May 1, 2024 • 17 mins
In the trailer/debut episode of Arabs in Media, Hazem Jamal explores the view of Arabs in news, entertainment, social media, and life in the West.
In the wake of The New York Times' contentious editorial decisions surrounding Israel-Palestine coverage and the persistent stereotyping in Hollywood, we dissect how these portrayals shape public perception and the real-world consequences that follow.
Through a tapestry of personal accounts, including the heartache Hazem's family endured during the Iraq wars, we bring to light the struggle for an authentic representation of Arabs in Western media. And we'll have some good news stories of Arabs you might know, or not know who represent great achievements in our world.
Host Hazem Jamal gives us a peek at the topics ahead in this debut episode, also available on the Substack community @arabsinmedia
About the host:
Hazem Jamal is a first-generation Iraqi-American who worked in as a programming exec in American radio for many years.
Hazem founded Arabs in Media to offer an independent platform for new stories, information and entertainment missing in corporate media.
Support independent media: To join the Arabs in Media community, sign up at the free Arabs in Media Substack for more multi-media content, and email notifications for new episodes dropping.
https://arabsinmedia.substack.com/
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The New York Times have faced internal upheaval
since October 7th over theircoverage of Israel's war in Gaza
, but now it has emerged thatthe paper has instructed
journalists to restrict the useof the terms genocide and ethnic
cleansing and to avoid thephrase occupied territory when
describing Palestinian land.
(00:20):
Not only that, they have toldjournalists not to use the word
Palestine except in very rarecases.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Arabs are the most maligned group in the history of
Hollywood.
They're portrayed basically assubhumans, untermenschen a term
used by Nazis to vilify gypsiesand Jews.
These images have been with usfor more than a century.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
The Michigan Democratic primary sent alarm
bells ringing within theDemocratic Party, after a large
contingent voted uncommittedagainst Joe Biden.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
What if Palestinian girlhood was taken as seriously
as Taylor Swift's girlhood?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Doesn't anyone notice this?
I feel like I'm taking crazypills.
Speaker 6 (00:59):
And, yeah, I wish it was sometimes as simple as that.
Maybe we are taking crazy pills.
Hey, welcome to the new podcastand Substack Arabs in Media.
I wish it was sometimes assimple as that.
Maybe we are taking crazy pills.
Hey, welcome to the new podcastand Substack Arabs in Media.
My name is Hazem Jamal.
I'm an Iraqi American, born totwo cultures, born and raised
here in the States, and thatoften could be frustrating as an
Arab American.
(01:19):
Representation in media was notcomplicated.
My family and I witnessed twowars on the country from where
my parents emigrated on Iraq,but from a distance from here,
not just once, but twice, andbefore the start of each of
those wars we would get thephone calls.
My parents would hear fromtheir siblings, my aunts and
(01:42):
uncles, my cousins.
My parents would hear fromtheir siblings, my aunts and
uncles, my cousins, and, if youcan imagine this, they were
offering their goodbyes, notknowing what to anticipate in
the pending wars.
And just in case they didn'tmake it, they wanted to take
(02:03):
advantage of that last chance totalk.
Communication centers in bothof those wars were usually the
first target.
So in both of those wars, asthe communications went dark, it
was usually a few months beforewe heard from anybody and to
see if they were dead or alive.
Even after the wars, ourstories were rarely told
hollywood has a very narrow viewof arabs.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
I mean, just think of every Arab character you've
ever seen on screen.
Think of how those charactersare usually inherently connected
to violence and US nationalsecurity, and then ask yourself
this question.
Speaker 9 (02:35):
When have you seen a Hollywood film?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
tell the story of an Iraqi during the Iraq war.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
That's Dr Maitha Al-Hassan, a writer, producer,
journalist, professor andcollaborative senior fellow at
the Pop Culture Collaborative,in a Scripps news piece on the
influence of Hollywood anddamaging portrayals of Arabs and
Muslims from 2019.
The first Gulf War was a mediabreakthrough.
We went from horrific images ofVietnam 15 years earlier to
(03:07):
watching grainy images fromfighter jets and chalkboard
drawings like it was John Maddenmapping out an NFL replay.
By the start of the second war,it was official.
Arabs were not only stereotypesin entertainment, but once
again, we were targets in war.
We finally had a starring role.
We were targets in war.
(03:29):
We finally had a starring role,but just not in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It was a real-life, sterilized video game that
killed hundreds of thousands ofIraqi civilians.
