Palestine Deep Dive

#73 Ben Jamal & Aimee Shalan | Defending the Right to Boycott - Confronting the UK’s Anti-BDS Bil

The UK government has announced that it will press ahead to pass its long-anticipated ‘Anti-BDS Bill’ which has drawn strong condemnation from campaigners across the UK and beyond.
The Economic Activity of Public Bodies bill, if enacted, will prevent public bodies (eg universities and local councils) from divesting from companies and organisations found to be complicit in Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
The bill is due to be debated by the House of Commons in the first week of July. Its stated purpose is "to prevent public bodies from being influenced by political or moral disapproval of foreign states when taking certain economic decisions".
But at a time when Israel further entrenches its settler-colonialism and apartheid by the day, killing Palestinians at an unprecedented rate, shooting journalists, expanding its illegal settlements, demolishing Palestinian homes and upholding its besiegement of millions of Palestinians in the open-air prison of Gaza, this bill is being widely interpreted as an attempt by the UK government to maintain Israel’s impunity in the face of growing solidarity with Palestine. While the UK’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign claims the government’s main target is campaigns in support of Palestinian rights, it also suggest those pushing for action against deforestation, environmental pollution and the exploitation of children and workers could also be affected by the Bill.
Ben Jamal is the Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), the largest organisation in solidarity with Palestinians in the UK. PSC has been leading the efforts to prevent this bill from passing into law. Jamal’s family were among the over 750,000 Palestinians driven from their homes in the 1948 Nakba.
Aimee Shalan is the Co-Director of Makan and Chair of the British Palestinian Committee. Shalan was the former CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians and the former Director of Friends of Birzeit University (FOBZU). Aimee holds a doctorate in the Politics of Palestinian Literature. Shalan was born in the UK with her family originally hailing from Haifa, having been forced to leave in the 1948 Nakba.

#72 Ghada Karmi | One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel | Book Launch

Palestine Deep Dive continues its UK event series, opening up space for Palestinians to be heard articulating their own discourse, this time hosting esteemed Palestinian author Dr Ghada Karmi to celebrate the launch of her latest book with Pluto Press, One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel.
In April, PDD hosted Mohammed El-Kurd to explore the pressing need for a media landscape which no longer marginalises and excludes Palestinians, but centres their voices, experiences and agency,
This time Mark Seddon speaks with Ghada Karmi at the Frontline Club to learn more about her vision for Palestinian liberation, one of equal rights for all between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Karmi argues the 'peace process' that has favoured the two-state solution for more than forty years has now been internationally exposed as masking the expansion of Israel's apartheid regime. Seventy-five years ago,  Ghada Karmi and her family in Jerusalem were among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were exiled during the Nakba. She has since become one of the most vocal proponents of the single democratic state in Palestine-Israel in which all inhabitants of the lands would have equal rights.
Forced from her home in 1948, Karmi came to the United Kingdom as a refugee and later trained as a Doctor of Medicine at Bristol University. She established the first British-Palestinian medical charity in 1972 and was an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs. Her previous books include the best-selling memoir In Search of Fatima (2002) and Return: A Palestinian memoir (2015).
Mark Seddon was the first UN Correspondent for Al Jazeera English and is a former editor of Tribune Magazine.

Gaza Under Attack: Israel’s Ongoing Nakba Against the Palestinians 75 years On

Streamed live at 2pm ET | 7pm UK | 9pm Palestine on Wednesday 10th May:
Dr Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian journalist, media consultant, author, internationally-syndicated columnist and Founding-Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.
Rana Shubair is a Palestinian author, mother and language trainer from Gaza. She specializes in English language training, testing and translation.
At least fifteen Palestinians have been killed in the early hours of Tuesday morning and throughout the day in a series of Israeli military attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip.
More than 40 Israeli warplanes carried out attacks for nearly two hours starting at 2am on Tuesday (23:00 GMT Monday). At least four children and four women have been killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Social media users report among those killed in Gaza was Dr Jamal Khaswan, a well-known dentist and Director of the Al Wafa hospital. He was reportedly killed alongside his wife and son.
Palestinian journalist Dr Ramzy Baroud argues Israel’s latest attacks on Gaza are likely being waged by Israel's political leadership, “to ensure that the political crisis in Israel can be averted” and says the ferocity of the attacks imply Israel “intends to kill as many Palestinians as possible” and that we may well be anticipating "continued Israeli attack on Gaza” in the days to come.
Dr Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian journalist, media consultant, author, internationally-syndicated columnist and Founding-Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. Rana Shubair is a Palestinian author, mother and language trainer from Gaza. She specializes in English language training, testing and translation.

Behind the Lens: Live with Palestinian Photographers Najib Joe Hakim & Ahmad Al-Bazz

Mark Seddon speaks to multi award-winning Palestinian photographers Najib Joe Hakim & Ahmad Al-Bazz about frontline photojournalism under apartheid & the power of cultural resistance in the diaspora.
 
Najib Joe Hakim is an award winning Palestinian-American documentary photographer and artist based in San Francisco, CA. He is the recipient of the 2020 Rebuilding Alliance Storytellers Award for his projects Home Away from Home: Little Palestine by the Bay, Born among Mirrors and video Cooking Lessons: A Palestinian American Story. In 2019 he was an Art Fellow at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and his digital collage "Sending Wings instead of Arms" placed 1st in a global competition sponsored by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
 
Ahmad Al-Bazz is a multi-award winning Palestinian video-journalist, photographer and documentary filmmaker based in Nablus, occupied West Bank. In 2012, he became a member of the Activestills documentary photography collective. Ahmad regularly reports and publishes pieces at Mondoweiss and +972 Magazine and also works as a freelancer for Defence for Children International - Palestine. In 2020, he was shortlisted for the Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award. Between 2015-2019, two of his short documentaries received several regional and international awards, including the Al-Jazeera Documentary Channel Award for Best Arab Short Doc (2015) and the Alexandria Short Film Festival Award (2019). Ahmad’s first feature length documentary was recently pitched at Cannes and should be released later this year.

