive.
150. And then they finally were forced to admit a few months later that they accidentally,
151. they may have accidentally shot her, but that she was caught in crossfire.
152. And the Biden administration essentially adopted this narrative and case closed.
153. The family pushed for an FBI investigation.
154. The FBI investigation apparently opened.
155. The Committee to Protect Journalists just a few days ago sent a letter to the Justice Department saying this FBI investigation seems to have gone nowhere or stalled.
156. No one knows where it went.
157. Her killing was probably one of the most investigated cases of a Palestinian anywhere over many years.
158. Multiple news outlets did in-depth investigations.
159. So did the United Nations.
160. And yet there was no accountability in her case.
161. And if we can't get accountability in her case, then what chance does any Palestinian have?
162. And it really did lay the groundwork for this slaughter of journalists that we're seeing now in Palestine, in Lebanon and elsewhere.
163. Yes, I do want to come back to the case of Shireen Abu Akhla and your documentary, The Killing of Shireen.
164. Shireen Abu-Akhla. Before we do that, though, I just want to place some emphasis on something
165. you said a few moments ago, which is that these journalists who are being killed have special
166. skills and talents. So that we're not talking here, I think, about people who post to Twitter
167. or to TikTok or, you know, whatever they're seeing around them, but people who are actually
168. skilled and trained as journalists, because I think there is some confusion, you know,
169. When Israel says that, for example, Anas al-Sharif was a Hamas operative, they're kind of trying to imply these are not real journalists, they're amateurs who are pretending to be journalists.
170. Can you just say a little bit more about that before we go back to the case of Shirin?
171. well Israel tries to say that about any journalist that it wants to assassinate and it usually uh
172. the ones that it admits that it kills and brags about are usually the most prominent and the most
173. professional journalists and the ones covering the areas um that it where the most killing is
174. happening actually so we saw for the you know when they put six journalists on a hit list in
175. October of 2024 for the first time, these were six journalists all working for Al Jazeera who were
176. in the north. And they were among a handful of journalists who never left northern Gaza.
177. And this was occurring as Israel was executing something that's known as the General's Plan,
178. which was a scorched earth bombing campaign to clear out the north Gaza governor. It's completely
179. and it was essentially a killing cage.
180. And they told these journalists to leave the North and go South.
181. And they refused and they continued to cover what was happening.
182. And they've killed two journalists on that list,
183. Hossein Shabet and Enes Esherif.
184. And they regularly, this is their kind of catch-all accusation
185. against journalists that they assassinate and brag about,
186. that they're not actually journalists, that they're militants.
187. They just make this claim.
188. They don't provide any evidence.
189. Press watchdog groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists, the United Nations, all agree that these are unsubstantiated claims.
190. And yet Israel gets away with it.
191. There's never any consequences for it from the United States or Europe, which both continue to fund and to arm Israel.
192. There's no diplomatic consequences, no economic consequences, even though this is a huge violation.
193. And let me just add also, I think, you know, we sort of forget that even if they were militants, you're still not supposed to kill someone who's not in the act of an act of violence if they're standing in front of a camera with a microphone.
194. And on top of that, you know, there's supposed to be a ceasefire in Gaza since October and a ceasefire in Lebanon since last month.
195. and they continue to kill journalists.
196. And they claim that these journalists are militants.
197. Who do you think you signed the ceasefire with?
198. You don't sign a ceasefire with women and children and journalists.
199. You sign a ceasefire with an armed opponent.
200. That's the whole point.
201. And yet they're killing these people and justifying it on unsubstantiated claims of them being militants.
202. And finally, I'll say that there's been a shameful coverage
203. by Western media institutions of these killings,
204. where they give equal weight to these unsubstantiated claims
205. by the Israeli military that these journalists are militants.
