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tv   SPOTLIGHT  PRESSTV  November 18, 2023 2:02am-2:25am IRST

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of hello and welcome to spotlight. over the past 75 years of the occupation of the palestinian territories. the israeli regime thanks to the biased coverage of the western mainstream media has been using propaganda and disinformation to justify its atrocities against the people of palestine. in the ongoing war on gaza, israel has once again used similar methods which are seen. as the
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israelis trying to play the victim card and legitimize the genocide in gaza. it seems that the israeli regime is losing the narrative on gaza uh given the mounting global support for the palestinians and anti israel campaigns both on the streets and in social media as well. joining us on tonight spotlight we have eve zangler author and political activist joining us from montreal. and also spokesperson of the masar badil movement, mr. khalid barrakot joining us from vancouver. gentlemen, welcome to the program. let's start off with mr. angler in montreal. uh, given the uh, the increased uh level of support that we're seeing out on the streets for the palestinian cause and the opposition to the israeli war. mr. angler, would you say that the israels have lost. in the court of
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public opinion uh, they've been very damaged in the court of public opinion, there is clearly millions and millions of people here in canada and tens, hundreds of millions of people around the world no longer believe their their claims, their propaganda, whether they've lost, i wouldn't go so far as to say that. for certain um, having the backing of the us empire and having the backing of the biggest media outlets in in north america is is uh, it's very powerful friends in your corner uh, but it's been incredibly damaged uh, i think there's for for anyone who's uh somewhat progressive uh, they have they they're probably, there's probably no going back, increasingly uh support for israel is is something that you find among uh the more right-wing the more openly pro-imperial, pro
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uh empire factions of canadian, us uh political life, and that is probably um never, they're never, that's never going to change, um, and that process has been going on for years now, and uh, it's been accelerated rapidly with the incredible level of uh violence and horrors that israel's committed against palestinians in gaza. let's see what mr. barrakot has to say about that. sir, i phrased it as the israelis losing in the court of public opinion, i want to get your thoughts on that as well, given the uh the increased level of global awareness, the worldwide support for palestinians, the opposition to the uh to the israeli war, and let's not uh forget uh all that's been happening with regards uh to the uh to the online uh and social media propaganda with the israelis, they they come up with stories, they post videos and then they have to retract them and delete the... videos, give
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us your thoughts, please, well, if we're talking about public opinion worldwide, i think that palestinians have always won in that arena, but if we are talking about in the west, particularly because that's the real fight on public opinion in in in the western world and particularly in places like you know the united states, canada, britain, france, germany and so on and so forth and on that level i think that in certain areas palestinian have definitely won that public opinion, especially in places like canada, for example, three out of four canadians think that there should be a ceasefire and many of them view what's happening as an israeli aggression. i do agree with eve on that a great damage has happened to. israel
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narrative and designist narrative in term of you know the support of israel even amongst particularly amongst the younger generation and where we see more support of the palestinian uh people right, palestinian resistance, and that includes the many young people from jewish backgrounds who now are more daring in expressing their support for the palestinian people, so i think it is definitely a qualitative step towards uh... decisive victory in term of public opinion for palestine. mr. angler, looking at what's taking place online, what many would be calling the online propaganda efforts by the israelis where they try to portray themselves as as the victims and trying to justify uh
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the war crimes that they're committing against palestinians in gaza. there was a report uh an analysis basically uh by a company which was in fact pro israeli that around... billion posts were pro israeli with pro israeli tags uh were published on uh on instagram and tiktok since october 7th compared to 109 billion posts with pro-palestinian tags, so that speaks volumes uh in itself. break that down for us please? yeah, and i bet you lot of the pro israel posts are indirectly or directly paid for by the israeli government or their their lobby groups, so that. numbers are are would be even more skewed if not, um, i think that has an age component to it, it's very clear that um that the younger generation, i've even seen that uh myself, you know, i'm i 20 years out of university and there was big battles on palestine and when i was at university 20
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years ago uh now uh the the pro israel crowd is is completely unable to engage in any sort of democratic process. at the university level, so for instance, the solidarity for palestinian human rights at mcgill university has a resolution that that their students are voting on right now, an anti-genocide and palestine resolution, and the the israel supporters on campus don't even, they won't even engage in the referendum, all they're doing is calling on the university administration to just ban the referendum and the university administration to put uh pressure on the student union that if they uh accept this this this referendum that they will you know lose their funding so they know that they know that among 20-year-olds uh they just can't they can't win the you know any kind of like voting uh process and i think that's somewhat we're seeing reflected on on the social media platforms that are particularly uh used by by younger people is
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that they they um they don't they they don't like seeing uh palestinian babies being killed by israel and ghaza and they don't have this bad baggage of of uh, i don't, we call it the legacy of the nazi holocaust, they they they are more multi-racial, they're not as inclined towards believing that that you know white europeans are are the best and everything, they're they're always great or whatever, and so there's a obvious race dynamic to this to this uh conflict and and um and to believe that sort of imperial colony. ideology um so so and and the the israel lobby people they know it, they're scared, they they don't know what to do, if you looked at that recent um israel rally in washington dc, they were paying, there was they were paying uh students $250 us dollars to attend to attend the demonstration, and
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um, you know, obviously the palestine solidarity, the anti-w forces don't have, don't have those resources, we have to you know pay out of pocket to take a bus down to - to the protests um, but so so they are losing uh the battle, all the surveys uh, kind of just pointed out canadian, if you look at the breaking down of canadian public opinion by age category, you find that younger, younger people are more likely to believe israel's an apartied state, by large margins they believe that that israel's an apartied state, um, so that's that's a danger from from the israel lobbyst perspective going forward uh, this this kind of stuff. of course um sort of existential uh threat uh going forward. mr. baracott, as mr. engler just mentioned, more and more people are coming to the realization that the israeli regime is apartite regime. in uh in addition to that, when we look at at at the mainstream