Let me know when you gather.
Watch out, fight them all up.
Speaker 10 (03:40):
Two traffic, two sixes Come on fire.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
My guy dude pick up a weapon.
It's Bushmaster 7,.
Go ahead, roger.
We have a black Bongo truck,bushmaster 7, roger.
This is Bushmaster 7, roger,engage 1-8, clear Come on 3-1-1.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
2-0.
It's their fault for bringingtheir kids to a battle.
That's right.
Well, we didn't havesmartphones in the Iraq War, so
we're good now right.
I mean we see what's going onin social media.
We can move from this placewhere we've been stuck and you
know the news media can now askmore insightful questions with a
(04:24):
respect and a gravitas for thepeople that are affected and
invited on the airwaves.
Speaker 10 (04:31):
Do you support the protests, the violent protests
that have erupted in solidaritywith you and other families in
your position right now?
Speaker 12 (04:39):
Do you support the violent dispossession of me and
my family?
Speaker 10 (04:48):
I'm just asking if you support the protests that
are taking place in support ofyour family.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
Okay, my bad.
So we have video from theground, we proof.
We have exhibit a, b, c, d ande, but I guess, uh, arabs in the
west still have to condemneverything except for the
violence and language usedagainst them.
All right, but but still, we,we have made some progress, like
(05:14):
here's an interview with arespected doctor and a
politician from the west Bankwho was invited on a British
news channel to offer contextand commentary.
Well, at least when he wasallowed to speak.
I don't know what you have timefor.
Oh my God, for the love of.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
God, let me finish a sentence, man.
Maybe you're not used to womentalking, I don't know, but I'd
like to finish a sentence, sir.
Speaker 8 (05:39):
Anyway, so no, you are misleading the public now.
Really, I've got 20 secondsleft.
I'm not even going to bothertrying to answer.
Speaker 13 (05:46):
If you don't think Israel's reaction is acceptable.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
What would have been an acceptable reaction to you?
You've got 10 seconds left.
Speaker 8 (05:54):
To end occupation and allow peace to prevail for both
people.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
That's very brilliant .
Sorry to have been a womanspeaking to you.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
I love the smell of a fresh trope in the morning,
especially the ones that pushthat narrative that Arab men
won't tolerate a woman speakingso floral.
If only we could get through asingle interview to vouch for
what's happening, let's say, atthe hospitals in Gaza.
Maybe we'd be more humanized ifsomeone from Doctors Without
(06:26):
Borders can get to the realityon the ground without pulling
the story back to fit some sortof narrative.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
You'll know that the Israeli military say that they
have killed and detainedhundreds of Hamas militants
within the al-Shifa complex.
Do you know if Hamas were thereand were fighting with the
Israelis?
Speaker 13 (06:45):
I am just shocked that we're still having this
conversation.
They executed tens of peoplepoint blank, including one of
our colleagues, dr AhmedKhalilati, who's a very
experienced plastic surgeon himand his mother, who's also a
physician.
They executed people pointblank and including many of our
(07:07):
colleagues who've been detained.
Now we haven't heard back fromthem.
Previous students of minedetained, young doctors detained
.
We don't know if they're deador alive.
They have been gone for over100 days.
So to say that this is astrategic targeting of Hamas is
an insult to our intellect andour humanity.
This is a destruction of peoplewho heal.
(07:29):
This is a direct targeting ofhealth care workers.
Speaker 6 (07:32):
It seems like there's less of a willingness in the
West at this point to accept thestatus quo.
Protests in the United Stateshave not let up, and social
media has persistently tried towork around content suppression
and bans, to always sneak backin, usually with some sort of a
news story that is breaking.
But the extension of this warand these delays based on our
(07:54):
debates, at a massive cost tohumanity.
Over 34,000 Palestinians havebeen killed in the last seven
months, since October, and atleast 13,000 of them are
children.
We can all agree that killingchildren is wrong, right.
Speaker 12 (08:11):
Every single child, regardless of faith, deserves
equality.
If anyone in this room supportsthe killing of a child because
you think it makes you safer,you are a monster and you need
help.
Please, everybody, use yourvoices to stop the slaughter.
It must end.
(08:32):
No other child should die aftertoday.
Please, I'm begging you.
I'm burning my career to theground anyway, so I might as
well go at it.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
That is Maysoon Zayed , a Palestinian-American comic
who cracks a joke about hercareer being over.