206. They say for example in Enes Eshediv case Reuters said that Israel claimed that he was a Hamas militant Then they said that Al Jazeera his employer which is funded by the Qatari government denies these claims
207. And so it becomes a he-said-she-said scenario, which is just shameful.
208. That's not journalism.
209. And we know that these Western media institutions on an editorial level can be outspoken and unequivocal in their condemnation of these kinds of killings.
210. And we saw it, for example, when Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, was imprisoned by Russia, wrongfully imprisoned.
211. The headline of the New York Times when he was convicted said, I'm paraphrasing, but Evan Gershkovich convicted on fabricated charges of being a spy.
212. That is good journalism.
213. These are fabricated charges.
214. But Palestinian journalists, for some reason, when they're killed by Israel, are not afforded
215. this same kind of coverage.
216. And that has also allowed and enabled Israel to continue this killing.
217. And I would argue that these Western media institutions are complicit in this killing
218. because of this coverage.
219. Yes, I remember the Wall Street Journal had every single day a full-page ad demanding
220. the release of of gershkovitz and they never could of course endorsed russia's claims that he was a
221. spy and let me let me tell you anastasia was part of a pilotser prize winning team for reuters that
222. they won the pilotser prize for photography um in 2024 and one of the six submissions was a photo by
223. anastasia and so they won the pilotser prize partly on the back of his work of his journalistic work
224. and then their coverage of him, of his assassination by Israel, was to say that,
225. you know, Israel claims he's a militant, but his employer says he wasn't. It's really shameful.
226. It really is. And, you know, despite its much vaunted First Amendment, the U.S. is now down
227. at a rather shocking 64th place in Reporters Without Borders index out of 180. So it's in
228. the bottom two-thirds. So is it this, is it this pusillanimity on the part of our mainstream media
229. that accounts for that low ranking? Because it'll be all too easy to blame the Trump administration,
230. but these declining numbers have been going on long before Trump's second term. So what's going
231. on here in that respect? I mean, I don't think the ranking is based, would be based on how they're
232. covering the killing of their colleagues. I wish it was. Then the US would rank much lower.
233. I think it's based on journalists, for example, in this country, in the United States,
234. probably at how they're treated at demonstrations, how they're detained at demonstrations.
235. The US, it still does enjoy, you can print pretty much anything you want. And it's very
236. rare that you're going to get as a journalist detained or anything like that. But we have seen,
237. for example, the FBI raiding, or I'm not sure which agency, but a journalist's house for the
238. Washington Post, I believe, her house being raided so they could look at her notes, things like that,
239. that cross these red lines in this country. And, you know, any violence and impunity that is
240. afforded in the periphery of empire will always come back to
241. the core. And we see that in many different ways. And in the
242. same way that journalists in Palestine and elsewhere and
243. Lebanon and Yemen, you know, Yemen, there was one of the
244. deadliest single strikes killing of journalists by the Israeli
245. military where over 20 journalists were killed in one strike but very few people even know about that because they don care much about Yemen But this is happening everywhere But that kind of violence and that kind of impunity will inevitably come back home at some point You know this is what
246. M.A. Césaire, the great colonial historian, called, you know, the boomerang, basically,
247. imperial boomerang or colonial boomerang. No, absolutely. And I mean, it's very striking that
248. the very liberal media that complain most about press restrictions are the ones who've ignored
249. Israel's assassinations and detention of reporters in that sphere. And I know maybe we can just touch
250. on this in the little time we have left. But you reported some time ago on the Jackie and Jeff
251. Karsh Journalism Fellowship and the fact that its mentors, which were designed to teach reporters
252. how to foreground Israel's version of affairs. They included journalists from CNN and the New
253. York Times, the Atlantic Monthly. I can't remember all of them. And of course, you know, in addition,
254. there's also been the extraordinary scandal of the New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman's
255. shoddy atrocity propaganda piece about the supposed Hamas mass rapes in 2023 that Dropside exposed,
256. of course, along with outlets like Electronic Intifada. How do you feel not only about the
257. press's complicity in lying or in giving credence to Israel's lies about these journalists it's
258. killing, but also about the overall effect of such shoddy journalism on the quality of reporting
259. generally in this country? I mean, as a matter of solely professional pride,
260. surely they should be doing a better job and a more honest job of their investigations.
