Gorilla Radio 2023 Year-Ender

Featuring: Kevin Neish, Jon Elmer, Larry Hannant, Terry Wolfwood, Tarek Loubani and music by David Rovics.

Welcome to Gorilla Radio's 2023 Year-Ender show.

Gaza is the only story. Whatever else happened, the last quarter of 2023 defines the entire year. It serves too as the logical terminus of Israel's murderous progress in Gaza and Palestine as a whole for the entirety of its 75 years. How could that sordid history lead anywhere but here; the unapologetic genocide, supported by a Western consensus, of another indigenous population in the way of colonial development.

Gorilla Radio has covered just some of the litany of outrages against humanity and international law in Gaza for many years: 2002, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2023 are years where extraordinary escalation of crimes committed occurred, but all are merely the peaks and valleys in an overarching tableau of depravity.

In 2002 I talked to Victoria-based human rights activist, Kevin Neish from Bethlehem. I introduced the segment then saying,

"The situation in Palestine is getting worse by the hour. The weekend saw protest in cities throughout the world, and those protests have continued. Today, a group of internationalist, people who have traveled to Palestine to act as human shields and witnesses to Israeli atrocities, were fired upon by the Israeli Defense Forces. Kevin Neish, a Victoria man known to many here for his work with human rights and social justice is one of those internationalists and he was in the march in Beit Jalla when the bullets started to fly."

Here's Kevin from Palestine in April, 2002.

2:00 Kevin Neish from Palestine April, 2002. (8:30)

In earlier years of this show, Jon Elmer was a vital source of information on Gaza. Jon was then a Canadian freelance photographer and photo-journalist who reported from many of the World’s most troubled regions. He’d lived in and reported from Occupied Palestine during the first decade of the new century, his dispatches being carried by Inter Press News Service, Al Jazeera English, Le Monde Diplomatique, and The Progressive among others.

Here's a piece of a segment I recorded with Jon from Palestine in May of 2007. The issues will sound familiar.

10:30 Jon Elmer from Palestine May, 2007. (9:28)

In 2010, International Solidarity Movement member, Kevin Neish sat in again with Gorilla Radio to talk about his impending return to Gaza with the Viva Palestina’s May sailing of a fleet of ships to Gaza, Palestine to challenge the Israeli blockade of the troubled Gaza Strip. Kevin was to be aboard the Turkish small cruise ship, Mavi Marmara which Israeli commandos would later attack, killing ten of the unarmed activists.

20:00 Kevin Neish May 2010 (13:00)

The horrors of Israel's full-scale military attacks against the civilian population of Gaza - its so-named "operations" Cast Lead over Christmas in 2008, Pillar of Defense in 2012, and 2014's Protective Edge killed thousands and destroyed "tens of thousands of homes, schools and office buildings" as noted by Al Jazeera. But worse was to come with the slaughter of the Great March of Return in 2018, where unarmed civilians in their hundreds were killed by Israeli snipers, with thousands more maimed.

Outrage manifested on the streets in cities and towns around the World. In April I went down to the demonstrations in Victoria. Here's some of the streeters I did then with locals: Larry Hannant, Terry Wolfwood.

36:10 Streeters w/ Larry Hannant, Terry Wolfwood CAIA March of Return Demo April 2018 (8:20)

All that we've seen in these last twenty-two years has led to the Genocide Israel is committing at this moment. The failure of the United Nations and the international community of nations to stop the violence of the United States and its allies has allowed this happen. The next manifestation of that impunity, it can be safely assumed, will be more terrible still.

Canadian doctor, Tarek Loubani was in Gaza in 2018, tending to the wounded at the Great March of Return when he was shot through both legs. In 2023, Canadian doctors are under attack again for their support of Palestinian rights and lives, this time here at home by the press, their employers, and the government; even as hospitals and clinics are bombed, and doctors and medics are assassinated at work and in their homes in Gaza.

I spoke to Tarek last in December about the ongoing genocide. Excerpted here, we discuss the targeting of Gaza's doctors.

45:38 Tarek Loubani The Genocide December 2023 (13:00)

Dr. Tarek Loubani... Over the Christmas period, Israeli rhetoric has become hysterical, its indiscriminate and targeted bombing campaigns increased. Daily hundreds are killed, while more of Gaza's infrastructure is destroyed. In the West Bank, gangs of settlers, aided by police and the army are committing crimes worthy of Kristallnacht. It all promises this New Year will be anything but happy.

David Rovics takes us out. Go to his website DavidRovics.com to support his long service to humanity.

58:50 David Rovics Just Like the Nazis Did