But it's not over.
But her joke is no joke.
In what world would weotherwise not be able to all
agree that a ceasefire to stopkilling kids is a good common
goal to have when you unpackthis war on Palestinians?
(09:05):
It has gotten people canceled,though, in all walks of life,
from entertainment to governmentto students and beyond.
In the country of free speech,the limitations are not about
yelling fire in a movie theater.
It's about our discomfort.
And yes, I know that freedom ofspeech is about the government
censoring you, not a privateentity.
But the spirit of freedom ofspeech has just been one of
(09:27):
those last American ideals thatwe've been able to hold on to,
even if we disagree with eachother.
In theory at least.
It seems like we've lost theability or maybe we never had
the ability to hear each otherthrough those disagreements, and
arresting people at collegecampus demonstrations doesn't
(09:47):
help either.
A popular phrase you'll hear inworkplaces or in the national
lexicon these days is let's havea conversation.
It's disarming when you hear it.
It makes you think that what'scoming next is someone who's
going to listen to you andunderstand, You'll be able to
contribute as well, but theconversations nowadays get
canceled before they get off theground.
(10:07):
From valedictorians to actorsand in all walks of life, we
have witnessed high-profilecancellations and backlash to
the cancellations as well.
But what we may not have knownabout are quiet cancellations
and backlash to thecancellations as well.
But what we may not have knownabout are quiet cancellations.
Speaker 9 (10:22):
There is both a lot of fear among you know big names
that we know from speaking out,but I think what's also true,
that's happening more under theradar is so many young artists,
particularly young artists ofcolor, are just quietly being
let go by their, by theiragencies.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
Yes.
Speaker 9 (10:42):
And yeah, it's really terrible and that's really
happening.
We all know about SusanSarandon, but I think this is
really happening under the radar.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
That's activist and Sex and the City actor, cynthia
Nixon, talking to Mahdi Hassanon his new content channel,
zateo.
If this next story had beenbased almost anywhere else in
the world, you almost certainlywould have heard about it, but
there's a good chance that youhaven't, because it was based in
Gaza.
Speaker 11 (11:09):
Speaking of the people, the faces, the voices.
One of the people you've talkedabout, you've posted about,
you've written about, is WaelAhdardouh, him being
hospitalized.
He's a Palestinian journalistand the bureau chief of Al
Jazeera in Gaza City.
What can you tell me about thisman?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
If Wael al-Dahdouh wasn't Palestinian, he'd be on
the cover of Time magazine rightnow.
He would be the most celebratedjournalist in the world.
Wael al-Dahdouh is from Gaza.
He has been in Israeli prisons,he has been under Israeli
airstrikes, he has seen theworst of the occupation before.
He's seen the worst of thegenocide while on TV.
(11:52):
I mean and this is insane whenyou think about it we have over
a hundred journalists now right,that's more than any conflict
in history that have been killed, and there is sufficient
evidence by internationalwatchdogs that this is
intentional, that journalistshave been killed intentionally.
But then their families.
While it was reporting on TVwhen an airstrike hits his wife,
(12:15):
two kids and a grandchild, hegoes to the scene and he said
this you know you never expect,as a journalist, to be the
subject of the story.
Suddenly the camera's on himmourning over his dead wife and
kids and grandkid and he'ssaying he even says in Arabic he
(12:38):
says they're taking it out onour children.
They're taking it out on ourchildren.
You know I've heard this frommultiple people that have had
relatives targeted that I wishit was me instead.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
That's the Lex Friedman podcast and Lex's
interview with Palestinian,american and Muslim scholar Omar
Suleiman.
Look, if your social media feedhas not shown you the horrors
of babies still being blown tobits in Gaza for over 200 days,
then what you see on the oldnews platforms, on a network
newscast, isn't going to showyou that either.
(13:10):
Or if you have been watchingand sharing and commenting, you
may have suffered from realmental health issues seeing the
cruelty and destruction playingover and over.
I know I have.
But that suffering pales incomparison to what
dehumanization has happened overgenerations to Arabs and the
guilt when you see people wholook like you eating grass to
(13:35):
stay alive, from the IrishEmbassy who came to the border
and first thing they did wasthey gave us water and food.
Speaker 8 (14:00):
My son, I gave him to drink water.
He drank of it and he told meI'm allowed to drink more
because there was rules in thehouse.
He was not allowed.
