 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. Hello everybody, it's the first of December and welcome to the latest episode of Give the People What They Want with me with Zoe and I from People's Dispatch. Vijay is not there this time. He's been travelling on our reporting assignment and last week again, due to very scheduling issues, we could not do the show. But we're back this week. So much has been happening over the past two weeks. Really kind of tough to keep yourself updated. So much news has been happening. Unfortunately, we are here today with news which we were hoping not to have to talk about, which is that the truth in Gaza is no longer in place. Today being Friday. Friday morning, local time Israel resumed its horrific bombardment of Gaza once again. As we speak, the death toll has definitely already crossed 100. Hundreds have been injured. The same kind of destruction that was wreaked on Gaza for the first 48 days after October 7 has one second resumed. Now we know that there was a seven day truce. That first was the schedule for four days. Then there was a two day extension and then a one day extension during which Palestinian prisoners, most of the women and children who had been kept in prison for a very long time were released or Israel was forced to release them in exchange for some of the captives who were taken hostage. And of course, discussed some amount of humanitarian aid was also let in. Definitely absolutely not enough to meet even basic requirements. I think 150 trucks a day were let in. Whereas even a minimum requirement would have called for 200 trucks. But at least there was some respite, some amount of relief material going in and especially vital considering how badly hospitals, how badly schools, how badly bakeries, all of them had been hit during that 48 days of attack. And also we also saw that people were able to go back, some people at least were able to go back to their homes in the northern part of Gaza to try to salvage whatever remained out of their way. Again, a lot of pictures also coming out of the extent of brutality that took place over there. Important to note of course that the US administration, at least sources in the US administration were concerned when the truce was first announced that the truce would enable journalists to actually reveal the extent of the destruction in Gaza and some of them expressed their concern that really kind of shows, really shows what is going on in the minds of US officials. But to come back, what we also saw was that this truce provided a breather to some people for a very brief file but after seven days, once again the attacks have resumed and it is unclear as of now if they will, although reports say that everyone apparently, all the mediators US, Qatar, Egypt have indicated they do want an extension of the truce but the important thing to note is that there is no clarity on whether it will take place at all. Of course both Israel and the US have blamed Hamas for it but as those following the news know the question here is definitely much, much larger and so much has been happening in so many important reports have come out in recent times. There is a very unfortunate report in 972 mag which talks for instance about how Israel has planned its bombing of Gaza under 48 days, the kind of strategies it has used and it is astounding because of how it shows the sheer inhumanity of this whole process whereby an apartment complex with hundreds of people could be bombed just because the suspicion that someone from Hamas could be there as that justifies it and also that what are called power targets such as universities or apartment complexes could be bombed so that apparently that would create some kind of pressure on Hamas and this really shows the genocidal nature of the war that has been taking place in Gaza right now. So very difficult to sort of say what is going to happen whether some of these discussions will bear fruit but a couple of important things to note, one is that alongside Gaza we have also had continuing attacks in the occupied West Bank in occupied East Jerusalem as well. In fact, I believe that almost the same number of people were arrested in the occupied West Bank as prisoners were released during the time of this prisoner exchange process as well and those who have been following our show, those who have been following the news know that this is an issue we have talked about a lot, the arbitrary nature of arrest by how Israel is arbitrarily arrested Palestinians and I think many of the Palestinian prisoners who came out during that time also narrating some of the stories of the kind of hardship they have faced, the kind of horrible treatment they have faced in October 7th but also important to note that this has been a moment for many of them of highlighting their resistance in fact a lot of visuals of Palestinian prisoners being released during this time pointing to the fact that the victory of the spirit, the kind of mass celebrations that took place at that point of time despite Israeli threats really a testament to the determination, to the defiance of Palestinians who have been imprisoned, who have been attacked, who have faced all kinds of atrocities and during this point of time. So very difficult time once again for the people of Gaza the bombing continues to be brutal, I believe Israeli forces have dropped leaflets in southern Gaza asking people to leave, really leave where I mean that's really that's the important question over there they were apparently released maps which delineate northern Gaza into segments because that is apparently how they plan to push out people and all of this I think you know it's kind of shocking because the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan is also in the region and all of these explicit war crimes that are being done with the assistance or with the support of especially many governments in the global north which have backed Israel to the hilt are going completely unrecognized they're going completely unpunished so this is where we are right now we'll see what the coming days bring. Yeah I think the the key point that you said there Prashant is that all of this is happening with complete support and backing of governments across the global north especially of course of the US government which has not only continued to provide billions of dollars of aid but has been a crucial political ally and important to note that as Israel broke this truce as Israel broke this temporary pause and resumed its bombing of Gaza Anthony Blinken was actually in Israel meeting with Israeli officials in several statements he said that if ground donations are resumed so he's already sort of supposing that this is going to happen that Israel should try to protect civilians so he's willing to say that they should try to