261. I think actually that since the genocide began, they've been exposed in a way that they haven't
262. been before. There's been shoddy journalism in the past by the corporate media. I hesitate to
263. call them the mainstream media because I don't think they represent or are read by the mainstream.
264. but we saw this in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003
265. where the New York Times and the Washington Post
266. basically laundered the Bush administration's false claims
267. of weapons of mass destruction, helped beat the drums for war.
268. There's been massive failures before
269. but never where a genocide is live-streamed
270. and people can see what's happening
271. and then the coverage is so atrocious and so nakedly biased
272. And the amount of rhetorical gymnastics that these outlets have to perform in order to toe the Israeli line, I think really laid bare their biases and their lack of professional coverage.
273. And we're seeing now a rejection of them.
274. We've seen numbers, readership numbers go down across all of these outlets.
275. There's almost regular protests now in front of The New York Times.
276. So I think it's having actually a very strong effect that it's driving people away because people understand that they're being lied to.
277. Well, hopefully they're being driven away towards independent media.
278. And just in the last few minutes we have, KPFK is an independent listener supported station in the Pacifica network.
279. And I wondered if you could say something to our listeners about the importance of independent media like KPFK and the show Radio Intifada and, of course, Dropside in the current climate where journalism is at such a premium.
280. Why would they support our station?
281. Why would they support subscribe to Dropside?
282. What's the crucial?
283. I mean I think independent media is crucial for the functioning proper functioning of a democracy I learned the trade of journalism and democracy now with Amy Goodman which came out of Pacifica Radio
284. Pacifica Radio was founded in 1946 by Lou Hill, a conscientious objector of World War II who wanted something run by journalists and artists and not by businessmen who are beholden to corporations.
285. And time and time again, we've seen throughout these great ruptures in history that the corporate media essentially acts as a megaphone for power and independent media brings you the voices of dissent that are essential to a functioning democracy.
286. So I would encourage everyone to support KPFK, to support Pacifica Radio, and donate what you can, because, you know, we need these stations to not just survive, but to thrive.
287. Thank you, Sharif. It's been a real pleasure talking to you, and I want to thank you for the journalism that you do.
288. And Sharif Abdel-Kadous is a journalist and editor for Dropsite News, based in New York and Cairo.
289. He's received a George Polk Award for his investigation into the killing of Palestinian journalist Turin Abu Akhla that we discussed, an Emmy Award for his coverage of the Trump administration's Muslim travel ban, and an Izzy Award for his coverage of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
290. Thank you for being on the show, Sharif, and hopefully we'll talk to you again soon.
291. Thanks for having me.
292. Pleasure. And now back to our anchor, Rana Sharif.
293. Thank you, David. As David mentioned, May 3rd marked World Press Freedom Day, intended to celebrate the fundamental principle of press freedom and honor journalists killed while carrying out their work.
294. This year, there was little reason to celebrate. And as we bring you this week's edition of Radio Antifaldam, Palestinians commemorate 78 years of the Palestinian Decbe, including a concerted attack to kill not only our stories, but our storytellers.
295. The economic indicator on the RSF World Press Freedom Index now stands at an unprecedented critical low as its decline continues in 2026.
296. As a result, the global state of press freedom is now classified as a, quote, difficult situation, end quote, for the first time in the history of the index.
297. Before turning to our guest, Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, we want to remind our listeners you are listening to Radio Intifada coming to you from Los Angeles on KPFK.
298. A production of Swana Region Radio. Radio Ntifada is on independent and listener-sponsored KPFK,
299. 90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM Santa Barbara, 93.7 FM San Diego, and of course streaming on kpfk.org.
