Bonus Episode: Sitcom and Reframing Israel-Palestine Beyond Security Discourse

A couple things to note about this paper from Marcelle:

1. 2014 was an earlier time! I don't regret my use of the term "conflict" but, were I writing this article today, I would be more precise with my phrasing.

2. The apostrophes for 'Aliyyan (and possibly also for the title of the show?) are inverted. This error haunts me because it is entirely my fault. The journal's copy editor made a lot of poor edits throughout the article that I had to undo, and thus when that same editor corrected the apostrophes, I thought it was another wild edit that made no sense. So I insisted they be inverted again. My fault! I'm so sorry.

We hit our fundraising goal for Palestine Children’s Relief Fund in October and this is the bonus episode we promised as a thank you for your support. As of today, you, our listening community, have raised $8900 — and our goal was $5000! That’s incredible and we’re so grateful for your resource sharing and messages of solidarity. 

This bonus episode is a conversation between Marcelle and Hannah about an article Marcelle published in 2015. The text of the article available for you on our episode page at ohwitchplease.ca. You can read it by heading to our site, or just listen to Marcelle read the abstract in the opening part of the episode.

As a heads up, this paper was written in 2014 in response to anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism in North America. That racism wasn’t new in 2014, and it remains powerful and widespread today, amplified by the mainstream media’s dehumanizing portrayals of Palestinians in its coverage of the so-called “Israel-Hamas war.” Marcelle's conversation with Hannah is very much about that racism and that dehumanization; about the discourses that perpetuate dehumanizing stereotypes about Palestinians and Arabs. You may not have the spoons for this conversation right now, and that’s ok! It’ll be here for you when you’re ready, and you’re always welcome to pass the episode along to someone who’s looking for more information about the crisis.

Thanks again for supporting Witch, Please Productions and our collective contribution to the urgently needed financial aid for Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. The link to contribute is here: https://pcrf1.app.neoncrm.com/ohwitchplease.

We'll be back next week with an episode about pop culture.