Last week, Mehdi and Zeteo concluded our five-city tour, so we obviously had to end with a special LIVE taping of ‘We’re Not Kidding’ and audience Q&A with returning co-host Alana Hadid — an activist, designer, and Creative Director of the Palestinian film company Watermelon Pictures. Alana’s last ‘WNK’ appearance was almost one year ago and since then conflicts in the Middle East and here in the US have somehow gotten worse.
“What was your reaction last week when you heard Israel is now dropping bombs on — I think it's the sixth place in the Middle East in the last year — Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, and now Iran?” Mehdi asks.
“I think my reaction was, ‘Not again,’ and also I thought about what this means for attention on Palestine because Netanyahu has a modus operandi and it tends to be, ‘Don't look over here — look over here,’ and he's willing to kill people to do it,” Alana says.
Mehdi and Alana also discuss Israel’s now 20 month-long genocide in Gaza and the worsening humanitarian conditions there, including the Israeli military’s regular killings of Palestinians seeking food at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid sites. “[GHF] is not humanitarian or a foundation — it's a militarized aid site — and it's there to line people up who are starving and shoot them,” Alana says.
The two also speak about the recent ICE raids in Los Angeles and the massive protests that erupted in response, Ted Cruz making the US-Israel relationship “Instagram official” during his Tucker Carlson interview, and the success of the documentary film ‘The Encampments’ produced by Watermelon Pictures and Macklemore, featuring now freed political prisoner Mahmoud Khalil. “For every Mahmoud they take away, a thousand of us will come to take his place,” Alana says.
Also be sure to check out the Q&A that begins 32 minutes into the episode. Zeteo subscribers asked Mehdi and Alana important questions about the weaponization of religion, Israel’s pinkwashing, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s endgame — one questioner even challenged Mehdi’s own political views!
EDITOR’S NOTE: This conversation was recorded just before Mahmoud Khalil was released from ICE detention and before the US joined Israel in its bombing campaign of Iran.
Free subscribers get a 10-minute preview of the video above while Zeteo’s paid subscribers can watch it in full. As always, you can also listen wherever you get your podcasts.