protect civilians but clearly has no at that point even the negotiations that his government was mediating really had no hope for that being extended we know that there has been increased pressure on the US government to actually call for ceasefire but has it has really failed to do so beyond the lukewarm statements like the ones from Anthony Blinken about the need to protect civilians Joe Biden saying that I think he he tweeted through his back saying that Hamas is the people who want the return to war and so to not give into Hamas's wishes there should be some sort of peace which is an extremely devoid of facts statement and a backhanded way of saying that there needs to be a ceasefire however his government does not have the political will and is clearly not really interested in actually maintaining this peace at this this week also the US House of Representatives passed a bill in Congress affirming Israel's right to defend itself and its right to exist so critically attacking its own population by equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism we know this is an extremely intense debate amongst kind of the political elites most people know that the two are not the same they are quite literally very different anti-Zionism is about opposing a political ideology about opposing a project a genocidal a colonial project and it has been used by the right wing and not even just by the right wing but by both political parties by the greatest allies of Israel to try to stifle and censor all criticism of Israel all criticism of Zionism all criticism of the Zionist lobby in the United States and especially on college campuses we've seen that there has been this severe crackdown on any Palestine solidarity organizing we know that at Columbia University like at many other universities for example the students for justice Palestine was banned Jewish voice for peace was banned somehow banning a Jewish organization is not anti-Semitic and so we're seeing that as Israel is already ramping up for war already beginning a genocidal war with Gaza the U.S. political establishment both parties completely are giving all political signals to say that Israel should completely go ahead it's important to point out that progressive members of the House Alexander Kasia Cortez Jamal Bowman other members of the self-declared squad actually did vote for this resolution anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism reaffirming Israel's right to exist so it's looking pretty bleak in terms of U.S. politicians once again giving there a cart launched to Israel this does not reflect the sentiments of the people all major polls done by mainstream outlets such as Reuters indicate that over 60% of U.S. voters from both parties from both parties support a ceasefire and these overwhelming numbers apparently have not been enough to convince even progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders to support a ceasefire wholeheartedly and we've seen the impact of this complete support of the political establishment behind Israel people were horrified to find out last weekend that three Palestinian students were shot in the state of Vermont in a progressive stronghold allegedly this is the state the home state of Bernie Sanders who has really shown perhaps the true colors throughout these past two months these students were shot because they were speaking Arabic because two of them were wearing cofillas on the street this happens in a climate where again the complete U.S. political establishment and mainstream media is parroting these Zionist talking points dehumanizing Palestinians justifying Israel's massacre of Palestinians and once again this goes in complete opposition to what we're seeing in these mainstream media polls but also on the streets and that's what I wanted to talk about before we move to another story is that consistently for the past two months people across the world have been mobilizing have been demanding a ceasefire have been demanding that Israel actually respect humanitarian international humanitarian law that it lift the siege on Veza that humanitarian aid be let in I mean so many extremely clear demands that leaders from the global north and especially from the United States have essentially ignored we're seeing some of the highest levels of consistent mobilization in recent history on Wednesday on the November 29th the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people there were hundreds of organizations hundreds of actions held again by of course Palestinian solidarity groups who historically mobilize but even by sectors that haven't been mobilized for this cause before we're seeing a record number of students of educators of healthcare workers understanding that defending Palestine right now means defending humanity as you spoke about Prashant the unprecedented attack on healthcare infrastructure has been devastating and has really woken people up to the reality of what the Zionist project seeks to do which is to eliminate all life from Gaza which is to eliminate people's possibility to even survive this genocidal attack we're definitely seeing a sea change amongst the people of the world but the world leaders are unwilling and too slow to actually really respond to this and to really abide by these demands right Zoe this is like I said I think a story which we will continue to report on both on tech so do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org where every day we have updates also on issues such as the health situation for instance in Palestine which our friends and people's health dispatch are chronicling the question of media I think one of the one of the victims killed today one of the persons Palestinian killed today is the journalist as well the attack on so many sections of society on children and women on every sector of society the indiscriminate and brazen attacks that are taking place we'll be covering them very regularly you're watching give the people what they want and brought to you by peoples dispatch and globetrotter and Zoe was talking about the reluctance of leaders across the world to heed the demands of our next story which is about a very similar issue the reluctance of leaders, the reluctance of corporate heads to heed the urgent demands of our time because we know that the 28th conference of parties of COP28 has kicked off in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates now I think maybe especially since COP26 in Glasgow that the COP meetings have become something that has kind of emerged in popular imagination much more there's been a lot of discussion there's a lot of media frenzy around it top leaders from across the world many of whom have had extremely disastrous climate policies nonetheless coming there to sort of use that as an opportunity to show their progressive side