What role has mainstream media played in enabling the genocide in Gaza?

Ahlam Harvey, an emergency room RN and Palestinian human rights activist, joins us for a necessary and unflinching conversation about how major Western media outlets—particularly institutions like The New York Times—shape public perception, sanitize violence, and obscure reality through language, framing, and selective outrage.

Drawing from Ahlam’s frontline experience as an ER nurse and her work advocating for Palestinian lives, we examine how narratives such as “self-defense,” passive voice reporting, and the erasure of historical context function to normalize mass civilian suffering. This is not a discussion about politics—it is about ethics, journalism, and whose lives are deemed worthy of grief.

We unpack:

1. A bit about Ahlam's background as a Palestinian.

2. Discussing where we are with the current 'ceasefire' and

conditions in Gaza.

3. Discussing the NYT and other mainstream news outlets and how they enabled the genocide to carry on.

4. Diving deeper into themes of settler colonialism with definitions and conceptual understanding.

5. Discussing how state sanctioned violence by the IDF is transferred here to state sanctioned violence by ICE as we are witnessing.

Chapters:

0:00 - Introduction

02:07 - Ahlam's Palestinian background

06:02 - The current supposed Ceasefire in Gaza

14:45 - Mainstream media complicity in Genocide

24:55 - Passive Zionism

27:40 - The Narrative

33:00 - Settler Colonialism

42:37 - Miko Peled's example of brainwashing

45:25 - Actions of ICE killing Alex Pretti

53:15 - Conclusion

This episode challenges listeners to move beyond headlines and ask harder questions about power, propaganda, and complicity.

Truth matters. Language matters. And silence has consequences.

Guest Intro:

Ahlam Harvey is a Palestinian American Emergency Room Nurse. She has a Masters in International Relations and is an activist in the Boston Area.

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