He was not allowed to drinkmore than a small bit.
(14:27):
And then he asked me can Idrink more?
I said, of course, drink asmuch as you want.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
Noora Erekat, a human rights lawyer, shared this
observation recently on MarkLamont Hill's show Upfront.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I think let's take what's evidence in the pattern
over many, many decades, notjust in the past six months,
almost seven months now which isthat there is both a deference
to Israel and what Israel sayswithout an adequate amount of
scrutiny, and there is also alack of even acknowledgment and
respect for what Palestiniansare saying.
I think one of the thingsthat's happening here, when we
(14:59):
talk about the dehumanization ofPalestinians, is the
racialization that even makestheir testimony less credible,
so that folks who hear them,perhaps in the State Department,
just aren't taking them asseriously unless somebody else
is speaking for them.
So I think that's first andforemost.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
Here's the Crystal and Kyle podcast interviewing
Motaz Salim from Code Pink onhow the language evolves and the
codes change.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I'll also mention that their new favorite term is
militaryaged men, which isdespicable.
Speaker 9 (15:31):
Let's decode that for people, military-aged men means
there's zero evidence thatthese people are combatants in
any way, shape or form.
But since they're military-agedmen, if we kill them?
They had it coming.
Yes.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
We have come a long way since this viral moment from
an Egyptian protester at theborder with Gaza.
She was expressing her outragefor CNN and the West's biased
media coverage.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Where are our voices?
Our voices need to be heard aswell.
Speaker 12 (15:54):
We've been watching your channels and, instead of
mourning our dead, instead ofmourning these Palestinian
children, we've been having todeal with more dehumanization of
Arabs.
Speaker 6 (16:04):
Okay.
So here we are.
We're at the point in humanitywhere genocide is only in place,
still because it's being funded.
And if you're like me, withyour own stories of being Arab
in the West, with your storiesof struggle and triumph, with
your stories of living at theintersections of culture,
identity and expression, thenyou may already be intimately
(16:26):
aware between the connection ofdehumanizing language and
violence and killing apopulation.
Arabs are famously big intopolitical satire and irony.
I'm like we're ironic as fuck,and I bet you didn't expect me
to say that.
But for fuck's sake, if youjust stop killing us, then we'll
(16:46):
probably make you laugh.
Stop killing us, then we'llprobably make you laugh.
If all of this concept isforeign to you and you want to
open up a window to a new worldand some new perspectives,
either way, please subscribe.
Find Arabs in Media whereveryou listen to podcasts or
subscribe for free to our substack at Arabs in Media.
(17:07):
That will give you additionalcontent and you'll get an email
notification when a new episodeor content gets released, which
will be about weekly or more.
Habibi, thanks for listening.
I'm Hasim Jamal.
This has been the debut episodeof Arabs in Media.
The New York Times have faced internal upheaval
since October 7th over theircoverage of Israel's war in Gaza
, but now it has emerged thatthe paper has instructed
journalists to restrict the useof the terms genocide and ethnic
cleansing and to avoid thephrase occupied territory when
describing Palestinian land.
(00:20):
Not only that, they have toldjournalists not to use the word
Palestine except in very rarecases.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Arabs are the most maligned group in the history of
Hollywood.
They're portrayed basically assubhumans, untermenschen a term
used by Nazis to vilify gypsiesand Jews.
These images have been with usfor more than a century.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
The Michigan Democratic primary sent alarm
bells ringing within theDemocratic Party, after a large
contingent voted uncommittedagainst Joe Biden.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
What if Palestinian girlhood was taken as seriously
as Taylor Swift's girlhood?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Doesn't anyone notice this?
I feel like I'm taking crazypills.
Speaker 6 (00:59):
And, yeah, I wish it was sometimes as simple as that.
Maybe we are taking crazy pills.
Hey, welcome to the new podcastand Substack Arabs in Media.
I wish it was sometimes assimple as that.
Maybe we are taking crazy pills.
Hey, welcome to the new podcastand Substack Arabs in Media.
My name is Hazem Jamal.
I'm an Iraqi American, born totwo cultures, born and raised
here in the States, and thatoften could be frustrating as an
Arab American.
(01:19):
Representation in media was notcomplicated.
My family and I witnessed twowars on the country from where
my parents emigrated on Iraq,but from a distance from here,
not just once, but twice, andbefore the start of each of
those wars we would get thephone calls.