or show their futuristic side or whatever but this COP really kind of throws a lot of important questions at us it's especially significant because the global stock take report which came out recently now there are a lot of questions about what is going to be done about this global stock take the global stock take this is a very simple thing which is that we are definitely nowhere close to meeting the targets we have set in order to address the question of climate change we are definitely behind as far as all these targets are concerned there is still a window to achieve them but it calls for radical radical action and radical action is not really what we are expecting or seeing from leaders across the world there are lot of statements definitely but definitely no radical action so that definitely is one big question that Niza had of us because this global stock take report will lead to renewed pledges or will be the basis of renewed pledges in 2025 what these pledges will be what they will achieve really is I think a question staring at all of humanity it's not just one country or two country or one some sections of the people it's a question for all of humanity as well so definitely that is one aspect of it another key aspect is the loss and damage fund which is adopted but with severe reservations among countries especially from the global south from the activists because it's going to be the world bank that will administer it and right now the money is just beginning to sort of flow in now we know that initially some years ago 100 billion every year was committed for the poorer countries the global north had committed that money and that money never really came very small fraction of that money came and there are many similar fears with the loss and damage fund as well so all of this all of this put together raising some very serious questions as to what COP28 is going to achieve will it be just a moment for leaders from across the world to come and make important statements about the importance of combating it but not achieving too much what will happen to the target of 1.5 degrees what will happen to the target of 2 degrees will countries of the global north continue what has long been their strategy which is to say that forget our historical responsibility now all the responsibilities of the developing countries because their population is much more they are producing a lot of greenhouse gases so they should they should pay exactly the same they should pay the price in some senses for the crimes of the developed countries or the actions of the developed countries over the centuries so the question of differentiated responsibilities which really is the fundamental benchmark which has been the basis of all these discussions so far has been diluted over the years and the global north countries of the global north have used all kinds of strategies to sort of evade their historical responsibilities to wriggle out of their historical responsibility and now present and make it seem like this is everyone's problem at the same level and I think that is the fundamental question that countries of the global south activists all of them are going to be pushing throughout these two weeks of course in which the COP28 is being held but also to the rest of the year because it is about one conference it is about a continuing process a continuing battle that has to be fought and part of the battle is through measures such as you know through technology through development all these are important parts of this battle on trying to combat the release of these kind of gases but part of it is also a historical battle a battle against historical oppression part of it is a battle against colonialism and its impact as well and I think we need to centre when we talk about climate change that this notion of it being some kind of an umbrella issue or an ahistorical issue that notion is what we need to continuously keep fighting as well so that there is a just transition in every sense of the term in historical senses as well the word just transition is used a lot but what does true justice in this context actually mean so that is COP28 again we are following it just the early days I think it is just started right now so we are going to be seeing some very very very heated discussions in the coming days as well we will be closely tracking it we will have interviews with experts so do keep following us at People's Dispatch to find out more about this well we are back to a favourite topic which is elections in Latin America we hadn't had a show since Javier Mille was elected president of Argentina he is going to be sworn in on December 10th and already there has been confirmations that the leader of the box party in Spain the far right party will be attending other people are confirming as the days go on importantly and we talked about what Javier Mille means what he represents and really I think that the reaction from many progressive sectors has been of surprise that he was elected as we mentioned on the show before his proposals are extremely extremely out there in terms of just a radical change in how Argentine society and politics work he wants to dissolve the central bank he wants to dollarize the economy he wants to cut dozens of ministries and threaten the way the government currently functions I think just yesterday that he wants to pass an omnibus law which would have some 500 decrees which would to be able to deregulate the economy he says that he wants to unleash the economy and be able to develop the productive forces but as we know the complete deregulation of the economy especially a very protective one as Argentina will have disastrous consequences there's so many different elements to this and I think that again the initial response to his election was of a lot of fear of a lot of self-criticism from progressive forces how did it get to this situation where someone with such a menacing proposal who's actually really promised not only a situation of stagflation he's actually said this that he expects that in the first part of his government because of the austerity policies because of economic policies he wants to take forward that there will be an extended period of the currency devaluation and continued inflation but also that he's promised to worsen austerity and it's these austerity policies that were undertaken by Mauricio Macri that put the Argentine economy in the current situation that it's in today and the fact that he was able to win and gain popular support and let's remember he actually beat Sergio Massa by over 10 points this was not a close call this was not a almost technical tie this was a clear clear and resounding victory I think that has brought questions in many people's minds especially I mean the fact that this centrist position taken by Sergio Massa