300. We continue to discuss this and the attack on Palestinian journalism with Robert Greenwald.
301. Robert Greenwald is an award-winning filmmaker and the founder and president of Brave New Films,
302. a non-profit production company that creates and distributes investigative, political and social justice documentaries.
303. Last year I had the great honor and privilege of being in conversation with Robert
304. for a screening of Brave New Films' Ghazza Journalism Under Fire.
305. Let's go ahead and hear a short clip from the trailer of Ghazza Journalism Under Fire out of Brave New Films.
306. The Israeli media has not been able to stop the media from spreading the news of the Israeli
307. مدينة غزة
308. لأنه لا يمكن لأي جرنالي مفرد أن يدخل فيه
309. إلا أنه يدخل فيه مع الوزراء الإسرائيليين
310. هؤلاء الجرناليين هم أعين وعيون في العالم
311. إسمعين
312. ماذا حدث يا حبيبي؟
313. هم أحياناً أحياناً
314. ماذا حدث؟
315. ضحية هذه الحرب هم الأطفال والنساء
316. إسمعين ماذا فعل؟
317. وهو بزي الصحابة
318. تقصف وتدمير الطيور على رؤوس ساكنيها
319. بلال كان عظمًا من قبل المجالات الفلسطينية
320. رجال الإعلام جنود بلا بنادق من أجل إيصال الحقيقة
321. معا نحو بيئة خالية من العمس
322. هبا قتلت في مدينةها في مصر مع أطفالها 5 سنوات
323. تخيلوا إن هذا كان أبيك أو أخاك أو أخاك أو أخاك
324. إنه محرم أن نجلس ونرى أنه يحدث
325. كثير من ما يحدث هناك يتم فعله مع أسلوب الولايات المتحدة
326. سيأخذ المملكة الى قطاع غازة
327. سيحفظها
328. نقل هذه الصورة قد يؤدي في أي لحظة
329. الى ثقدان الحياة
330. اتفاقية طويلة من قوة الاسرائيليين
331. لتقوم بإدخال محرمة مجردية في غازة
332. بمعنى تصميم الجرناليين بشكل مفهوم
333. الله أكبر
334. باستعافي الشريف المكسر
335. احنا مسوشين
336. احنا في كل صورة
337. مرحبا بكم في راديو انتفال
338. شكرا لك، لطيفة أن أكون معك
339. برايف نيو فيلمز هو مصدر مفهوم لتخطيط الحقيقة في محل تحديث مفهوم في موقع التخطيط المتحدث في كل مجالات المواطنة المتحدة
340. مع المتأثيرات المتحدة بالطبع لمن يخطيط الحقيقة
341. مشروعه هو تحكم في أموال الوثيقة المتحدة باستخدام موضوع مدعوم للإدارة المدعومة والمتعاقبة
342. يدفع ويدفع ويدفع ويدعو المشاركة المتحدة والمتعاقبة ويجعل الامر مختلف
343. لماذا لا نبدأ هناك روبرد؟
344. أبدأ بمهمة برايف نيو فيلمز
345. ومهمتك في التقديم على الجراناليزم
346. وفكر في حالة الجراناليزم في هذا الوقت
347. حسناً، إذا كان لديك 10 أو 20 ساعات
348. سأجيب على السؤال
349. لقد بدأت برايف نيو فيلمز
350. سنوات قبل كثير من السنوات
351. بأجزاء تخصص على
352. تخصص على تخصص على قصة
353. ومتصلة الناس بقصة بشكل شخصي
354. ومعنانا الكثير من الأشياء
355. مختلفة في العام
356. أسرار مختلفة، أسرار مختلفة
357. ومختلفة في الأسرار
358. موجود بسرعة. عندما يسأل الناس ما هو
359. Brave New Films؟ ماذا تفعل؟ أعتقد أن
360. قصة أفضل في التقارير هي أن نضع
361. وجه على التقارير. هناك الكثير من الناس
362. ومن خلالك
363. مفهومين ومفكرين ومهمين
364. نصيحين التقارير
365. وما نفعله هو أن نهجره
366. قد أصبحت الفيلم من خلال
367. ومعنى مؤلماتي المنورة، والعقل والعبور
368. كمشهور في نيويورك، ما كانت تفعله إسرائيل والمجتمع
369. التجارة، المرور، الأطفال، المنزل، المصابين، المدرسة
370. وقد أغلقت مخيمتي، ولم يكن مباشرة بالطبع
371. ends have been subjected to And I felt was there a story I could tell Was there a film we could make that hadn been told Now you were also I think we discussed this deeply deeply inspired
372. by the extraordinary courage and braveness of Palestinians who were posting on social media
373. images, videos, photographs of what was going on. And I felt, and this was, we started about a year,
374. maybe a little longer. At that point, public opinion, all the elected officials, all of legacy
375. media was very much anything Israel does is right. Anything Palestinians do is terrorism.
