 and welcome to Tiskey Sour. For the first time in months, you could be watching this show live with six people in your living room, none of them from your household, and you would not be breaking the law. So if you have organised and impromptu Tiskey Sour watch party, or maybe maybe a long planned Tiskey Sour watch party, welcome to you. Aaron Bustani, have you gone inside with any strangers today? I have. I went for a cup of coffee while I was decaf, might I add, Michael, while I was preparing a fantastic interview, which our audience will be able to watch tomorrow evening. That will be on how Britain is supporting Israel's war on Gaza, which is going to be basically our topic for all of tonight's show. We're covering that from many different angles, and then we will close the show with a story about Keir Starmer. He's broken another one of his promises. Why does he keep doing it? How does he keep? Well, I say how does he keep getting away with it? It doesn't actually seem like he is getting away with it at the time because no one likes him very much. Before we get going, do remember to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. We go live three times a week, Tiskey Sour, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and we put videos out every day on the channel. As ever, do keep your comments coming on the hashtag Tiskey Sour. The death toll in Gaza from Israeli airstrikes has risen to at least 200 people with 59 children killed in the bombings so far. 1,300 people have been wounded according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. In Israel, eight people have so far been killed by rocket attacks launched from the Gaza Strip. Now, the horror of living through a week of airstrikes in one of the world's most densely populated places is perhaps best represented through personal stories. Al Jazeera have released footage of a six-year-old Palestinian child who was reunited with her father after being trapped beneath the rubble of her home for seven hours after an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli bomb killed her mother and four siblings. I was really difficult to watch, but I do think it is really important for channels such as Al Jazeera to be putting out these videos because obviously one of the ways that Israel gets away with causing this human catastrophe in Gaza is by dehumanizing the people there by saying, oh, they're all terrorists. They all voted for terrorists. They're collateral damage when we're trying to bomb military targets. When you speak to a person who has lived through that who has lost members of their family, that's when it becomes much more real. Now, in terms of, I mean, this reality becoming real, there was a video put out by Middle East die as well that was incredibly affecting. This is Nadine Abdeltaif, who's a 10-year-old living in Gaza, talking about the emotional toll the airstrikes are taking. I can't do all of this. What do you expect me to do? Fix it? I'm only 10. I can't even do anything in this war. I just want to be a doctor or anything to help my people, my cat. I'm just a cat. I get scared, but not really that much. I get, I do anything for my people, but I don't know what to do. I'm just 10. I'm just 10. All of this, when I see a little cheery cry every day saying to myself, why do we deserve this? Why, what did we do to this? My family said they just, they just hate us. They just don't like us because we are Muslims. Why does Muslims act for you like that? You see all of the kids around me? They're just kids. Why wouldn't you just send a missile to them and kill them? It's not fair. Again, I mean, what can you say when you're watching a film like that, experiences like that? And that was filmed on Saturday and it was actually Saturday evening. So the night going into Sunday that was the deadliest night of bombing so far. So that's not someone speaking just after tragedy. That's someone speaking in the middle of an ongoing tragedy. Now as I should say, tragedy, that makes it sound like an accident. An abuse of power and abuse of human rights and abuse of life. Now, as well as killing children, Israel's airstrikes have killed some of Gaza's leading doctors, which will have ramifications for the people of the strip long after any shelling stops. Now, one of those who has been killed is Dr. Moheen Alaloul, a neurologist living in Gaza City. Get up a picture of him, him now. And John Simpson from the BBC described Alaloul as one of Gaza's few remaining medical specialists. He was killed alongside five of his children when his house was hit by an airstrike. Another senior doctor, Ayman Abu Alouf, was also killed alongside family in Israeli airstrikes. Alouf was head of internal medicine at Gaza's largest hospital. Now you've got to take into account Gaza has been under siege for 14 years. It already has a health system at brink of collapse and obviously lots more people going to hospital because there are bombs raining from the sky. At the same time, the few specialist doctors they have are also being killed by these airstrikes. So, you know, the human toll this is taking is just catastrophic and rightly getting attention on sites like Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye. Now, despite this human toll, I mean, I suppose this isn't particularly surprising to the world. We've seen Israel do this before. They've got away with it before. There was one development this weekend that did garner actually a lot of international attention and also some surprise, I think. And that was the bombing of a tower block which housed offices for both Al Jazeera and the Press Association. Now, in an extraordinary moment, Al Jazeera broadcast the bombing live, narrating the destruction of their own building. But certainly, for more context, that building is where Al Jazeera's office is at. There we are. Another strike on that tower. And the tower has come down. That is the Al Jala tower. That tower is where Al Jazeera's offices are warehoused. The Associated Press offices were also housed in that building. Whenever you see journalists doing live updates from Gaza, they're usually standing on the roof of that building, which has now been flattened in an airstrike by the Israeli military. Now, Israel claims the building housed Hamas assets, Hamas intelligence assets, and that's why it was bombed. They say we gave people warning to get out of the building. Now, Associated Press have said, of course, that they are shocked and horrified by the bombing, but also cast doubt on that claim from Israel that this was a building that housed Hamas. And this is a statement from Associated Press. They write, the Israeli government says the building contained Hamas military intelligence assets. We have called on the Israeli government to put forward the evidence. AP's Bureau has been in this building for 15 years. We have had no indication Hamas was in the building, active in the building. This is something we actively checked to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our journalists at risk. So they're saying, you know, this doesn't sound right to us. We really don't think Hamas were there. By the way, it's worth