taken by Alberto Fernandez trying to appease the centrist forces trying to appease both maybe the soft right and the center left was clearly not able to convince the people clearly it was a proposal that was not responding to the people's needs needs and let's remember that the poverty level in Argentina currently is over 40% inflation in 2022 was 100% in the coming days I'm sure we're going to find we're going to see inflation statistics for 2023 which could be even worse Sergio Massa right at the end of his campaign period started to implement a series of different economic measures to try to attend to these very real economic material needs of the people but I think that what these results tell us is that it was too little too late and the real denigration of people's conditions and of the situation in the country extends far beyond the immediate material needs and really gets to kind of rejection of politics out in general and of kind of a whole political group that was unable to resolve the people's needs let's remember that Sergio Massa was also the economy minister under Alberto Fernandez currently still serving so it's clear that his association with this government even though in campaign period he really tried to distance himself from this did not do him any favors so it's definitely a moment of we're going to see a lot of rebuilding it's going to be a moment of resistance Javier Mele has also made serious and considerable threats against the human rights organizations in the country saying that social justice is ridiculous and that rights such as public education free healthcare all of those should not be guaranteed and so we're going to see a period of intense struggle in Argentina of intense intense struggle of social movements and organizations reorganizing remobilizing their people to resist these attacks the negation of for example the crimes of the dictatorship this is something that touches Argentine people very deeply so again he gets sworn in on December 10th and then I think we're going to see exactly how far he will go how much is he going to actually fulfill some of the more ridiculous promises that he made and some of these campaigns statements that he made but it is going to be an extremely difficult period for the Argentine people Right Zoe and our last story for the day is actually something on almost similar lines across the Atlantic in the Netherlands where Hurt Wielder his party has emerged a very right wing far right wing earlier used to be called far right wing but now in many places they're so part of the mainstream I don't know that term even makes sense anymore but definitely far right wing politician his party emerges as the single largest party in the elections held recently in the Netherlands the party is called PVV and Wielder has been in the political scene in the Netherlands for a long time actually and the views are really a matter of public recognition nothing hidden about them he's come up with some extremely dangerous proposals you almost call them rabble drowsy except for the fact that this is a politician who's been around for so many years leading a party that gets a substantial amount of vote especially very strongly Islamophobic comments very strongly anti-immigrant comments talked about a severe inequality policies for instance and has always thrived on actually taking the debate in the most extreme directions in which is why often comparisons are made to Donald Trump although in that way Wielder has been in the political spectrum for much longer now during the course of this campaign of course he apparently moderated some of these positions and the people say that that's one reason X analysts say that's one reason why Donald might have been inclined to vote for him but I think an important thing actually from what Zoe was saying what happened in Argentina is also the fact that Wielder's victory clearly points to the failure of the centre to in any way address some of the key issues that have are really plaguing people's lives the impact of these neoliberal policies now in the case of countries like Argentina many of these neoliberal policies are used on them by international financial institutions the Netherlands is one of the richest countries in Europe so the question there is then why are these neoliberal policies encouraged we had a prime minister who has been in power for quite a long time I believe 13 years or so who consistently imposed these policies who consistently bungled various aspects of governance there was corruption there was mass mismanagement etc etc and all of this together created a context where anti-systemic views in the form of somebody like Wielder's or a protest vote ended up in the hands of a dangerous right wing character like Wielder's and I think the fundamental question there again boils down to this how long will it be before people even it's a question to the centre that they might want to address as well if they care about it how long for instance will you continue with these absurd policies of neoliberalism of basically destroying people's livelihoods of creating policies which are leading to increasing inflation while the super rich benefit specifically a case in the Netherlands where corporate profiteering has been really soaring so across the world we see this corporate profiteering soaring people on the streets are really struggling to make a living right wing figures coming in and always blaming the outside it could be the immigrant, it could be somebody from a religious minority and then capitalizing on these conditions and then you have all these people from the centre liberals for instance turning back and saying how did this happen that such a right wing character comes to power whereas the answer has been there all along so Argentina and the Netherlands I think in some cases very different countries very different context but nonetheless I think posing this fundamental question we're going to see many countries facing these questions in the coming months and years as well unfortunately because this is a global failure justice climate change is a global failure just as the international failure to address the issue address the question of Israel's policies is a global failure all these are questions I think that need to sort of be all these are questions that we need to sort of keep asking I think and that's what we're going to do that's what we keep doing it give the people what they want that's what we try to do every week without reporting so please do visit peoplesdispatch.org please do read everything from Globe Trotter a lot of very interesting articles as well and we'll come back next week with a fresh episode which I also probably likely to be there so we will continue tracking I think many of these issues that we took up today as well so see you next week