376. And I gave a lot of thought and effort with my team to what could we do that might break out of that cage, that box, that horrible narrative.
377. And I landed on journalists, not because they are better, but because I felt if we told the story about the murder of journalists and we personalized it, we could reach an audience that didn't care, had tuned out, and maybe we could even get journalists and legacy media to be more objective.
378. that's wonderful and before we move on and I want we're going to speak more about the film I want
379. to encourage our listeners to visit brave new films's website so brave new films.org to see
380. the archive of your work and it's really telling both politically intellectually about the mission
381. and vision of brave new films to make accessible this information and like you said you have
382. a an entire library of issues that you cover from two minutes to two hours and I really love that
383. Robert so this this week marks the 78th anniversary of the 1948 Nakbe and we are three years ongoing
384. into Israel's genocide in Gaza and again it bears repeating since October of 2023 more than 220
385. journalists have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces including at least 70 who were targeted
386. while carrying out their work and your film brought this to light that that is more journalists in
387. both world wars combined. Your film, Ghazeh, Journalism Under Fire, makes a clear demand
388. while, quote, and I'm reading from the press release for the film, quote, while the world
389. remains silent, we must raise our voices against injustice. Ghazeh, Journalism Under Fire exposes
390. Israel's crimes against journalism and humanity through the lives and deaths of Palestinian
391. journalists, Bilal Jadadla, Hiba Al-Abdadla, and Ismail Alghoul. So if you can pick up from the
392. kind of centrality of journalism and telling stories and speak a bit more about the film
393. from ideation to screen. Once I decided we would do something around journalists,
394. and there were two assumptions. The first one was correct. The second one was completely incorrect.
395. The correct assumption was if we could tell a human personal story, if we could create through social media the personal lives of these journalists, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, cousins, and see children's birthday parties,
396. and really experience the humanity of these journalists, Palestinians, who our tax dollars
397. helped murder. If we could tell those stories, we could maybe break some of the racism,
398. some of the essential hatred of Palestinians And I think we made some progress there As we speak here today we had around 1 free screenings all over the world by the way including Gaza including Israel
399. South Africa, London, and it's available to all of your listeners, schools, faith communities,
400. workplaces. It's always available. It's available for free. The assumption I made that has been
401. 100% incorrect. If we told a story about the murder of journalists, legacy media would write
402. about it, tell the story. They haven't. Now, there has been progress in general now, finally,
403. where legacy media is starting to call attention to the fact about the journalists murdered.
404. partly, I hope, because the film has maybe had an impact, and partly because Israel continues
405. to kill journalists in Gaza and in Lebanon. I mean, it's clearly a policy that's designed
406. to silence those who must be able to tell the stories. And even to this day, they will not let
407. international journalists into Israel unless they're accompanied by a member of the Israeli
408. armed forces. So what happens is there are murders, there are killings. Israel's official response,
409. almost always, oh, he or she were members of Hamas, despite Amnesty International,
410. despite Doctors Without Borders, etc., many, many groups. And the response is, well,
411. then let the journalists in to prove it. And they don't, and they won't. And the hope with the film,
412. as it continues to spread, is to increase the pressure, increase the efforts. And where we
413. can do something with the United States, if the dollars were cut off today, that is funding the
414. killing, it would change in a minute. And there are votes and there continue to be votes on Gaza,
415. on Lebanon, on Iran, and hopefully there will be a time when it tips.