My parents would hear fromtheir siblings, my aunts and
(01:42):
uncles, my cousins.
My parents would hear fromtheir siblings, my aunts and
uncles, my cousins, and, if youcan imagine this, they were
offering their goodbyes, notknowing what to anticipate in
the pending wars.
And just in case they didn'tmake it, they wanted to take
(02:03):
advantage of that last chance totalk.
Communication centers in bothof those wars were usually the
first target.
So in both of those wars, asthe communications went dark, it
was usually a few months beforewe heard from anybody and to
see if they were dead or alive.
Even after the wars, ourstories were rarely told
hollywood has a very narrow viewof arabs.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
I mean, just think of every Arab character you've
ever seen on screen.
Think of how those charactersare usually inherently connected
to violence and US nationalsecurity, and then ask yourself
this question.
Speaker 9 (02:35):
When have you seen a Hollywood film?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
tell the story of an Iraqi during the Iraq war.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
That's Dr Maitha Al-Hassan, a writer, producer,
journalist, professor andcollaborative senior fellow at
the Pop Culture Collaborative,in a Scripps news piece on the
influence of Hollywood anddamaging portrayals of Arabs and
Muslims from 2019.
The first Gulf War was a mediabreakthrough.
We went from horrific images ofVietnam 15 years earlier to
(03:07):
watching grainy images fromfighter jets and chalkboard
drawings like it was John Maddenmapping out an NFL replay.
By the start of the second war,it was official.
Arabs were not only stereotypesin entertainment, but once
again, we were targets in war.
We finally had a starring role.
We were targets in war.
(03:29):
We finally had a starring role,but just not in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It was a real-life, sterilized video game that
killed hundreds of thousands ofIraqi civilians.
Let me know when you gather.
Watch out, fight them all up.
Speaker 10 (03:40):
Two traffic, two sixes Come on fire.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
My guy dude pick up a weapon.
It's Bushmaster 7,.
Go ahead, roger.
We have a black Bongo truck,bushmaster 7, roger.
This is Bushmaster 7, roger,engage 1-8, clear Come on 3-1-1.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
2-0.
It's their fault for bringingtheir kids to a battle.
That's right.
Well, we didn't havesmartphones in the Iraq War, so
we're good now right.
I mean we see what's going onin social media.
We can move from this placewhere we've been stuck and you
know the news media can now askmore insightful questions with a
(04:24):
respect and a gravitas for thepeople that are affected and
invited on the airwaves.
Speaker 10 (04:31):
Do you support the protests, the violent protests
that have erupted in solidaritywith you and other families in
your position right now?
Speaker 12 (04:39):
Do you support the violent dispossession of me and
my family?
Speaker 10 (04:48):
I'm just asking if you support the protests that
are taking place in support ofyour family.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
Okay, my bad.
So we have video from theground, we proof.
We have exhibit a, b, c, d ande, but I guess, uh, arabs in the
west still have to condemneverything except for the
violence and language usedagainst them.
All right, but but still, we,we have made some progress, like
(05:14):
here's an interview with arespected doctor and a
politician from the west Bankwho was invited on a British
news channel to offer contextand commentary.
Well, at least when he wasallowed to speak.
I don't know what you have timefor.
Oh my God, for the love of.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
God, let me finish a sentence, man.
Maybe you're not used to womentalking, I don't know, but I'd
like to finish a sentence, sir.
Speaker 8 (05:39):
Anyway, so no, you are misleading the public now.
Really, I've got 20 secondsleft.
I'm not even going to bothertrying to answer.
Speaker 13 (05:46):
If you don't think Israel's reaction is acceptable.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
What would have been an acceptable reaction to you?
You've got 10 seconds left.
Speaker 8 (05:54):
To end occupation and allow peace to prevail for both
people.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
That's very brilliant .
Sorry to have been a womanspeaking to you.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
I love the smell of a fresh trope in the morning,
especially the ones that pushthat narrative that Arab men
won't tolerate a woman speakingso floral.
If only we could get through asingle interview to vouch for
what's happening, let's say, atthe hospitals in Gaza.
Maybe we'd be more humanized ifsomeone from Doctors Without
(06:26):
Borders can get to the realityon the ground without pulling
the story back to fit some sortof narrative.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
You'll know that the Israeli military say that they
have killed and detainedhundreds of Hamas militants
within the al-Shifa complex.
Do you know if Hamas were thereand were fighting with the
Israelis?