saying, you know, that the fact that you have, that is essentially the official military of those living on the Gaza Strip. The fact that you have a military office in a building that also houses journalists does not justify bombing it. I think if there were, you know, if Hamas rockets landed on a building that also had some Israeli military communications, but happened to house media offices and residential properties, the Israelis wouldn't say, oh, no, yeah, fair target, fair play to them. I don't think that would happen. Now, despite that, put that to one side, this question of were Hamas there? Again, super unclear. And there is a back and forth between Israel and the US on whether or not there was any evidence of this. I want to take you through statements from the Israelis and the Americans. So the Jerusalem Post this morning had quotes from the Israeli or from Israeli government officials talking about intelligence they say was passed on to the Americans. We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building, a senior diplomatic source said, I understand they found the explanation satisfactory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the sources remark when asked about the Jerusalem Post reporting in an interview with US TV show Face the Nation. We share all the intelligence with our American friends. He said the intelligence we had is about an intelligence office for Hamas housed in that building that plots and organizes terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. It is a perfectly legit target. Sounds like we've shown the Americans the evidence they accepted it. However, I'm an article in the Associated Press. It seems that that's not the case. So the account given by Netanyahu there seems to be contradicted by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. So the Associated Press right Blinken said he had asked Israel for any evidence for its claim that Hamas was operating in a Gaza office building housing the Associated Press and Al Jazeera news brewers that was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike over the weekend. But he said he personally has not seen any information provided. Now, Aaron, I want to bring you in and, you know, we've started that section talking about that, you know, the human cost, the tragedy of these airstrikes conducted by Israel on the Gaza Strip. And, you know, tragically, in a way, that's not surprising. We've seen this before time and time again, when Israel goes to war in the density, you know, the most densely populated or one of the most densely populated areas on earth, then you have these tragic consequences. They they know that everyone knows that this issue of bombing the Associated Press offices that does seem to have surprised people because of how brazen it seems. You know, the Associated Press, it's hard to know the Al Jazeera offices were bombed by the Americans during the Afghanistan and the Iraq war, I think that the Associated Press, that's obviously one of the most established Western news outlets in the world. And for the Israelis to just bomb their offices, do you think this could backfire? Yeah, I think for our audience, it's really important to impress that point, Michael. You know, Associated Press along with Reuters are the two biggest news agencies in the world. So in terms of if you want to understand the Associated Press is kind of prestige, the BBC doesn't always do this, particularly if you're Laura Koonsburg's Twitter feed. But the BBC, whenever they break a story, the rule is the House rules are two independent sources corroborating, you know, what you what you've been told, what you've ascertained, what you've observed. Maybe not what you've observed, but you know, I mean, you want two independent sources. And it's only one if it's Associated Press or Reuters. So they're so trustworthy, the BBC says to its journalists, if they say it's happened. So, you know, you can't say, oh, well, it's like, you know, Al Jazeera, which of course, it was targeted disgustingly, by the way, by the United States. David Blunkett backed that up. A bunch of British politicians had no problem with that at the time. But to go after one of the most prestigious names in international journalism is without any shadow of a doubt, a direct provocation against global media and covering this story in a manner that it merits. And I think it's nothing more than that. I personally believe that. And like you said, there's no evidence submitted as regards to how this was a tower for Hamas. My view is it's purely about media intimidation. It's saying to European, American, and frankly, journalists and media workers from anywhere else across the world, if you come to Gaza, your life is in threat, and you will really personally see some really dark stuff, and your safety can't be guaranteed. And of course, many people won't stick around. That's my personal view. And until they can submit evidence otherwise, I mean, why should the IDF be believed? This tower, from what we can understand, was principally used by media organizations and people that call in the British economy and in services, in the service industry. The idea it's a base for Hamas. And then of course, you've got somebody like Luke A. Curse who said, well, I know it was a base for Hamas. Why? Because the IDF Twitter feed says so. You know, if we have a rerun of the Iraq war in the early 2000s, people like Luke A. Curse, they're not even going to need Colin Powell lying to the UN. They can just say, well, George W. Bushy, he tweeted it. It must be true. If you're going to use lethal force in a civilian area, you have to have overwhelming evidence, and you have to make it available. If you don't, that has to be completely unacceptable. And I think there needs to be political consequences as a result. And countries that don't immediately say that, including Britain, I think can't be taken serious on this issue. I mean, it's interesting that idea you said of Luke A. Curse who's on the Labour Party, NEC, someone who is saying, oh, no, it's legitimate target because Hamas were there, and also they got an hour's warning so they could leap. By the way, all that, you saw the person who owned the building saying the journalists, all of their equipment is there, their stories is there, their footage is there. Can you give them an extra 10 minutes to bring out that footage? The Israeli army said, no, no, we're bombing it now. So the idea, as I say, even if there was some Hamas officer, the idea that this is a legitimate thing to do is nonsense, but also that you would be so credulous as to just say, oh, well, the IDF have said it, so it must be true. Earlier, or a few days ago at the end of last week, in fact, the IDF tweeted that they'd begun a ground invasion in Gaza. It got reported by the New York Times by everyone. I got push notifications about it. It turned out they had just released that to try and trick Hamas into thinking they had, and the whole world's media had just been duped into playing into their game and reporting it. Now, there are lots of people who normally would be, their habitual attitude would be to say, oh, yeah, we trust the Israelis, they're