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uh media narrative that the israelis usually have, they throw in all kinds of twists and turns to try to justify what they're doing in gaza. they say they want to eratic. hamas, they say they're opening humanitarian corridors, allowing people to move to the uh to the south of gaza, yet we see demonstrations, for example in madrid, in spain where uh people to to the streets showing their support for palestinians, they carried placerds reading, this is not a war, it's genocide, so people, in spite of all the the media propaganda, all the the media, the twisted media narratives, people are already recognizing this as genocide, absolutely, and it's uh, it's it's because of struggle and because of people commitment and because of many, many voices that have made. this a reality, including people conscious, i mean,
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you know, when they listen to the israeli retoric and israel try to promote itself as victim, yet israel have nuclear weapon, the only country in the entire area that actually have nuclear weapon and now they're publicly threatening to use it, you know by ministers in this fascist government, so at the same time israel goes into this contradiction, they want to play the victim card and they want to promote themselves as very strong and advanced army that can you know kill babies and destroy universities and and hospitals and so on and so forth, so you don't really need to know so much history about the conflict in order to realize that what's happening here is a is a work run and genocide, similarly in today's you know age of media and people have access to you know
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alternative narratives and you know um media outlets just imagine 25 years ago 30 years ago um in canada if if you're just you know average canadian person who wants who reads you know the global mail or vancouver son or you know the national you're pretty much getting the same story about palestine, although there's three different newspapers, but you don't get a real alternative information, the same goes with you know tv stations, radio, so where can people actually get a real information, real uh, you know, facts, in today's age, i think with the the world is changing, and we see that how... also palestinians are especially in gazza,
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you know, they're very active in term of communicating with the world, showing the world what's really happening, there are also a very good writers and journalists who have access now to different media outlet, somebody like our friends eve here, you know, he he writes all the time about palestine and he have many readers, but he's not going to be welcome in the mainstream media, you know or the you know liberal media in this country, but now we have different forms or forums in which we can hear alternative voices and the same time we began to see a little bit of change in term of school curriculum, university curriculum, especially in studies like history, anthropology, you know, studying colonialism, studying the era
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of slavery, these kind of studies didn't exist, you know, few decades back, and now there's more of them, and so the younger generation, since high school, they're more exposed into you know, a more real kind of account of history, and so they come to universities these days, ready to ' take a stand against apartide, against colonization, against these kinds of oppression, not just in palestine, but worldwide. right, and mr. engler, what about the hypocrisy that we're seeing, most notably in european countries with regards to these uh demonstrations, for example, you can burn the holy quran, that's considered free speech, but if you would, if you were to burn an israeli flag, that would be major offense, they would arrest you, they would charge you, how do you explain that? it's uh, it's flagrant hypocrisy, uh, we see
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this in calgary, here in canada a protest organizer was arrested for chanting, from the river to the sea, palestine will be free, the the israel lobby uh while they're committing genocide, they have the media talking about how some chance uh for equal rights is is is genocide. uh, there's a whole effort to ban protest here. and and as you mentioned in in germany and in france they've banned all kinds of palestine uh solidarity protests uh it's it's it it's not really explainable beyond. on it's just serving power, it just speaks to how deferential uh those countries are to israel and to the us empire, all of the rhetoric in terms of the hypocrisy, all the rhetoric about about russia violating international law and ukraine's right to resistance and all this kind of stuff, it's all been so crastly thrown out the window and
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israel's constant violation international law is uh is not sited, you know, we're not even, we should be sending, by that logic, we should be sending weapons to to palestinian resistance, um, if we're saying that with regards to russia and ukraine, but the the hypocris is just off the charts, obviously also the whole the ability to mobilize um, the the european destruction of of of of jury, the nazi holocaust, the ability to mobilize that on behalf of of israel's. uh genocidal um policies is is pretty remarkable, so you have this incredible horror that happened in in uh human history uh being used to justify this ongoing uh uh horror um so that's uh part of the equation here, it's it's it's so cynical to see the
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israel lobby organizations do that and so many politicians go along with that uh but that's that's part of this ability to um uh to shut down uh expressions of support for the for the palestinan cause here in canada and europe and elsewhere. sure uh mr. barrakot, many um officials, many diplomats uh from around the world have been blaming uh the united states and european countries uh for for what's taking place right now, they've been many opinions have gone. as far as saying that the united states is actually complicit in the war crimes that are being committed by the uh israeli regime. i want to get your thoughts on how do you see, how would you rate the level of involvement of the united states when we're talking about the blood of palestinian children, and uh is the the uh the scenario, the notion that the united states could actually uh stop the
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israelis from from carrying out to the uh incessant bombings, that could happen. immediately, do you agree with that notion? absolutely, and i think the united states is actually leading this, you know, war crimes and genocide against the palestinian people, they are providing israel with military support, financial support, political cover in all international arena, adopting literally the zien. this narrative and the israeli uh you know um discourse in all levels uh without any you know efforts even check uh and that's because the united states inherited israel you know in the region as they inherited the the uh you know the british empire of the region and now the
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united states is an occupying power in the region and that's how it is being viewed. by the vast majority of the people in the region that the united states is the uh leading factor in term of wars, when we look at what happened in afghanistan, in iraq, in yemen, in palestine, in lebanon, in 2006, israel did not even want to go into a massive war against lebanon, they were viewing you, they were calculating if they should do or not, but the united states and kundeliza rice have pushed. and kept pushing uh to
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