In this episode, we finally take a first step towards capturing the complexity of the Arab revolutions of 2011 in relation to the Palestinian struggle. We invited two of Palestine's most prominent activist Jehad Abusalim currently a PhD student in the History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies joint program at New York University. His main area of research is Palestinian and Arab perceptions of the Zionist project and the Jewish question before 1948. He also studies the political and social history of the Gaza Strip and the impacts of the Palestinian Nakba, and how it radically impacted the political, social, demographic, and economic realities of Gaza. And Mariam Barghouti, visiting from Ramallah,  Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Al-Jazeera English, Huffington Post, Middle East Monitor, Mondoweiss, International Business Times and more. Together they give us an in-depth analysis from an insiders point of view. 

From the Trump administration role in a changing middle east to the harsh realities of the Gaza strip and occupied territories. Our Palestine episode will be split into two parts as we had much to cover in order to deliver a just portrait of the severity of the situation. 

The Irrelevant Arabs is a crowd-funded project. If you enjoy our episodes and would like to contribute to this project please follow the link below to our Patreon page and subscribe to our channel on SoundCloud. We are glad to receive your emails and answer any questions you may have, as well as, any suggestions you may think will better our podcast. 

https://www.patreon.com/theirrelevantarabs
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Palestine Part 1: Theorizing Syria, Egypt & the Arab spring and analyzing the impact on Palestine

In this episode, a continuation of the previous discussion. We go into the details of Palestinian micropolitics and the different perceptions of the Arab spring inside of Palestine. Hamas and other Palestinian factions response to the Arab spring and the meaning of it all in relation to the regional power struggle. Our guests both Mariam Barghouti & Jehad Abusalim grew up in Palestine, we listen to them as they walk us through a harsh reality. A reality that is having more and more influence on freedom and human rights around the world. The struggle continues as voices like these reach the world. 


The Irrelevant Arabs is a crowd-funded project. If you enjoy our episodes and would like to contribute to this project please follow the link below to our Patreon page and subscribe to our channel on SoundCloud. We are glad to receive your emails and answer any questions you may have, as well as, any suggestions you may think will better our podcast. 

https://www.patreon.com/theirrelevantarabs

Palestine part 2: The Gaza strip today & battle for survival

As the people of Eastern Ghouta in Syria suffer from horrific bombing by the Syrian regime forces and its allies, media and Twitter storms rage on with campaigns in support of this brutal massacre. We are frankly shocked at the similarities between arguments supporting the siege on Ghouta and the siege on Gaza. The Syrian regime is responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, women and children killed in the name of the war on terror. International organizations such as the UN continuously fail to defend those people and for that are equally responsible for their deaths. The world watches as everyone learns a hard lesson about the true cost of freedom. 

We got together to have a conversation underlining the bottom lines of what is going on and finally sending a message out to the Syrian people around the world who have been forced to live in exile. Our message is simple and clear. The Syrian people and all those who fight for an equal and just world, stand alone. To survive we need to defend each other's rights to be equal in the debate for our future. The fact is everyone from Bashar Al-Asaad, Russia, Iran to Turkey, the United States government and the United Nations are all complicit in this brutal war on freedom.

Ghouta: The Land of Heroes & The Price of Freedom

The Irrelevant Arabs is a topical podcast that puts Arabs in the moderator's seat when talking about the Middle East. Topics ranging from recent political events to social taboos and modern day culture in the region are covered and openly debated. 

Hosted by two Syrians, a refugee and an immigrant, we are two friends who find ourselves facing the challenges of adapting to a new culture.  We are trying to articulate our opinions on current events back home only to find our voices muffled by the mainstream media and its versions of our stories. We battle daily to fight off stereotypes forced upon us, as if our opinion was irrelevant- hence our chosen name, "The Irrelevant Arabs." We have grown tired of being hosted by others talking about our culture and lives. Most discussions surrounding the Arab world and Middle Eastern affairs in the US are initiated by people not from the region. In light of this, a two-way dialogue is needed. The Irrelevant Arabs is one of the many efforts to challenge current narratives by putting Arabs in the moderator's seat.

Diverging from the typical podcast/talk show, we are hoping to create a more interactive medium by allowing our audience to vote both on topics that they'd like to hear discussed and on invited guests. We want to create a dialogue that can help bridge the ill-founded gaps between Western and Arab thought. At the same time, we are fighting to clarify the lack of authenticity in the current era. From fake news to false, filtered, and blocked content, we hope to bring to our audience the realities of living through a revolution and to amplify the voices of the exiled.

The Irrelevant Arabs

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