allies, they're part of the West who are now saying, well, I mean, they just used us in this trick like three days ago, but you've still got Luke Akers, the right wing of the Labour Party, saying like, no, no, no, we have to believe everything that gets put out on the IDF Twitter feed. We're going to be talking loads more about this story from so many different angles tonight. Let's go to a couple of comments first. Les, what's with the £5 donation? Thank you very much. Ishtak with a tenor says, heart-breaking scenes. Recent events show how important it is for media outlets like Navarra to uncover the truth. Without this, they can peddle their hatred and dehumanize innocent populations. Yeah, so important. Thank you so much for that comment and that donation. We should also mention in that intro, we did use clips from Al Jazeera Press Association and Middle East Eye. We're collegiate people. We are drawing upon some other brilliant journalism and that is being done on this particular issue. If you are enjoying tonight's coverage, please do like the video. Now, Britain has erupted in protest against Israel's onslaught on Gaza. On Saturday, thousands of people joined a march in central London calling for an end to the bombing of Gaza and the occupation of Palestine. Now, you can get an idea of the scale of the demo from this drone footage. Now, organisers estimated that 100,000 people attended the demonstration, which was called or organised by Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim Association of Britain. Now, in terms of the size as this footage zooms out here, you can see that it's not just that initial crowd, but this this march was snaking all the way down the road, all the way to Marble Arch down, down Hyde Park. So really, really huge speakers included Hassan Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK and Jeremy Corbyn, and other local demonstrations took place across Britain. Now, also flying the flag of Palestinian Solidarity this weekend were two Premier League footballers. So after winning the FA Cup final, one of the probably the highest profile game in in UK sport, Hamza Choudhury and Wesley Fafana held up the Palestine flag. And these are both players for Leicester City who had won the FA Cup. And Hamza Choudhury went on to collect his medal wrapped in the flag. So really powerful image, super, super symbolic. Now, to my mind, both those protests in London and across the country and the flying of the flag at the FA Cup final were really, really inspiring demonstrations of solidarity. People say, I'm willing to go into this the centre of town to take out time from my Saturday to go and walk in solidarity with Palestine. And then at the FA Cup, you've got people, it's probably the proudest moment of their life. And they're saying what I want to the message I want to send at this period in time is that right now, in a moment that my whole career has led to, I am thinking of the Palestinians. I'm thinking of the struggle of people I relate to when they are fighting against injustice. To me, that's that's incredibly powerful, especially in terms of the football example, it also follows in the footsteps of other footballers who we've celebrated recently for standing up for the cause of justice, you could think of Marcus Rashford with Free School Meals, an ex footballer, Gary Neville, and he's talking about cutthroat capitalism, very, very inspirational really. Yet not everyone is happy to see these working class celebrities make their voices heard. Stephen Pollard is the editor of the Jewish Chronicle. And in response to the waving of the flag, Pollard wrote, the FA needs to act immediately to discipline them. So just the act of waving the Palestine flag, when Palestinians are being bombed, when children are dying, he thinks that should get you disciplined. Someone else who joined the cry of opposition and anger at these footballers, they're having an opinion, was Gabriel Milland. Now he's a former special advisor to Boris Johnson, someone who works at a PR firm. He tweeted, presumably those defending Chaudhry and Fafana won't mind if Chelsea's Jewish owner, a resident of Israel, sends the team out wearing IDF uniforms when they play next week. Football belongs to everyone, not one side in a war. Now that tweet is from, you know, presumably a smart guy, lots of followers, he's worked in Downing Street, influential guy, and it's such a ridiculous argument. And I think it is quite telling of how desperate now the supporters of Israel and Israel's government are getting, because, you know, most obviously, a military uniform and a flag are not the same thing. So he's saying, what would you think if they came out in an IDF uniform? If you said an Israel flag, maybe the comparison would work. What I think is actually more telling is that, you know, if people, if footballers wanted to go out holding the Israel flag, maybe they would have done, but no one really wants to, because the vast majority of people in this country can see that in this war, there is one side which is systematically bombing civilians and has killed over 200 people. And there is one side who is resisting occupation and has barely any power, barely any force. It's completely desperate. And quite rightly, the solidarity of people in this country lies with the people who are suffering occupation, who are suffering apartheid. And to me, it just seems, you know, both of those tweets, these people should be disciplined. This should not be allowed, because what if the other side wanted to do the same thing? It's showing that there is no confidence among the advocates of Israel that they can rally any support for their cause. So what they have to, I suppose, fall back on is this idea that we have to ban any expression of support for either side. We are essentially going to call the manager, if anyone comes out and tells us their opinion about this war, because they know that public opinion is going against them. Aaron, I want to bring you in on this point. Now, I imagine, unlike me, you were watching the FA Cup final live, so you probably saw that moment before I saw it shared on Twitter. It seemed, it felt really powerful to me. And I think the backlash to it seems, I mean, quite frankly, desperate. I thought it was pathetic. And like you say, Michael, I mean, you said, I mean, you're a very kind person. You said that Gabriel Mellon must be an intelligent person. I mean, I think that's a dubious assertion at best. I think comparing them having the Palestinian flag to somebody having an Israel flag, I think is the right comparison. And of course, they can fly whatever flag they like. It could be the Pride flag. It could be the Union flag, the St George Cross. People might disagree with it. People might think, oh, I think that's a bit wet, or I don't like that, or they might be homophobes, they might not like the Pride flag. But the point is, there is an element of freedom of expression with regards to football. And the idea that, well, sport generally, of course, and the idea that we don't have politics in sport, well, okay, I'll remind you of that statement the next time we have November come around