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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Dr. Omar Akhter shares his firsthand experience from a recent humanitarian trip to Cairo, Egypt, where he met with Palestinian families from Gaza who were forced to evacuate after the genocide began.

During this trip he:

• Met with displaced Gazans living in Cairo
• Provided direct financial assistance to families in need
• Held a medical clinic for evacuated Palestinians
• Visited a Gazan orphanage and school
• Listened to powerful, firsthand testimonies of survival, loss, and resilience

These are the stories rarely shown in Western media—voices of Palestinians who escaped Gaza but continue to live with the trauma of war, displacement, and injustice.

This episode is not about politics—it is about human lives, medical ethics, and bearing witness. As a physician and humanitarian, he reflects on what he saw, the moral responsibility of the global community, and why telling these stories matters.

🎙️ Save the Olive Tree is a podcast dedicated to amplifying Palestinian voices, challenging misinformation, and documenting the lived reality of occupation, displacement, and genocide.

📌 Topics covered:Gaza genocide and forced displacementPalestinian refugees in EgyptHumanitarian aid in CairoMedical missions for PalestiniansOrphans and displaced children from GazaBearing witness as a physicianLife after evacuation from Gaza

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction

02:30 - Details about my trip

06:25 - Stories of Gazans in Cairo

18:20 - The Resilience of Gazans

21:40 - My message to Gazans

23:58 - Gazan connection to the land

29:45 - Humanizing Palestinians

32:40 - Ways to support Gazans in Cairo

36:46 - Amplify Palestinian stories

38:00 - Conclusion of Podcast

38:54 - Highlights from my trip

Guest Intro:

Dr. Omar Akhter is a Pakistani-American Physician and host of the Save The Olive Tree Podcast. He is a humanitarian dedicated to improving the condition of the Palestinian people by assisting them financially, medically and speaking up for their liberation.

Links:

Subscribe to the channel: @savetheolivetree

Website: www.savetheolivetree.com

Instagram: / savetheolivetree

TikTok: / savetheolivetree

Support us: patreon.com/SaveTheOliveTree

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In this Episode, we unpack what it truly means to decolonize Palestine—legally, historically, and psychologically.

We explore how Zionism functions as a settler-colonial ideology, how international law has been manipulated to legitimize dispossession, and why the Palestinian struggle is fundamentally a human rights and decolonization struggle, not a religious or ethnic conflict.

We discuss:

– a bit about her personal background as a Palestinian.

– her work as a human rights lawyer.

– her work in decolonization and how we can take steps for decolonization of Palestine, both in terms of language and on the land.

-- The Islamic angle of the Palestinian struggle.

– Discussing the current cease-fire in Gaza and the situation that is still very very bad.

– Discussing hopes for the future of Palestine and how we can try to get there collectively.Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction

04:30 - Her Palestinian background

11:05 - Liberation as a decolonization effort

15:43 - South Africa comparison

18:10 - The importance of language

26:05 - The Islamic connection with Palestine

28:55 - Our Moral Obligation

35:33 - Practical steps to take

37:50 - Conclusion

Guest Intro:

Tasnim Theodora Al-Rifai is a human rights lawyer with a professional focus on indigenous rights and the prevention of violence against women. Throughout her legal career she has worked at the intersection of law, power and lived reality where human rights are not theoretical but urgently contested.

She's presently working on her first book, a Handbook on Debating Zionism, which aims to provide clear, principled and historically grounded tools for critical debate in an increasingly polarized public sphere. Tasnim lives with her family in Vienna Austria.

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