416. One of the great things also about the work that Brave New Films does is it gives folks
417. actionable items. So we'll return to that in just a second. So over and throughout the film,
418. we see the centering of journalism as an ethical practice and truth telling.
419. It was described by one of the film's interlocutors as a window, another a voice to the world.
420. And to recall what Cate Blanchett said in the film, we are all bearing witness.
421. What have you learned about journalism under peril in making this film?
422. And the responsibility, perhaps, to tell the stories of those who tell the stories, who commit their lives to telling a story, and who have ultimately paid the highest price with their lives?
423. I've learned many things, painful stuff of nightmares, but again, nothing, nothing, nothing in comparison to the people of Gaza.
424. And one of the constant learnings is as good and as brave and as courageous as the Palestinian journalists, some, by the way, who are in a film, have subsequently been killed.
425. As brave and courageous as they are they don tell their own story And that where I think and I hope we can be helpful we with privilege we with an audience Brave New Films has I don know a million 200
426. 300,000 people on our various social media platforms and my social media. So we can reach
427. audience. And I feel a desire, a responsibility, and borderline obsession to tell those stories
428. and to use what we have so that we can reach a large audience, advocates, elected officials,
429. pundits, influencers. There's a world out there. And the more we can reach them, the better.
430. There's the full length film, which is 41 minutes, and then we slice and dice it.
431. So there are short bites available for Instagram and YouTube and YouTube stories and every
432. one of the TikTok, every one of the platforms so that we can reach people in different ways
433. with different sizes of the short pieces.
434. And I do have a question about the technical and creative decisions that you made.
435. But before we do that, I really want to recenter the three journalists, Bilal Jadallah, Hiba
436. al-Abdallah, and Ismail al-Ghul, who were all martyred, targeted for being practitioners.
437. And they were just three of the nearly 200.
438. And you just noted that since then, others have been killed as well.
439. And I think it's really appropriate and meaningful to actually acknowledge the privilege that
440. we hold in certain spaces and how to be able to use those sites of privilege to lift their
441. stories and to honor their memories.
442. while also changing the terms of engagement
443. as journalism is under attack from Gaza to Los Angeles.
444. How do you think the film actually been able to shift
445. the way in which we understand journalism,
446. especially in light of the fact that it is under attack
447. from Gaza to here in Los Angeles where we sit?
448. Well, I think, I hope,
449. it goes back to the fundamental goal
450. of humanizing these people.
451. we did an enormous amount of research there's a great team at brave new films my colleagues
452. friends allies who spent hours and hours weeks and weeks going through social media
453. on as many of the journalists as possible until we arrived choosing these three and there was
454. what i call an aha moment when i felt boy if we can do this we really will reach people
455. It was a little scene of, I think she was seven or eight year old girl, birthday party. And people are singing. And I looked at it and I said, if you're a human being and you live and breathe, you can't watch that scene and not feel the universality, not feel the humanity, and not remember a birthday party you've been to, you've heard about, you've seen.
456. relative, cousin, child, grandchild, any of those things. And that's when I said, yes,
457. we're on to a way to reach people. Others will do important work, as I said before, philosophy,
458. political agendas, but here we will humanize. And I really believe first you reach the heart
459. and then the brain will follow.
460. And that's what we try to do with the emotion.
461. We don't lay out a 10, 15 point program.
462. We reach the heart.
463. And then people will be moved to action, to doing something, and to helping stop this horrible, horrible killing and murdering.