and everybody has a puppy on their shirt. And there's a minute silence, as I think is appropriate in a minute silence to remember the war dead. Then of course, you have some players like Nemanja Matich or James McLean for personal reasons choose not to do that. And they get a lot of hassle from fans. But I think most intelligent people say, that's their choice, right? It's about freedom of political conscience and freedom of expression. This is exactly the same. And so, I mean, imagine if, for instance, a footballer, please one day, you know, the game isn't so inherently homophobic that people can be outwardly, you know, expressive and open and honest about their sexuality if a football has a pride flag. Now, imagine if a person on Twitter said, that's, you know, unacceptable. Keep politics out of sport. I don't want to see that flag. Well, is it hurting you? I mean, a lot of these people claim to be liberals, right? If it's not hurting you, what's the problem? You know, I would personally find an Israel flag on a football pitch if the person wasn't from Israel. I'd say, well, okay, it's a bit strange. If I'm trying my absolute best to get into the head of Gabriel Milland, maybe that's what you might say. Well, he's not from Palestine. Why would you do that? That at least is a coherent answer. But I mean, what he tweeted and what a few like Stephen Pollard as well. I mean, like you say, Michael, I think it doesn't really say much about their intelligence, which is positive. But more importantly, I think it's really illustrative of the levels of desperation we're now seeing, where people who've moaned about cancel culture and their aggressive left and how we don't protect freedom of speech, many of these exact same people who have apparently been exasperated by identity politics and not being able to say what you really think, many of the exact same people are now saying that it's appalling that these two footballers took a flag onto a football pitch. And not that you just disagree, they should be disciplined. I mean, it's really, really utterly ridiculous. It's not congruent with anything we've seen in sports recently. And I think it shows the level to which the argument against that kind of gesture is kind of fallen. Nobody would say very, very, very few people in civil society would say that. But again, Michael, and finally, I think this is a really important point. People like Gabriel Miller and Stephen Pollard, they have been a variable in our conversation about Israel Palestine, I think to an unreflective extent when you look at public opinion more broadly, I would love to see some polling on that. Is that okay for them to have that flag there? I think most people say, well, you can have the St George Cross or there was also a Nigerian flag. Why not a Palestine one? Sure. What's the problem? Who's being hurt? Apparently that's too complicated for these liberals to understand. And I mean, I want to go back to this position. I do think that these people do seem desperate because the overwhelming majority of public opinion in this country and across the world, quite frankly, is with the people who are being subjected to occupation and apartheid, because it's actually quite as much as there are people who try and obfuscate what's going on. If you're seeing images like what we showed you at the start of this show, it's clear what's going on. There is one side who is being bombed by the world's most advanced military, who are being occupied, who are being subject to apartheid. And there are one side who is committing all of those atrocities. And yes, there will be some Israeli civilians who are subject to rockets from Hamas and that's a tragedy. Anyone hurt in war, that's a tragedy. But in this situation, you have one side who have the overwhelming force and who are quite frankly perpetuating the war through this occupation and through apartheid and one side who are being victims to it. And I suppose that reality, that basic truth, is why 300,000 people plus have signed a petition calling on the UK to place sanctions on Israel. So this is a petition on the Houses of Parliament website. So this means that it should now be considered for debate in parliament because it got over 100,000 at the time that we went live. It had 328,000 people having signed it. That's probably gone up slightly now. And the petition calls for it says the government should introduce sanctions against Israel, including blocking all trade and in particular arms. It's disproportionate treatment of Palestinians and settlements that are regarded by the international community as illegal are an affront to civilized society. Now, I think this is quite significant and quite important because that's, you know, I mean, I don't think that is a radical demand, but it would have been considered and is considered, you know, by many people in, you know, I suppose the establishment or people who try and set public discourse and say, what is legitimate and what is not a legitimate demand to say, oh boycott the events and sanctions inherently suspicious. Now you've got 300,000 people signing a petition and saying, oh, let's do it. Let's put sanctions on Israel. I don't know how significant you think that is, Aaron. So many people are saying, let's sanction Israel because what they're doing is so so abhorrent at this point. Well, yeah, there's also a few legal points to mention. So firstly, and this is some of the stuff that I sort of discussed with Mark Curtis, who I interviewed earlier on today, that'd be broadcast tomorrow at Navarra Media with Downstream. There are a few things which I think are incontrovertible, which is that the United Kingdom should not be exporting technology to the Israelis, which can have military applications. So, you know, yeah, in Britain, since 2014, we've exported that we know of around half a billion pounds worth of kit to Israel since 2014. Not huge sums of money. You know, it's not like the BAE deal with the Saudis. What does that consist of? Small arms, you know, guns and so on. But generally speaking, it's components for rather high tech stuff. So for instance, even with their nuclear capability, which includes a submarine element, some of that technology is being exported by British manufacturers, British companies. I think it's a perfectly legitimate thing to say. First off the bat, Britain should not be exporting technology to a country which is using its military like this. And I think anybody that would say that's outrageous, I just don't think they should be taken seriously. The idea that that's simply not on the table as leverage by which we can stop these atrocities against human rights. I don't think that's credible. After the military applications, I think you clearly have to say these are illegal settlements. Therefore, products manufactured, made, mined, grown in these areas, clearly, they should not be, I think, imported into the United Kingdom. Again, I think any of this is no, that's, that's terrible. How could you say that things produced from stolen land are therefore, you know, simply not permitted? There's again another, we talk about this tomorrow, there's a legal argument about this as