Speaker 13 (06:45):
I am just shocked that we're still having this
conversation.
They executed tens of peoplepoint blank, including one of
our colleagues, dr AhmedKhalilati, who's a very
experienced plastic surgeon himand his mother, who's also a
physician.
They executed people pointblank and including many of our
(07:07):
colleagues who've been detained.
Now we haven't heard back fromthem.
Previous students of minedetained, young doctors detained
.
We don't know if they're deador alive.
They have been gone for over100 days.
So to say that this is astrategic targeting of Hamas is
an insult to our intellect andour humanity.
This is a destruction of peoplewho heal.
(07:29):
This is a direct targeting ofhealth care workers.
Speaker 6 (07:32):
It seems like there's less of a willingness in the
West at this point to accept thestatus quo.
Protests in the United Stateshave not let up, and social
media has persistently tried towork around content suppression
and bans, to always sneak backin, usually with some sort of a
news story that is breaking.
But the extension of this warand these delays based on our
(07:54):
debates, at a massive cost tohumanity.
Over 34,000 Palestinians havebeen killed in the last seven
months, since October, and atleast 13,000 of them are
children.
We can all agree that killingchildren is wrong, right.
Speaker 12 (08:11):
Every single child, regardless of faith, deserves
equality.
If anyone in this room supportsthe killing of a child because
you think it makes you safer,you are a monster and you need
help.
Please, everybody, use yourvoices to stop the slaughter.
It must end.
(08:32):
No other child should die aftertoday.
Please, I'm begging you.
I'm burning my career to theground anyway, so I might as
well go at it.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
That is Maysoon Zayed , a Palestinian-American comic
who cracks a joke about hercareer being over.
But it's not over.
But her joke is no joke.
In what world would weotherwise not be able to all
agree that a ceasefire to stopkilling kids is a good common
goal to have when you unpackthis war on Palestinians?
(09:05):
It has gotten people canceled,though, in all walks of life,
from entertainment to governmentto students and beyond.
In the country of free speech,the limitations are not about
yelling fire in a movie theater.
It's about our discomfort.
And yes, I know that freedom ofspeech is about the government
censoring you, not a privateentity.
But the spirit of freedom ofspeech has just been one of
(09:27):
those last American ideals thatwe've been able to hold on to,
even if we disagree with eachother.
In theory at least.
It seems like we've lost theability or maybe we never had
the ability to hear each otherthrough those disagreements, and
arresting people at collegecampus demonstrations doesn't
(09:47):
help either.
A popular phrase you'll hear inworkplaces or in the national
lexicon these days is let's havea conversation.
It's disarming when you hear it.
It makes you think that what'scoming next is someone who's
going to listen to you andunderstand, You'll be able to
contribute as well, but theconversations nowadays get
canceled before they get off theground.
(10:07):
From valedictorians to actorsand in all walks of life, we
have witnessed high-profilecancellations and backlash to
the cancellations as well.
But what we may not have knownabout are quiet cancellations
and backlash to thecancellations as well.
But what we may not have knownabout are quiet cancellations.
Speaker 9 (10:22):
There is both a lot of fear among you know big names
that we know from speaking out,but I think what's also true,
that's happening more under theradar is so many young artists,
particularly young artists ofcolor, are just quietly being
let go by their, by theiragencies.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
Yes.
Speaker 9 (10:42):
And yeah, it's really terrible and that's really
happening.
We all know about SusanSarandon, but I think this is
really happening under the radar.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
That's activist and Sex and the City actor, cynthia
Nixon, talking to Mahdi Hassanon his new content channel,
zateo.
If this next story had beenbased almost anywhere else in
the world, you almost certainlywould have heard about it, but
there's a good chance that youhaven't, because it was based in
Gaza.
Speaker 11 (11:09):
Speaking of the people, the faces, the voices.
One of the people you've talkedabout, you've posted about,
you've written about, is WaelAhdardouh, him being
hospitalized.
He's a Palestinian journalistand the bureau chief of Al
Jazeera in Gaza City.
What can you tell me about thisman?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
If Wael al-Dahdouh wasn't Palestinian, he'd be on
the cover of Time magazine rightnow.
He would be the most celebratedjournalist in the world.
Wael al-Dahdouh is from Gaza.
He has been in Israeli prisons,he has been under Israeli
airstrikes, he has seen theworst of the occupation before.
He's seen the worst of thegenocide while on TV.