464. And anybody in this period of time who hasn't done something to oppose what's going on, shame on them.
465. Indeed, shame. Indeed, shame.
466. What's really brilliant about the film, actually, for our listeners, is you privilege the Arabic language.
467. So it's folks speaking in Arabic and it's not, you know, fishbowl humanization.
468. It's Palestinians are speaking for themselves and you are just capturing that and the different modalities that you use.
469. And we'll get to that in a second. But I distinctly remember the birthday party images of Hiba, Hiba's daughter.
470. And just thinking that could be me. And I have pictures in my family that look like that of my little ones.
471. And it's just bringing the Palestinians as full beings into your living room, onto your telephone or onto your screen or on your, you know, whether it's whatever device.
472. And it's really brilliant to see the ways in which you've actually pieced together like snippets of the film to capture the humanity of Palestinian truth tellers.
473. as you said earlier whether it's on tiktok or instagram reels or a youtube short clip or you
474. can watch the entire thing um the entire 41 minute uh film the idea is is to invite folks to witness
475. the lives of palestinian journalists palestinian truth tellers um and i distinctly remember the
476. picture of hiba her daughter do duty and her mother who were all martyred and just their life
477. affirming ways of celebrating Palestinian life. And oftentimes, that is completely vacated from
478. the ways in which Palestinians are talked about. And you said this earlier, they're oftentimes seen
479. as terrorist, negative, pejorative terms. And certainly, if folks have not said or done anything
480. in the last three years, shame on them. Thank you with immense gratitude for creating a space to lift
481. the stories. And it's really kind of the centering of Arabic language, I think is really powerful. So
482. you have to read the captions if you don't speak Arabic. And so another creative question that I
483. have. In Gazette, Journalism Under Fire, you weave together footage of Gazette since October 7th,
484. but you also have flashes of Gazette as a thriving port city with a rich history where cultures,
485. people come together, traded and pass through. Can you actually speak to that decision to weave
486. these different images of Gazette otherwise? Well, I, like many folks, had seen photograph
487. after photograph, video after video of extraordinary destruction. And I had no idea what those places
488. looked like before the destruction. And as in many things, that motivated me. I said, I wonder,
489. some of the folks on the team, are there videos, are there photographs? So we did some searching.
490. And it's exactly what you just said, vibrant, alive, people out in the streets, people living
491. a full life and now completely decimated.
492. By the way we just a couple of weeks ago did a video of hospitals in Gaza in Lebanon and in Iran before and after showing the hospitals essentially
493. thriving and doing that what they do, and then the destruction. It's like two minutes,
494. it's on the website. And it was part of the same idea to try to create emotional context
495. for people to understand we're killing, through our dollars, children, destroying hospitals,
496. destroying schools, and it's continuing day after day, week after week.
497. That's absolutely true. And I think it's really powerful to have these before and after
498. capturing of life, because oftentimes, in addition to capturing Palestinians in these pejorative,
499. negative, hyper-violent rhetorical terms, terrorists being one of them. It's also,
500. you know, somewhere over there where folks get caught in death and destruction, where life is
501. only gray, gray zones, quite frankly, gray zones. And the idea to make a deliberate and conscientious
502. effort to show a life otherwise, I think is a really principled and powerful provocation to
503. viewer because what it does is it disrupts this kind of narrative around Palestinian life as
504. certainly only about death and destruction and you know like I said is that we are having this
505. conversation on the 78th anniversary of the Nakbe and that story is often told through
506. dispossession and displacement and the death-making machine but also Palestinians have continued to
507. create life and so I think that the insistence on that is part of the Samud and steadfastness
508. that Palestinians have exhibited over 78 years.
509. And certainly I think your film captures it.
510. So in the time that we have left together,
511. perhaps we can talk a little bit
512. about what our listeners can do.
513. You spoke a little bit about the melding of policy
514. as it intersects with media.
515. So can you talk a little bit more
516. about Just in General, Brave New Films
517. in terms of its mandate to kind of think
518. and link policy to creative outputs
519. and also what our listeners can do
520. and how they can learn more?
