This Cannot Be The New Normal (E201)

In this special episode of The Fire These Times, Elia is joined by four members of the From The Periphery media collective to talk about the ongoing famine in Gaza, Israel's genocide and the world's complicity. Despite the obviously horrific nature of this topic, we insisted on not giving in to despair. The génocidaires cannot win.

The five participants connected to the Gaza genocide through their own respective experiences: Leila Al-Shami (Syria: The Inconvenient Revolution) is a Syrian-British activist and writer who lived in Gaza for three years; Karena Avedissian (Obscuristan) is an Armenian scholar who continues to reflect on the legacy of the Armenian genocide and the role of Genocide studies today; Daniel Voskoboynik (Hidah: Jewish Counter-Colonial Thoughts) joined us from what used to be the Warsaw Ghetto, site of one of the most infamous episodes of the Holocaust; israa' (The Mutual Aid Podcast) has been involved in Gaza mutual aid (click here for the link); and finally Elia is a Palestinian-Lebanese whose grandfather was a Palestinian refugee.

They spoke about pushing back against despair, and the importance of rejecting Israel's genocide as the new normal. It got very personal at times.

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For more:

• ​Leila Al-Shami is on Bluesky, Mastodon and blogs here
• ​Karena Avedissian is on Bluesky
• ​israa is on Bluesky
• ​Daniel Voskoboynik is on Bluesky and blogs at The Ecology of Us

Credits:

Elia Ayoub (host, producer, sound editor, episode design), Leila Al Shami (host), israa (host), Daniel Voskoboynik (host), Karena Avedissian (host), ⁠⁠Rap and Revenge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Music), ⁠⁠Wenyi Geng⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (TFTT theme design), ⁠⁠Hisham Rifai⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP theme design) and ⁠⁠Molly Crabapple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP team profile pics).