well. You know, products made on illegally occupied land, you know, a de facto maybe illegal products. Of course, that doesn't really get applied, but it's a conversation to have. And then there's a broader thing. Okay, well, beyond the settlements, beyond military exports, what's our economic relationship with Israel going to be? And I personally think, I think boycott divestment and sanctions is a really, really powerful way of going about things. You know, we're told incessantly, violence begets violence, you have to be peaceful. Well, BDS is peaceful. It's peaceful. So if you're really insisting, people remain peaceful. And then you say, well, actually, sanctions aren't acceptable. You're not really talking about political tactics or what's ethically appropriate. You're trying to basically stop anything which may change Israel's behavior in Palestine, which right now is leading in Gaza to effectively an open air prison for millions of people. And it's clearly compromising inalienable human rights and rights to self determination, self government. And I think that that clearly can change potentially if enough countries impose sanctions on Israel, and it's peaceful, you can't have one or the other. You have to be nonviolent, but you can't use sanctions. Because I think people that say those two things at the same time, again, not credible, not serious, ignore them. Now, in this section, we've been talking about, you know, lots of the inspiring things that have been going on this weekend when it comes to Palestine solidarity in the UK. And the overwhelming majority of this is anti-racist who have solidarity with people who are subject to occupation and subject to oppression. It is, I mean, I think it's wonderful to see. But you probably will also have seen a video on social media this weekend of a convoy of cars with Palestinian flags driving through St. John's Woods. That's a majority, or maybe not majority, but it's got a large Jewish Jewish population. And there were people shouting or at least one man who appears to shout really, really horrific, nasty anti-Semitism from the car, including rape threats, you know, the kind of thing that no one should ever say appalling. And it is worth saying, you know, everyone should 100% condemn what we saw in that video for arrests have been made by the Met Police. Now, for me, you know, that obviously soured some of those events from the weekend. I don't think in any way it overshadows any of them because we saw 100,000 people, super peaceful, solid heuristic, anti-racist. It's super inspiring to see that. And actually, to be honest, I do think that, you know, the outpouring of condemnation that followed that nasty video, I think does show that the overwhelming vast majority of people involved in this movement have nothing whatsoever to do with anti-Semitism and condemn it outright. And that's what we saw happen. So yes, it was right that we saw so many people share that video and say, this is wrong, but also that should absolutely not tar what is an anti-racist peaceful movement who are fighting for something positive and to end an occupation and apartheid. Let's go to a comment. You and South with five pounds, obviously we can do BDS on a personal level, demonstrate on the streets, etc. Is there anything more we can do to facilitate changing the UK's position? It's an interesting question, isn't it? I suppose right here MP, I mean, I think Labour Party can be pushed quite a lot on this. Potentially the Conservatives can as well. I mean, I'm wondering if anyone's organizing, you know, some direct action, some civil disobedience. I think that would definitely be, I mean, could be productive in this situation. I suppose I'm not encouraging anyone to break the law, but we've seen things like that be effective in the past. I mean, I personally think that actually the number of, I think social media has been a bit of a variable this time around, the number of clips we're seeing shared of people speak truth to power when it comes to apartheid, when it comes to occupation, people like Mohammed Al-Kurd on CNN. I do think that is affecting public opinion and changing sort of political possibilities on this question, and especially obviously clips of people who are suffering at the sharp end of this. So I do think being active on social media can also help. Obviously that's not an exhaustive list of things you can do, just some ideas to put out. Another thing you can do is help support on independent media. If you are already a supporter of environmental media, thank you so much. You make this all possible. If not, please do go to thevaramedia.com forward slash support and donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month. We really, really do appreciate it. Next story. Many people have been pleasantly surprised by the progressive nature of Joe Biden's presidency on issues such as fiscal policy or climate change. However, when it comes to Israel and Palestine, Joe Biden appears to be just as reactionary as any of the US presidents who went before him. Now, at the UN Security Council, the US is the only country blocking the call for a ceasefire in the region. So super extreme. That doesn't involve the final outcome of a peace process. This is just people saying, should we call for people to stop bombing each other? The US is like, no, no, no, I think we should block that. Super, super reactionary. Also, every public pronouncement so far from the president seems completely incapable of recognizing the deaths and the suffering that Israel's actions are causing. So with over 150 Palestinians killed and eight Israelis, this was earlier in the weekend, today the president spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, reaffirmed his strong support for Israel's right to defend itself against rocket attacks from Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza and condemned these indiscriminate attacks against Israel. It goes on to say the president also spoke with Palestinian Authority President Abbas and conveyed a commitment to strengthening the US-Palestinian partnership. They discussed a shared desire for Jerusalem to be a place of peaceful coexistence for all faiths and backgrounds. Now this is, you know, we talked on previous shows last week about the problematic nature of both sides in this conflict to say, oh yeah, you know, the Israelis are bombing Gaza, but also Hamas is sending rockets to Israel. The problems with that is that they're not equal because of the numbers of people getting killed because of the actual threat and the harm the Israeli bombardment is causing, sorry, affecting water supply, killing countless children. You know, the two are not really comparable. The other reason it's a problem is because one of these parties is under occupation, the other party isn't. So there's a much stronger argument that resistance by the Palestinians is justified, whereas the bombing from the Israelis is not because one of those parties is enforcing occupation and one of them is resisting it. This, though, is not just both siding. This is one siding and they're essentially saying Israel has a right to defend itself. Hamas needs to stop