Richard Burden | How can Political Parties in Britain do more to Uphold Human Rights & International Law in Israel & Palestine?

Mark Seddon is live with Richard Burden, a former Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield (1992 to 2019). He also chaired the Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group (2001 and 2019). He is a Trustee of the Balfour Project and Vice Chair of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East. He also served for 10 years scrutinising government as a member of the House of Commons International Development Committee.
We DeepDive into the UK government’s current performance when it comes to Israel & Palestine and also look ahead at what Keir Starmer’s Labour Party could do differently in power if it is genuinely committed to upholding human rights and international law in the region.

Palestinian Ambassador Husam Zomlot | End Israel’s Impunity: The West’s Century of Broken Promises towards Palestine.

Ambassador Husam Zomlot, Head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom speaks to Palestine Deep Dive’s Mark Seddon. The ambassador illuminates the U.K.'s century of broken promises and missed opportunities towards Palestine, including the lack of leadership of the British government for continuing to refuse to recognise the State of Palestine.
He places responsibility for Israel’s ongoing impunity on the West for refusing to hold Israel accountable for its ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people.
The ambassador highlights how the U.S. is at risk of losing impact and influence on the region by refusing to reverse Trump’s policy decisions, and predicts the continuation of Israel’s far right trajectory, if the West continues to allow Israel to be unaccountable on the world stage.
The pair also discuss the rise in awareness of the apartheid discourse surrounding Israel and Palestine, Western media bias and the ambassador’s hopes which lie outside of the political elite, but instead at the feet of ordinary people on the streets of the Arab world and across the United Kingdom for bringing about meaningful change from the bottom up.

Israel’s Extreme Far Right Government & the Palestinian Response Live with Diana Buttu & Omar Baddar

Mark Seddon is live with Diana Buttu and Omar Baddar for a Deep Dive illuminating the latest iteration of Israel's evermore extreme right wing government. 
We'll be exploring the Netanyahu-led government's rhetoric and actions which have already included explicit calls for more land grabs across the West Bank and the expulsion of more Palestinians from their homes.
We'll also be questioning the nature of the ongoing protests in Tel Aviv and what they reveal about the wider concern among the Israeli public, or lack of it, for the millions of Palestinians enduring Israel's ongoing occupation.
Diana Buttu is a lawyer and analyst based in Haifa. Her commentaries have appeared in the NYT, Washington Post, Boston Globe, CNN and the Guardian among others. She is also a DAWN fellow. 
Omar Baddar is a Palestinian-American political analyst. He previously served as communications director for the Institute for Middle East Understanding, deputy director of the Arab American Institute, a co-host and producer with Al Jazeera, and executive director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts. He holds a master’s degree in political science, with research focusing on U.S. policy toward Palestine and Israel, and his media appearances include MSNBC, BBC, and Al Jazeera, among many other outlets.

Is Free Speech on Israel Under Attack? Kenneth Stern, Drafter of the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism

Mark Seddon speaks with Kenneth Stern: Is Free Speech on Israel Under Attack?
Kenneth Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. He is an award-winning author and attorney, and was most recently executive director of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation. Before that he was director of the division on antisemitism and extremism at the American Jewish Committee, where he worked for 25 years.
Mr. Stern was the lead drafter of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's “working definition” of antisemitism. In December 2019, Stern published a piece in the Guardian: "I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Rightwing Jews are weaponizing it" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/antisemitism-executive-order-trump-chilling-effect

Kenneth Roth: On Harvard University Ban & Why Human Rights Campaigners won’t be Silenced over Israel

Palestine Deep Dive and the Foreign Press Association (New York) are live with the ‘the Godfather of Human Rights’ Kenneth Roth, for a DeepDive into Harvard’s reported decision to block him from taking up a fellowship over his organisation’s criticism of Israel’s human rights record.
The Harvard Kennedy School has allegedly bowed to pressure, according to the Nation, during a period when major donors and prominent Jewish organisations were particularly unhappy that Human Rights Watch, which Roth directed from 1993-2022, has recently accused Israel of practising apartheid.
According to Human Rights Watch’s 213 page report published in April 2021 illustrating the nature of Israel's apartheid, Israel systematically oppresses the Palestinian people both across the occupied Palestinian territory and within Israel itself.
Join Mark Seddon and FPA President Ian Williams as we learn why Roth feels his senior fellowship position at Harvard has been blocked, and what challenges human rights campaigners are facing today over criticism of Israel.

Andrew Whitley: How can Britain Help Right the Historic Wrong that it Committed Against the Palestinian People?

Mark Seddon is live with Andrew Whitley, founder & executive director of Geo-Political Advisory Services (GPAS) & Chair of the Balfour Project. Andrew has had an expansive career first as a journalist for the BBC & Financial Times, before serving as the New York Director of UNRWA & then as Policy Director & interim Chief Executive of The Elders.
Tune in for a DeepDive illuminating Britain's historic and ongoing role in the oppression of the Palestinian people, and hear what Andrew thinks Britain can and should be doing today to start to undo these injustices.