The Listening Post

On the show this week:

• The Trump administration is using the 'narco-state' narrative to justify its attacks on Venezuela

• The latest roadblock in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine

• How settler ideology became mainstream in Israeli society

Watch now ▶️ youtu.be/kANz99X3I-c

On the show this week:

• The escalating Israeli settler violence that’s simply not getting enough coverage

• Why are some media outlets helping Trump make the case for war with Venezuela?

• Elisa Morgera on #COP30 and the hold Big Oil has on our information systems

Watch ▶ youtu.be/QuXlRamOlzc

On the show this week:

• Trump’s war on news media goes global as BBC becomes his latest target

• Syrian President al-Sharaa makes a landmark trip to the US filled with photo ops and political theatre

• ‘Italian brainrot’ and the AI slop taking over our feeds

Watch now ▶️ youtu.be/BNAPd_ur4-s

On the show this week:

• Outrage in Israel: where war crimes against Palestinians are considered a PR problem

• The potential genocide in North Darfur and the disappeared journalists unable to report on it

• Why Kenya’s William Ruto has so many nicknames

Watch now ▶️ youtu.be/OnGUp41nHSc

“They understand the potential damage of journalists going in there…the protests and the objection to what Israel did will only grow.”
– Oren Ziv on why Israel is still blocking international media from going into Gaza.

Full report ▶️ youtu.be/icNWmHjbDJs

On the show this week:

• The double standards that lay bare how the genocide in Gaza was allowed to go on for so long

• Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado dedicates award to Trump

• How conservative women are rebranding Trump's politics for a female audience

▶️ youtu.be/icNWmHjbDJs

On the show this week:

• Trump takes a victory lap as ceasefire deal in Gaza takes effect

• Can billionaires Larry and David Ellison shift the narrative on Israel in the US ?

• How chasing ratings over accountability gave rise to the far-right in Portugal

Watch now ▶️ youtu.be/BUNFnZBXVhM

“As more journalists were being slaughtered and there were no consequences for Israel, their response became increasingly brazen.”

— Sharif Kouddous (@dropsitenews.com) on Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

Watch Smear. Kill. Repeat. ⤵️
youtu.be/kUSx9znXXYM

“This is utter hypocrisy.”

Inès Abdel Razek, Michael Lynk and Séamus Malekafzali spoke with us about the countries continuing to aid Israel’s genocide in Gaza despite recognising Palestinian statehood.

Full report ▶️ youtu.be/W78mjsGF4RE

Sudan’s civil war has displaced more than 13 million people and killed up to 150,000.

Reporting is sparse… but the coverage that has trickled out bears striking similarities to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

@meenakshirv.bsky.social has the details.

On the show this week:

• After Charlie Kirk’s killing, a crackdown is underway in the US

• Israel accuses the UN of sympathising with Hamas...again — and very few people are buying it

• How Donald Trump injected unpredictability into Russia’s war on Ukraine

Watch now ▶️ youtu.be/S2l0czCH7G8

“I’m chair of the most important public finances committee in parliament [and] I battle to get protection. What chance does an ordinary South African have?”

Songezo Zibi on the lack of protection of whistleblowers covering corruption in South Africa.

Full report ⤵️
youtu.be/sZJdhdMsYLY

What did Trump know about the Doha bombing?

As the White House struggled to form a coherent response to Israel’s strike on Qatar, Trump’s credibility began to take a hit.

Full report ▶️ youtu.be/BoDxk8ZPCM0

On the show this week:

• Israel's attack on Qatar reveals a state out of control...has the narrative caught up with that reality?

• A conflagration years in the making - Nepal's uprising

• Whistleblowers paying with their lives for calling out corruption in South Africa

▶️ youtu.be/BoDxk8ZPCM0

On the show this week:

• Expulsion and ethnic cleansing in Gaza as Israel launches a lethal offensive in Gaza City

• An absurd Israeli AI smear campaign against Palestinian journalists

• The cyberpunk dystopias inspiring Big Tech elites

Watch now ▶️ youtu.be/atVgHwOVH8s

A new AI-generated website unveiled by an Israeli minister claims to “uncover the hidden ties” between Palestinian journalists and Hamas.

