On this episode of @MEEunapologetic we sat down with Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, to talk about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the media that reinforced it and the global systems that enable it.
Albanese’s latest report, Truth Under the Rubble, examines media complicity. She argues that destroying a people takes a narrative as well as bombs. She explains how the killing of nearly 300 Palestinian media workers, the destruction of more than 80 percent of Gaza’s media infrastructure and Israel’s daily military censorship worked together to bury the truth. She also describes how Western legacy media barred the word genocide, repeated Israeli army claims and stripped the legal framework out of their coverage.
We go beyond the media to the systems around it. Albanese says Israel is the main architect of the genocide, but states and companies are complicit through weapons, finance, political cover and profit. She traces the erosion of international law back through the war on terror. She warns that the methods used against Palestinians are now being turned on protesters, migrants and refugees in Europe, which she calls the Israelisation of our societies. We also discuss the killing of Gaza’s journalists and the story of photojournalist Fatma Hassona. We close on Britain’s shifting stance, the proscription of Palestine Action, the US sanctions against her and her next report, on militarism and the environment.
UNAPOLOGETIC is hosted by Ashfaaq Carim.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro highlights
02:05 Truth under the rubble
04:03 A system of complicity 09:42
Banning the word genocide
17:04 Is any of this new?
21:41 Israelisation of our societies
27:10 Britain's shifting stance
30:01 Targeting Gaza's journalists
38:19 The mandate's final reports 47:41 The Palestine Action ban