Episode 013: Stolen Kids & Blood Diamonds
This week’s main story is the arrest of Abdul Khaliq Burnat and Muhammad Burnat, two brothers from the occupied village of Bil’in and the children of Lara’s dear friend Iyad Burnat, a community organizer from the village. Abdul Khaliq and and Muhammed were kidnapped by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in two separate middle of the night raids on Iyad's house in May 2021 where the IOF destroyed the Burnat family’s personal belongings including their personal electronics and beat the boys before throwing them into the back of a military vehicle. No charges have been brought against Abdul Khaliq and Muhammad and all evidence suggests that these arrests have been entirely arbitrary. As of June 2, 2021, Iyad and his wife still have no idea of the whereabouts of their two children who join the hundreds of other children being unjustly held by Israel. Iyad Burnat is a key figure who, for years now, has been resisting Israel's land theft of his village’s land. Israel started uprooting Bil’in’s olive groves and stealing thousands of dunams of the village’s land in order to build the Apartheid wall (which was deemed illegal by the ICJ in 2004 and which Israel has yet to dismantle in 2021). The portion of the Apartheid wall that cuts through Bil’in separates people like Iyad and his family from their land which was intentionally placed on the other side of the wall to allow the illegal Jewish settlement Modi’in Illit to expand in line with Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing and illegal settlement. Lara and Michael discuss BDS wins like the campaign named Musicians for Palestine where over 600 musicians signed a letter pledging to boycott Israel and calling on other musicians of conscience to do the same as well as the news that over 600 Amazon employees urged Jeff Bezos to cut ties with the Israeli military following the recent news that Amazon was entering into a billion-dollar contract with Israel, in which they would be providing cloud services for the government and Israeli armed forces for at least seven years. Michael brings us more news of anti-Zionist rabbis and goes down the rabbit hole to expose the link between Israel’s economy and the (blood) diamond industry which funds its military and intelligence services. Lara and Michael affirm that they are not depressed and have no suicidal tendencies.
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