521. Well, if people see the full film or pieces of the film and don't do anything, we failed.
522. Complete failure.
523. But if people see the full film or part of it and do one thing that they hadn't done before,
524. then we've had impact and maybe success is too strong a word when the killing continues.
525. But we're on the road to changing policy.
526. the films are efforts to motivate activate energize inspire people to do something now
527. the something is a wide list the only thing that's not on the list is oh i can't do anything
528. i don't know if i can curse on this program so i won't but that is appreciate that thank you
529. Robert. Okay. We won't be blacklisted. There's many things, depending on what your comfort level
530. is and what you believe can make a difference Everything from call your senators call your members of the House of Representatives There are constant votes coming up There are votes to stop the Iran war votes to stop the funding
531. And one day, it's taken way too long, but one day those votes are going to be successful.
532. Do you know how your senator votes?
533. Do you know how your member of the House votes?
534. Do you know what can be done locally legislatively in terms of boycotts and cutting off opportunities to pay for and build and ship weapons? So that's legislative.
535. there's media
536. there still is way way way way
537. too much media and it's getting worse in some ways
538. with the Ellisons taking and Dori Weiss
539. taking over so many of the outlets
540. but the media
541. outlets do rely on viewers and listeners
542. call, write
543. send them a clip
544. and start with what we would, excuse the language, low-hanging fruit.
545. Start with asking them to talk about the murder of journalists.
546. And there's a lot of opportunities.
547. Your local newspaper or Facebook, Instagram, social media, go on.
548. By the way, there have been a lot of studies done,
549. and the trusted messenger theory, very simple,
550. that whoever follows, watches your work on any of the social media platforms, and if they know you,
551. they're going to trust you more than the billions of dollars spent on ads. So legislative, media,
552. advocacy groups, there are many groups doing hard, important work. They're under great attack today.
553. join up, contribute, participate. Any one of those three large pillars can have a real effect
554. over time. The hard part is we all want the killing to stop now, and it's a slow process,
555. but we will stop it. We absolutely will. What's next on deck for Brave New Films? What kind of
556. undertakings. You mentioned briefly about the hospitals. And excuse me, I know one of the
557. conversations that we had early on about this film was that it could be any of the healthcare
558. workers, for example. So if you could tell us a little bit more about what's next and what
559. our listeners can look forward to. Well, we're now working on putting together
560. something that's never been done before, which is a coalition of 10, 15, 20 independent media groups
561. all coming together to have a screening of the film and to ask all the listeners,
562. which will be a combined audience of millions of people, assuming we're successful in making this
563. happen, that'll be late June or early July. We're also focusing on some additional short pieces
564. around the propaganda, around resistance,
565. around efforts to stop the weapons from being transported.
566. And then we doing a lot of work also on immigration and there is a connection philosophically politically morally and financially That amazing Thank you so much Robert for joining us today on Radio Antofada
567. Thank you for having me and for the work you're doing. And I, in advance, want to thank all your
568. listeners for doing one thing that they weren't ready to do before you had this program on today.
569. Thank you so much. Thank you, Robert. Our guest has been Robert Greenwald, an award-winning filmmaker and founder and president of Brave New Films, a nonprofit production company that creates and distributes investigative political and social justice documentaries. You can learn more about their work and follow them at bravenewfilms.org.
570. Today, our guests were Sharif Abdul Quddus and Robert Greenwald.
571. As we commemorate the 78th year of the Nakba, we at Radio Antifadon recommit ourselves to lifting the stories of those who are risking their lives to preserve and to tell the stories of Palestine and Palestinians.
572. And we can only do that with your support.
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577. online at kpfk.org as a reminder all radio and father shows are available for download for 60
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580. Sepalda. On behalf of my co-host David Lloyd, I am Rhonda Sharif signing off on this week's edition
581. of Radio Sepalda.
582. Thank you.
583. Thank you.
584. Thank you.