sending the rockets. They're saying, oh, everything Israel is doing justified, that's self-defense, everything the Palestinians are doing, that's unjustified, that's terrorism, essentially. Super, super reactionary, incredibly depressing, you know, there was some excitement about the Joe Biden presidency when he sort of seemed open to taking on some of Bernie Sanders' ideas, and this is just the same old reactionary stuff we're seeing from the White House. One thing that has potentially changed, though, in the US, if not the White House, is the conversation among other parts of the political establishment, or the new political establishment, because it's changed now. And this is people like AOC. She wasn't in Congress the last time Israel started the bombardment of Gaza. And this time around, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is being very, very vocal and saying some really positive things. So sharing a video of the Al Jazeera offices being bombed in Gaza, AOC tweeted, this is happening with the support of the United States. I don't care how any spokesperson tries to spin this. The US vetoed the UN call for ceasefire. If the Biden admin can't stand up to an ally, who can it stand up to? How can they credibly claim to stand up for human rights? Now, we often hear about the United States. You know, this is a bipartisan issue. It's super, super difficult for any Democrat or Republican to speak out against Israel and in support of the Palestinian struggle. AOC is doing it here. And she's not just any old Congresswoman. You know, she's probably the most high-profile Congresswoman in the United States. And she is saying some really significant things here. I actually think the next tweet I'm going to show you is more significant. She tweeted, apartheid states aren't democracies. So like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, apartheid states aren't democracies. Now, why is this a radical thing to tweet? I mean, I think it's totally common sense and normal if you control a population and only some of those people can vote. So only Israeli citizens can vote. You can't vote if you're under Israeli occupation for the past 50 years or 70 years, depending on however you want to look at it. Then that's apartheid. That shouldn't be radical. But in the context of US politics, that's a real taboo breaker. So often from Democrats and Republicans, what you'll hear is Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. That's the common sense of American politics, even if it's completely wrong. AOC is one of the first politicians I've seen, mainstream politicians, to break that taboo. And it's also not just AOC because this sentiment was repeated by other members of the squad, such as Cori Bush, who retweeted that, saying the same thing, and Rashida Tlaib. Now, from Tlaib, it's not surprising, but it's particularly significant because she herself is a Palestinian American. Now, there also seems to be change afoot in parts of the American media sort of cracks in the overarching narrative that Israel has a right to self-defense that I don't think we would have seen a few years ago. So in a recent episode of the John Oliver show, the comedian argued against both sides' and in conversations about Israel bombing Palestine, he was talking about how disproportionate this is. And it's not okay to just say, oh, we need to call for peace. You have to say, look, one of these sides is here, essentially the aggressor. That was the John Oliver show. Very, very mainstream TV show. Also on major news network MSNBC, host Ali Velshi said it's laughable that calling Israel an apartheid state is controversial in America. Palestinians are at best third class citizens in the nation of their birth. The idea that it's even remotely controversial to call what Israel has imposed on Palestinians a form of apartheid is laughable. One look at a current map of Israel, Gaza and the occupied territories conjures up only one other example, apartheid era, South Africa. The Israeli government on an ongoing basis declares parcels of land on which Palestinians live to be either of military or archaeological importance causing residents to be evicted. Sometimes there's a court case and almost always the Palestinians lose. Yet months or weeks later that same important land suddenly becomes home to a brand new Israeli settlement. As more and more Jewish settlers take over land on which Arabs live, the occupied West Bank becomes de facto more Israeli and in the explicit hopes of the Israeli government more Jewish. This is a long standing attempt and a deliberate attempt to force Arabs who have lived in that land sometimes for hundreds of years out. It's an attempt to dilute their presence because to have Arabs as full participants is in the opinion of the Israeli government and their courts diluting Israel. Now those are powerful words from Ali Velshi and while again I think that should be common sense to see that on a major American network I think is really significant. That's the kind of thing I don't think you would have seen five years ago just someone speaking the truth about what's going on right. It's not dressing it up and again this really matters because you know America isn't just any old country it is the major financial backer and military ally of Israel. So they really rely on support from the American political establishment. If we start to see some chink in that armory then you know potentially change could come. So does all of this represent a substantial change in how Americans think about Israel and can it change policy. So earlier today I spoke to Max Berger who is co-founder of if not now a group of American Jews against the Israeli occupation. Now I started by asking him whether the narrative on Israel Palestine has really changed in the US. Yeah I think there absolutely has been. I think there are really two causes of it. The first is you know in a post Black Lives Matter world there are a lot of people who are starting to look at this issue through the lens of racial justice and I think the other piece of it is that given the clear affinities between Netanyahu and his movement and Trump and his movement there are a lot of liberals in the US including American Jews Democrats you know rank and file Democrats who look at what's happening in Israel I think in a different light by seeing it as related to or similar to you know the white nationalist movement in the US and I think that that's really what that has changed is the perspective of rank and file Democrats on the issue and you see it in terms of polling around who people empathize with and who people sympathize with in the in the conflict where it used to be you know 80 percent of Americans 90 percent of Americans said that they have warm feelings towards the Israelis and and and saw themselves you know as as being you know who we saw ourselves in alignment with they now within the democratic party you see significant numbers of people who say they feel similarly about the Palestinians and the numbers that people you know the number of Americans who say that they empathize with the Palestinian or sorry the Israeli perspective has has gone down