Sloppiness aside, it follows a pattern of dangerous smears against Palestinians.

Tariq Nafi reports.

“This is my duty…reporting the suffering of a people that I am living amidst, suffering that I am experiencing myself.”

– Reporter Anas al-Sharif in what would become his final interview with us just weeks before being killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Full report ⤵️
youtu.be/YeQD6spHyEU

YouTube video by Al Jazeera English Inside India’s expulsion of Bengali Muslims | The Listening Post

On the show this week:

• The rhetoric Indian politicians and media are using to demonise and expel Bengali Muslims

• Israel’s PR campaign to deflect blame for the famine it is inflicting on Gaza

• Alex Shephard on Donald Trump’s war on press freedom in America

Watch ▶️ youtu.be/m-udJsQEu8I

“if anybody should be awarded for excellence in journalism, it is all of those Palestinian journalists in Gaza who have risked their lives to live stream a genocide”

– @dianabuttu.bsky.social on journalists like @Anas al-Sharif covering Israel’s genocide in Gaza

Full report ▶️ youtu.be/YeQD6spHyEU

On the show this week:

• Famine has been turned into a weapon of war in Gaza and journalists are as hungry as those they are reporting on

• The wave of post-war nationalism sweeping across Iran

• Ghana's most dangerous beat for journalists - illegal gold mining

Watch now ▶️ youtu.be/YeQD6spHyEU

Since its 12-day war with Israel, Iran’s TV channels, news bulletins and newspapers have been in patriotic overdrive.

@meenakshirv.bsky.social reports on the wave of nationalism sweeping across the country.

On the show this week:

• In a presidency rife with scandals, the Epstein crisis is in a class of its own

• New York Times finally uses the term 'genocide' to describe Gaza

• The crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech in Germany

▶️ youtu.be/AWp0DgSuP1I

“On Fox and CNN, their advertisers and shareholders want a pro-Israel line – and if they don’t get it, they will take their money elsewhere.”

–
@mjplitnick.bsky.social on the challenges major news organisations face if and when they report on Gaza.

Full report ⤵️
youtu.be/HAo3XwHUxHs

On the show this week:

• Netanyahu cranked up his flattery of Trump with a Nobel nomination but cracks are starting to form in MAGA’s stance on Israel

• The escalating criminality of the GHF in Gaza has prompted increasing scrutiny

• The political power struggle in Georgia

▶️ youtu.be/HAo3XwHUxHs

Many of the same operatives behind the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - a joint US-Israeli venture - are now cooking up new plans for the Palestinians in Gaza. Details of these are now coming out in some key reporting.

@meenakshirv.bsky.social reports on the revelations in the FT & Reuters.

“The BBC does not have a backbone. It gives into influence from lobby groups, complaint campaigns and the government.”

Karishma Patel and Peter Oborne spoke with us about the BBC and its coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Full report ▶️ youtu.be/ZjaEjI-G4CY

On the show this week:

• UK outrage as chant in Glastonbury is deemed too far, yet genocide in Gaza deemed not far enough

• Mainstream media goes all-in against Dem candidate for New York mayor Zohran Mamdani

• How anti-Palestinian abuse became normalised in Israel

Watch ▶️ youtu.be/ZjaEjI-G4CY

“Iran has behaved in a pretty pragmatic way through this crisis… the idea it is the most crazed actor in the Middle East is not the truth.”

— Séamus Malekafzali on how Iran’s actions have undercut its portrayal in Western media

Watch the full report ▶️ youtu.be/MUknejMSoak

On the show this week:

• Trump struggles to control the narrative on how much damage US bombs did to Iran’s nuclear programme

• Massacre of Palestinians in Gaza's aid hubs is becoming a bigger story

• Assal Rad on the contradictions rife in news headlines

Watch now ▶️ youtu.be/MUknejMSoak

Over the last two weeks, at least 169 Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food from aid distribution points in Gaza.

Nicholas Muirhead reports on the sites UN officials have began calling “death traps”.