(11:52):
I mean and this is insane whenyou think about it we have over
a hundred journalists now right,that's more than any conflict
in history that have been killed, and there is sufficient
evidence by internationalwatchdogs that this is
intentional, that journalistshave been killed intentionally.
But then their families.
While it was reporting on TVwhen an airstrike hits his wife,
(12:15):
two kids and a grandchild, hegoes to the scene and he said
this you know you never expect,as a journalist, to be the
subject of the story.
Suddenly the camera's on himmourning over his dead wife and
kids and grandkid and he'ssaying he even says in Arabic he
(12:38):
says they're taking it out onour children.
They're taking it out on ourchildren.
You know I've heard this frommultiple people that have had
relatives targeted that I wishit was me instead.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
That's the Lex Friedman podcast and Lex's
interview with Palestinian,american and Muslim scholar Omar
Suleiman.
Look, if your social media feedhas not shown you the horrors
of babies still being blown tobits in Gaza for over 200 days,
then what you see on the oldnews platforms, on a network
newscast, isn't going to showyou that either.
(13:10):
Or if you have been watchingand sharing and commenting, you
may have suffered from realmental health issues seeing the
cruelty and destruction playingover and over.
I know I have.
But that suffering pales incomparison to what
dehumanization has happened overgenerations to Arabs and the
guilt when you see people wholook like you eating grass to
(13:35):
stay alive, from the IrishEmbassy who came to the border
and first thing they did wasthey gave us water and food.
Speaker 8 (14:00):
My son, I gave him to drink water.
He drank of it and he told meI'm allowed to drink more
because there was rules in thehouse.
He was not allowed.
He was not allowed to drinkmore than a small bit.
(14:27):
And then he asked me can Idrink more?
I said, of course, drink asmuch as you want.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
Noora Erekat, a human rights lawyer, shared this
observation recently on MarkLamont Hill's show Upfront.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I think let's take what's evidence in the pattern
over many, many decades, notjust in the past six months,
almost seven months now which isthat there is both a deference
to Israel and what Israel sayswithout an adequate amount of
scrutiny, and there is also alack of even acknowledgment and
respect for what Palestiniansare saying.
I think one of the thingsthat's happening here, when we
(14:59):
talk about the dehumanization ofPalestinians, is the
racialization that even makestheir testimony less credible,
so that folks who hear them,perhaps in the State Department,
just aren't taking them asseriously unless somebody else
is speaking for them.
So I think that's first andforemost.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
Here's the Crystal and Kyle podcast interviewing
Motaz Salim from Code Pink onhow the language evolves and the
codes change.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I'll also mention that their new favorite term is
militaryaged men, which isdespicable.
Speaker 9 (15:31):
Let's decode that for people, military-aged men means
there's zero evidence thatthese people are combatants in
any way, shape or form.
But since they're military-agedmen, if we kill them?
They had it coming.
Yes.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
We have come a long way since this viral moment from
an Egyptian protester at theborder with Gaza.
She was expressing her outragefor CNN and the West's biased
media coverage.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Where are our voices?
Our voices need to be heard aswell.
Speaker 12 (15:54):
We've been watching your channels and, instead of
mourning our dead, instead ofmourning these Palestinian
children, we've been having todeal with more dehumanization of
Arabs.
Speaker 6 (16:04):
Okay.
So here we are.
We're at the point in humanitywhere genocide is only in place,
still because it's being funded.
And if you're like me, withyour own stories of being Arab
in the West, with your storiesof struggle and triumph, with
your stories of living at theintersections of culture,
identity and expression, thenyou may already be intimately
(16:26):
aware between the connection ofdehumanizing language and
violence and killing apopulation.
Arabs are famously big intopolitical satire and irony.
I'm like we're ironic as fuck,and I bet you didn't expect me
to say that.
But for fuck's sake, if youjust stop killing us, then we'll
(16:46):
probably make you laugh.
Stop killing us, then we'llprobably make you laugh.
If all of this concept isforeign to you and you want to
open up a window to a new worldand some new perspectives,
either way, please subscribe.
Find Arabs in Media whereveryou listen to podcasts or
subscribe for free to our substack at Arabs in Media.
(17:07):
That will give you additionalcontent and you'll get an email
notification when a new episodeor content gets released, which
will be about weekly or more.
Habibi, thanks for listening.
I'm Hasim Jamal.
This has been the debut episodeof Arabs in Media.
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