considerably so I think that's the big shift but that's primarily happening within the democratic party and it's certainly not you know the entire party but I think it represents a significant number of white liberals and you know the entire kind of movement that sees itself as aligned with Bernie and and the squad is coming at it from the kind of racial justice perspective which lends itself much more to a anti-colonial perspective and there there are some issues with Joe Biden where people have been pleasantly surprised that he seems to be you know listening at least to the left on the environment or on fiscal policy when it comes to Israel Palestine Joe Biden sounds just as hawkish just as unrelentingly pro-israel as anyone who went before him what's your analysis of why he seems to have no interest in what the left is saying on this question and do you think that might change writ large one of the big surprises of the Biden presidency this part is the extent to which he's been pushed on domestic policy and I don't actually think that this is just limited to Israel Palestine but I think when it comes to international policy he has not been as responsive you know it's surprising in some respects because the president actually has a much more you know freedom of action free hand when it comes to international policy if I had to guess you know I think that part of it comes from just to Joe Biden is and despite much of his record and his life up to this point he sees himself as a kind of middle-class working class hero which has created real opportunities for people like Bernie to work with him and to push him to emphasize the more progressive parts of his proposals and the country has really shifted and changed considerably on those issues and you know one play one thing I would point to in terms of why we haven't seen the kind of commensurate shift in terms of foreign policy is there haven't been groups that have pushed a you know kind of post hegemonic perspective for what American foreign policy should look like and so you know that still remains even though the Washington you know kind of guiding consensus doesn't really have the same kind of popular legitimacy that it did 10 or 15 years ago that there's not really been an effort to replace it through mass protest or social movements or you know as much within the Democratic Party you know as much as you know folks like AOC and the rest of the squad have pushed an alternative domestic policy we haven't quite done as well I would say in terms of pushing an alternative foreign policy so you know in a sense Israel-Palestine is just a larger reflection of that you know the one place where I do have some hope is that actually there are you know some really powerful groups who have been doing work on the issue for the past five years that have started to really make an impact particularly in the Jewish community but I think you know in the left more broadly there's been a real shift on this issue and people are starting to prioritize it in a different way and so I actually think that there are some opportunities to continue pushing Biden and even though he has really started from a pretty bad place in terms of what he has done thus far I think he's vulnerable to pressure from the left in ways that let's say Obama was not. That was Max Burger co-founder of if not now a group of American Jews against the Israeli occupation. Let's go straight on to our next story. Bella Hadid is one of the world's most successful supermodels. She's also Palestinian American and one of the most high-profile advocates for Palestinian rights in the United States. This has made her a target of Israel and specifically the official Twitter account for the State of Israel which this weekend claimed Hadid had advocated throwing Jews into the sea. Let's look at the tweet from the State of Israel. So they tweet, when celebrities like Bella Hadid advocate for throwing Jews into the sea they are advocating for the elimination of the Jewish state. This shouldn't be an Israeli-Palestinian issue. This should be a human issue. Shame on you. Hashtag Israel under attack. Now this is a really, really serious accusation. Now Bella Hadid, she has 42 million followers by the way. If she told her 42 million Instagram followers that Jews should be thrown into the sea, I mean she should obviously be rightly condemned and presumably she'd lose a lot of her modeling contracts and sponsorship deals. This is a very, very extreme accusation. Now the problem is she didn't say it. So the video that the Israel account was linking to, the screenshot they showed you, was of a live stream by Bella Hadid on her Instagram. Now it was watched live by 57,000 people and in the video the supermodel can be seen chanting on a pro-Palestine march in Brooklyn, New York. Let's take a look at the video. You can see if you can see what the Israel Twitter account saw in this video. Now nowhere in that video did Bella Hadid advocate for throwing Jewish people in the sea. Now the official Israel account was called out on this and they replied that the offending statement was at 22 seconds. Now at 22 seconds Hadid said the following, from the river to the sea Palestine will be free. Now I mean that's definitely not calling for any Jews to be thrown into the sea by the way. I mean I think that's clear enough but we should talk about the background to this statement because this is a statement which is often chanted at Palestine marches and which has created some controversy. Now there's been a long-running campaign by the Israeli government and advocates of Israel to say this is a believer anti-Semitic or offensive or divisive or whatever and I want to explain why they say that and why I think it's actually a fine chant. So let's look at the meaning of what it means literally. So this is a map of Israel Palestine and you can see the river there. So the river is the Jordan River. The sea is the Mediterranean Sea and what people who sing this chant are saying is from the river to the sea Palestine will be free. From the river to the sea that includes the West Bank and Gaza it also includes what's now Israel and why people think this is controversial is because they're saying it would mean there would be no Israel. If from the river to the sea Palestine is free then where does Israel fit into that story? That's how if you're really really reaching you say oh well where's Israel going to be you're clearly going to throw them in the sea that's why you've mentioned the sea. Obviously that's the reach and that's completely ridiculous. Also though I mean this doesn't even mean to my mind what you know some people say oh this means you're going to expel the Jews it doesn't it historically hasn't and it also doesn't in in the present. So essentially what that chant is saying is advocating for a one state solution. Now some people don't support a one state solution some people support a two state solution that's completely fine but it is also important to be clear what a one state solution would mean in this context and historically for the PLO for the Palestinian Liberation Organization what it has meant is a secular democratic state where everyone has one vote one person one vote there isn't a Jewish state and a Palestinian well there isn't a Jewish state in an Arab state there's just Palestine and anyone in Palestine can have one vote Jews can have one vote Palestinians Arabs can have one vote Christians can have one vote it's a secular state. Now this used to be the position of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization this is what Yasser Arafat said to the UN in 1974 at this point he was in favour of a one state solution so he said when we speak of our common hopes for the Palestine of tomorrow we include in our perspective all Jews now living in Palestine who choose to live with us there in peace and without discrimination. So it was very clear at that point he was backing from the river to the sea Palestine will be free and he said no one's going to get thrown in the sea right anyone who wants to live here can live here and they can have one vote. Now ultimately Yasser Arafat and his Fathafaction abandoned support for a or abandon their commitment at least for a one state solution they signed up to a two state solution but that is nowhere near being a consensus among Palestinians. You could also interpret from the river to the sea Palestine will be free is that Palestinians will be free and have equal rights in whatever state they live in but the one state solution is very very popular among Palestinians and for good reason they sort of say one we're not comfortable having an ethno state on our historic land whereby you have more rights if you're Jewish than if you're Palestinian if you're non-Jewish I think very legitimate position and you know that's why this thing is you're not calling for anyone to go into the sea I mean it's completely defamatory essentially from the Israel Twitter account but I also think it is important to explain what that chart means why some people find it offensive and why I don't think it is and I want your thoughts on on the chart from the river to the sea but also I mean it's very bizarre seeing a nation state you know because it doesn't say it's not called the Israeli it's just called Israel so it's just Israel is debating a supermodel like what's that about I mean I wonder what the signing off process is for tweets you know is they're like does it have to get past three or four people is just one person in bed at night tweeting from the Israel account while they're on the toilet checking their notifications you know it's quite worrying it's no way to it's no way to do diplomacy when you're in the middle of a conflict in terms of from the river to the sea I've actually encountered this first hand I was on sky one sky news and to present their perfectly affable guy most of the time a guy called Nile Patterson Scottish said from the river to the sea is anti-Semitic do you support that I was like whatever you got this idea from it's anti-Semitic we can say there's a one-state solution we can say there's a two-state solution within the 1967 borders or we can say there's a two-state solution that you know is far more favorable to Israel than the 1967 kind of borders more like today I mean most people say that's not really viable as a state for Palestine but let's just pretend it was in all of these potential outcomes Palestine goes from the river to the sea I said from the river Jordan to the sea and again he had this same thing I don't know where they get these talking points from Michael he was like yeah but in the sea it means like people will be like chucked into the sea and I was like what the hell are you talking about it's it's you know it's one of those countries which has quite or it's a it's a historical area which has quite you know geographically specific borders you know you've got the Golan Heights you've got you know to the south north east what east the west it's quite rare in that respect you know and I said there's not any anti-Semitic I mean if somebody says something anti-Semitic if they could say from the river to the sea and you know we need to kick everybody else out okay but like you say Michael if you're if you're going to claim that somebody is calling for genocide you're going to need to back it up I mean it's quite a it first it's a terrible thing to do there should be serious consequences but at the same time you can't just accuse somebody of doing that lightly without any evidence I mean it's ridiculous but it's even more ridiculous like you say the fact it's being waged by you know Israel's official Twitter account which earlier today that same Twitter account Michael it had several tweets of just rocket emojis you know and you think well if Donald Trump in the middle of negotiations with North Korea was doing loads of rocket emojis he he well he was suspended from Twitter you know what has to happen for the Israel account to be suspended from Twitter completely absurd but look you expect you expect a measure of propaganda from a Twitter channel trying to advance what it perceives as a nation-state self-interest you don't expect that from media we've seen that same inaccurate incorrect claim repeated time after time like I say I was subject to it personally on Sky News and it's it's it's it's not acceptable if you're a journalist you can't just take a statement which doesn't say what you claim it does and then make accusations against people of supporting genocide I mean it's really infantile and childish and really belittles hugely important matters including genocide by the way my god you know if there is a genocide how's how's how's how's the media ever gonna report on it properly if you get something like Rwanda in the mid-1990s or if you get something like The Shower and you know from from the 1930s all the way through to 1945 these are hugely important matters they have to be taken more seriously than anything else in journalism and yet they're kind of just thrown out there quite lightly as if you know it's accusing somebody of having bad taste in clothes no if you're gonna say that if you're gonna accuse somebody of that you need some evidence no I totally agree I mean I don't feel I don't know what the law is of this I know I don't I know you can't sue come I don't know if you can sue nation states for defamation on Twitter be a very ridiculous court case if you can do I don't know who would appear in the dock would it be is Netanyahu responsible for the Twitter account I've got absolutely no idea let's wrap up now Aaron it's been an absolute pleasure being joined by you on a Monday instead of a Friday this week my pleasure so it's so good that we know we wrapped up so quickly normally we do a Friday show we do an hour and a half an hour boom done great yeah I want I like keeping them tight when we when we can Aaron we'll be back tomorrow evening for downstream at 7 p.m he'll be speaking to Mark Curtis all about Britain's military relations with Israel and how that links to the current conflict in fact when this live stream ends you'll be redirected to the page for that and you can set a reminder so you do not miss it and for now thanks for all of your comments tonight you've been watching Tiskey sour on the borrow media good night